CHAPTER VI

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After the departure of the Ionians the Achæans divided their land and lived in their towns, which were 12 in number, and well known throughout Greece. Dyme first near Elis, and then Olenus, and Pharæ, and Tritea, and Rhypes, and Ægium, and Cerynea, and Bura, and Helice, and Ægæ and Ægira, and last Pellene near Sicyonia. In these towns, which had formerly been inhabited by the Ionians, the Achæans and their kings dwelt. And those who had the greatest power among the Achæans were the sons of Tisamenus, Däimenes and Sparton and Tellis and Leontomenes. Cometes, the eldest of Tisamenus’ sons, had previously crossed over into Asia Minor. These ruled over the Achæans as also Damasias (the son of Penthilus, the son of Orestes), the brother of Tisamenus. Equal authority to them had Preugenes and his son Patreus from Lacedæmon; who were allowed by the Achæans to build a city in their territory, which was called Patræ after Patreus.

The following were the wars of the Achæans. In the expedition of Agamemnon against Ilium, as they inhabited both Lacedæmon and Argos, they were the largest contingent from Greece. But when Xerxes and the Medes invaded Greece, the Achæans as far as we know did not join Leonidas at the pass of Thermopylæ, nor did they fight under Themistocles and the Athenians in the sea-fights off Eubœa and Salamis, nor were they in either the Lacedæmonian or Athenian list of allies. They were also behind at Platæa: for otherwise they would certainly have been mentioned among the other Greeks on the basement of the statue of Zeus at Olympia.[5] I cannot but think they stayed behind on each of these occasions to save their country, and also after the Trojan War they did not think it befitting that the Lacedæmonians (who were Dorians) should lead them. As they showed long afterwards. For when the Lacedæmonians were at war with the Athenians, the Achæans readily entered into an alliance with the people of Patræ, and were equally friendly with the Athenians. And they took part in the wars that were fought afterwards by Greece, as at Chæronea against Philip and the Macedonians. But they admit that they did not go into Thessaly or take part in the battle of Lamia, because they had not yet recovered from their reverse in Bœotia. And the Custos Rotulorum at Patræ says that the wrestler Chilon was the only Achæan present at the action at Lamia. I know also myself that the Lydian Adrastus fought privately (and not in any concert with the Lydians) for the Greeks. This Adrastus had a brazen effigy erected to him by the Lydians in front of the temple of Persian Artemis, and the inscription they wrote upon it was that he died fighting for the Greeks against Leonnatus. And the pass at Thermopylæ that admitted the Galati was overlooked by all the Peloponnesians as well as by the Achæans: for as the barbarians had no ships, they thought they had nothing to fear from them, if they strongly fortified the Isthmus of Corinth, from Lechæum on the one sea to Cenchreæ on the other.

This was the view at that time of all the Peloponnesians. And when the Galati crossed over into Asia Minor in ships got somewhere or other, then the Greeks were so situated that none of them were any longer clearly the leading state. For as to the Lacedæmonians, their reverse at Leuctra, and the gathering of the Arcadians at Megalopolis, and the vicinity of the Messenians on their borders, prevented their recovering their former prosperity. And the city of the Thebans had been so laid waste by Alexander, that not many years afterwards when they were reduced by Cassander, they were unable to protect themselves at all. And the Athenians had indeed the good will of all Greece for their famous actions, but that was no security to them in their war with the Macedonians.

[5] See Book v. ch. 23.

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