CHAPTER VII

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The Achæans were most powerful in the days when the Greeks were not banded together, but each looked after their own personal interests. For none of their towns except Pellene had any experience of tyrants at any time. And misfortunes from wars and the plague did not so much touch the Achæans as all the other Greeks. Accordingly what is called the Achæan League was by common consent the design and act of the Achæans. And this League was formed at Ægium because, next to Helice which had been swept away by a flood, it had been the foremost town in Achaia in former times, and was at this time the most powerful. And of the other Greeks the Sicyonians first joined this Achæan League. And next to the Sicyonians some of the other Peloponnesians joined it, some immediately, some rather later: and outside the Isthmus what brought people in was seeing that the Achæan League was becoming more and more powerful. And the Lacedæmonians were the only Greeks that were unfriendly to the Achæans and openly took up arms against them. For Pellene an Achæan town was taken by Agis, the son of Eudamidas, King of Sparta, though he was soon driven out again by Aratus and the Sicyonians. And Cleomenes, the son of Leonidas and grandson of Cleonymus, a king of the other family, when Aratus and the Achæans were gathered together at Dyme against him routed them badly in battle, though he afterwards concluded peace with the Achæans and Antigonus. Antigonus was at this time ruler of the Macedonians, being Regent for Philip, the son of Demetrius, who was quite a boy; he was Philip’s uncle and also stepfather. With him and the Achæans Cleomenes made peace, but soon violated his engagements, and reduced to slavery Megalopolis in Arcadia. And the reverse which the Lacedæmonians met with at Sellasia at the hands of the Achæans and Antigonus was in consequence of Cleomenes’ violation of his word. But Cleomenes we shall mention again when we come to Arcadia. And Philip the son of Demetrius, when he came to age, received the rule over the Macedonians from his stepfather Antigonus, who was glad to surrender it, and inspired great fear in all the Greeks by closely imitating Philip the son of Amyntas, (who was no ancestor of his, but a true despot), as in bribing people to betray their country. And at banquets he would offer the cup of fellowship and kindness filled not with wine but deadly poison, a thing which Philip the son of Amyntas in my opinion never thought of, but to Philip the son of Demetrius poisoning appeared a very trifling crime. And three towns he turned into garrison-towns as _points d’appui_ against Greece, and in his insolence and haughty disregard of the Greeks he called these towns the keys of Greece. One was Corinth in the Peloponnese, the citadel of which he strongly fortified, and for Eubœa and Bœotia and Phocis he had Chalcis near the Euripus, and for Thessaly and Ætolia he garrisoned Magnesia under Mount Pelion. And by perpetual raids and plundering incursions he harassed the Athenians and Ætolians especially. I have mentioned before in my account of Attica the Greeks or barbarians who assisted the Athenians against Philip, and how in consequence of the weakness of their allies the Athenians were obliged to rely on an alliance with Rome. The Romans had sent some soldiers not long before nominally to assist the Ætolians against Philip, but really to spy out what the Macedonians were aiming at. But now they sent an army under the command of Otilius, that was his best known name, for the Romans are not called like the Greeks merely after their father’s name, but have 3 names at least and sometimes more. This Otilius had orders from the Romans to protect the Athenians and Ætolians against Philip. Otilius in all other respects obeyed his orders, but did one thing that the Romans were not pleased at. For he captured and rased to the ground Hestiæa (a town in Eubœa) and Anticyra in Phocis, places which had submitted to Philip simply from necessity. This was I think the reason why the Senate when they heard of it superseded him by Flaminius.

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