CHAPTER VIII.
The sacred enclosure near the temple of Persuasion, consecrated to the Roman emperors, was formerly the house of Cleon the king. For Clisthenes the son of Aristonymus, the son of Myro, was king of the Sicyonians in the lower part of the city, but Cleon in what is now the city (i.e. the upper part). In front of this house is a hero-chapel to Aratus, who did the greatest exploits of all the Greeks in his time: and this is what he did. After the death of Cleon there came on those in authority such unbridled lust for power, that Euthydemus and Timoclidas usurped the chief power. These the people afterwards drove out, and put in their place Clinias the father of Aratus: and not many years afterwards Abantidas got the chief power, (after the death of Clinias), and either exiled Aratus, or Aratus retired of his own free will. However the men of the country killed Abantidas, and Pascas his father succeeded him, and Nicocles killed him, and reigned in his room. Against him came Aratus with some Sicyonian refugees and mercenaries from Argos, and slipping by some of the garrison in the darkness (for he made his attack by night), and forcing others back, got inside the walls: and (for by now it was day) leading his men to the tyrant’s house, he made a fierce attack on it. And he took it by storm with no great difficulty, and Nicocles slipt out at a back door and fled. And Aratus granted the Sicyonians isonomy, reconciling them to the refugees, and giving back to the refugees all their houses and goods that had been sold, but not without full compensation to former purchasers. And because all the Greeks were greatly afraid of the Macedonians and Antigonus (the Regent for Philip the son of Demetrius), he forced the Sicyonians, though they were Dorians, into the Achæan league. And forthwith he was chosen commander in chief by the Achæans, and he led them against the Locrians that live at Amphissa, and into the territory of the hostile Ætolians, and ravaged it. And although Antigonus held Corinth with a Macedonian garrison, he dismayed them by the suddenness of his attack, and in a battle defeated and killed many of them, and among others Persæus the head of the garrison, who had been a disciple of Zeno (the son of Mnaseas) in philosophy. And when Aratus had set Corinth free, then the Epidaurians and the Trœzenians who occupy the coast of Argolis, and the Megarians beyond the Isthmus, joined the Achæan league, and Ptolemy also formed an alliance with them. But the Lacedæmonians and Agis (the son of Eudamidas) their king were beforehand with them, and took Pellene by a coup de main, but when Aratus and his army came up they were beaten in the engagement, and evacuated Pellene, and returned home again on certain conditions. And Aratus, as things had prospered so well in the Peloponnese, thought it monstrous that the Piræus and Munychia, and moreover Salamis and Sunium, should be allowed to continue in Macedonian hands, and, as he did not expect to be able to take them by storm, he persuaded Diogenes, who was Governor of these Forts, to surrender them for 150 talents, and of this money he himself contributed one sixth part for the Athenians. He also persuaded Aristomachus, who was king at Argos, to give a democratical form of government to the Argives, and to join the Achæan league. And he took Mantinea from the Lacedæmonians. But indeed all things do not answer according to a man’s wish, since even Aratus was obliged eventually to become the ally of the Macedonians and Antigonus. This is how it happened.