ARATUS TAKES CORINTH
Three brothers, Syrian Greeks, had pilfered from the royal treasure at Corinth, and one of them named Erginus, came to Sicyon from time to time to exchange their plunder at the house of a banker well known to Aratus. Through this channel Aratus learned that there was an accessible point in the wall of the citadel; and Erginus, having engaged the concurrence of a fourth brother who served in the garrison, undertook to conduct Aratus to the place, where the wall was no more than fifteen feet high. The brothers demanded a large reward. Sixty talents [£12,000 or $60,000] were to be deposited with the banker, to be paid to them in the event of success; and even in the case of failure, if they escaped, each was to receive a house and a talent. Aratus could not immediately raise so large a sum, and was forced to pledge his plate and his wife’s ornaments, purchasing, as Plutarch observes, the privilege of a perilous adventure for the good of his country, at a price which it would have been accounted magnanimous to reject, if it had been offered as a bribe. When the time came which had been fixed for the attempt, leaving the main body of his forces under arms, he proceeded with four hundred men, few of whom were in the secret, towards Corinth. As they approached the wall, the light of the full moon, which would have rendered concealment almost impossible, was intercepted by clouds which rose from the sea. Several other propitious circumstances contributed to his success, though he fully earned it by his courage. Erginus with seven others, disguised as wayfarers, gained entrance at a gate and overpowered the guard, while Aratus, with only a hundred of his men, scaled the wall, and advanced towards the citadel with the scaling-ladders, ordering the rest to follow. But on his way through the town he fell in with a patrol, one of whom escaped, and soon raised a general alarm.
Aratus, again favoured by the moon which broke through the clouds as he was entangled in the most intricate part of the ascent, reached the wall of the citadel safely, and was soon engaged in a hard combat with the garrison. As soon as the alarm was raised, Archelaus, finding that the citadel was attacked, hastened with all his forces in that direction. But he chanced to light on three hundred Achæans, who, unable to find the track of their comrades, had cowered behind a projection of the rock. They now sprang out as from an ambuscade, and completely routed and dispersed his troops. But they were recalled from the pursuit by Erginus to the succour of Aratus, and their arrival decided the struggle. By sunrise he was in possession of the fortress, and the forces which had followed him from Sicyon, making their appearance at the same time, were joyfully admitted into the lower town by the Corinthians, who helped to capture the royal soldiers.[d]
[242-232 B.C.]
By this act, in which he generously hazarded his private fortune, Aratus gained such a degree of popular confidence that the Achæans thenceforth committed the conduct of public affairs to his hands, and followed his counsel even in the years when he was by law excluded from the office of strategus. The towns of Trœzen, Epidaurus, Cleonæ, and Megara, presently revolted from Macedonia and joined the Achæan League.
The rise of the Achæans stirred up the jealousy of other states, and incited the Macedonians to fresh exertions to recover what they had lost. The old king Antigonus concluded an alliance with the Ætolians for a joint attack on Achaia, on the basis of a partition of the territory to be acquired. But Aratus, who had chosen Ptolemy as patron of the League, and thus secured the protection of Egypt in the event of possible disaster, repulsed the Ætolian marauders before they could join hands with the Macedonians, and dissuaded King Antigonus from the proposed campaign by promising him the remaining dominions of the Peloponnesus. The aged Antigonus Gonatas died soon afterwards, and his son and heir, Demetrius II, was kept fully occupied by an invasion of his own country by the Dardans.
Aratus contrived to make use of these circumstances for fresh acquisitions. Secured from attack in the rear by an offensive and defensive alliance with the Ætolians, he induced most of the states of the Peloponnesus by force or subtlety to join the League. Thus Lydiades, the young and accomplished prince who reigned at Megalopolis, was prevailed upon to join, and the rich and extensive territory of that city was won for the League. The tyrants, abandoned by Macedonia, were no longer able to withstand the power of Achaia; they yielded voluntarily or under compulsion to the tide of democracy; so that when Demetrius II sank into his grave after ten years of feeble sovereignty, and Antigonus Doson (the Promiser) undertook the government of Macedonia during the minority of King Philip III, the Achæans ruled over Hermione, Phlius, and the greater part of Arcadia, counted the rich island of Ægina among their possessions, had induced Argos to join the League after a long struggle with three successive tyrants, and had entered into an alliance with Athens (whence, by the assistance of Aratus, the Macedonian garrisons had been forced to withdraw) on equal terms though without reciprocal civil rights. Mantinea, Tegea, Orchomenos, and Elis were the only towns that remained subject to the Ætolians, who, however, had meanwhile extended their dominion over part of Thessaly; and Sparta, just awakened from her long trance and invigorated by a new birth from within, was striving to regain the ascendency which had been hers in the glorious days of old. Out of these elements was bred the fatal conflict which broke all that was left of the strength of Greece at the very moment when the Romans began to intermeddle in the domestic concerns of warring states.[e]