A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

Aratus; a Federal Assembly 299
tenure of the office, Aratus of Sicyon caused his city to
join the league, which, by his energy and courage, he had,
when only twenty years of age, delivered from the yoke
of its tyrant.
In the eighth year again after this, Aratus,
being elected general for the second time, laid a plot to
seize the Acrocorinthus, then held by Antigonus; and by
Aratus.
success freed the inhabitants of the Peloponnese from a
Acrocorinthus
was the
citadel of
Corinth;
source of serious alarm: and having thus liberated Corinth Antigonus
he caused it to join the league. In his same term of office was ruler of
Macedon.
to join also.
he got Megara into his hands, and caused it
These events occurred in the year before the decisive de-
feat of the Carthaginians, in consequence of which they
evacuated Sicily and consented for the first
time to pay
tribute to Rome.
Having made this remarkable progress in his design in
so short a time, Aratus continued thenceforth in the position
of leader of the Achaean league, and in the consistent
direction of his whole policy to one single end; which was
to expel Macedonians from the Peloponnese, to depose the
despots, and to establish in each state the common freedom
which their ancestors had enjoyed before them.
Immediately after Phillopoemen had been succeeded by
Aristaenus as general, the ambassadors of king Ptolemy
arrived, while the league meeting was assembled at
Megalopolis. King Eumenes also had despatched an
embassy offering to give the Achasans one hundred and
twenty talents, on condition that it was invested and the
interest used to pay the council of the. league at the time
of the federal assemblies. Ambassadors came also from
king Seleucus, to renew his friendship with them and
offering a present of a fleet of ten ships of war. . . .
Next came the ambassadors from Eumenes, who re-
242 B.C
A session of
the federal
assembly.
Polybius
xxii. 10.
Offer of king
Eumenes of
Pergamum.
Various
kings seek
the friendship
of the
league.