Aratus

This success, then, refuted much of the calumny heaped upon Aratus, as well as the scoffing and abusive stories of the flatterers of the tyrants, who would recount, to please their masters, how the general of the Achaeans always had cramps in the bowels when a battle was imminent, and how torpor and dizziness would seize him as soon as the trumpeter stood by to give the signal, and how, after he had drawn up his forces and passed the watchword along, he would ask his lieutenants and captains whether there was any further need of his presence (since the die was already cast), and then go off to await the issue anxiously at a distance.

For these stories were so prevalent that even in the schools of philosophy, when the query arises whether palpitation of the heart and change of colour and looseness of the bowels, in the presence of seeming peril, are the mark of cowardice, or of some faulty temperament and chilliness in the body, Aratus is always mentioned by name as one who was a good general, but always had these symptoms when a contest was impending.

Having thus made away with Aristippus, Aratus at once began to plot against Lydiades, who was tyrant in his native city of Megalopolis. This Lydiades was neither of mean birth nor naturally lacking in high ambition, nor, like most sole rulers, had he been driven by licence and rapacity into this iniquity, but he had been fired with a love of glory while still young, and had thoughtlessly associated with his high spirit the false and empty doctrines current concerning tyranny, to the effect that it was a wonderful and blessed thing. And now that he had made himself tyrant, he was quickly sated with the burdens which devolve upon the sole ruler.

Therefore, at once envying the successes of Aratus and fearing his plots, he adopted a new and most admirable plan, first, to free himself from hatred and fear and guards and spearmen, and second, to become a benefactor of his native city. So he sent for Aratus, resigned his power, and made his city a member of the Achaean League. Wherefore the Achaeans exalted him and chose him general.