Agis and Cleomenes

And still, though he had incurred many hardships and dangers in behalf of Athens, as he says himself, in order that the city might be set free from its garrison of Macedonians, he afterwards brought these Macedonians, under arms, into his own country and into his own home; aye, even into the apartments of his women;[*](Aratus, xlix. 1.) but he would not consent that the man who was a descendant of Heracles and king of Sparta, and was seeking to bring its ancient polity, now like a decadent moody, back again to that restrained and Dorian law and life which Lycurgus had instituted, should be entitled leader of Sicyon and Tritaea.

Instead of this, to avoid the Spartan barley-bread and short-cloak, and the most dreadful of the evils for which he denounced Cleomenes, namely, abolition of wealth and restoration of poverty, he cast himself and all Achaea down before a diadem, a purple robe, Macedonians, and oriental behests. And that he might not be thought to obey Cleomenes, he offered sacrifices to Antigonus and sang paeans himself, with a garland on his head, in praise of a man who was far gone with consumption.

I write this, however, not with any desire to denounce Aratus, for in many ways he was a true Greek and a great one, but out of pity for the weakness of human nature, which, even in characters so notably disposed towards excellence, cannot produce a nobility that is free from blame.

When the Achaeans came to Argos again for the conference, and Cleomenes had come down from Tegea, everyone had a strong hope that they would come to an agreement. But Aratus, since the most important questions between him and Antigonus had already been settled, and because he was afraid that Cleomenes would carry all his points by either winning over or constraining the multitude, demanded that Cleomenes, after receiving three hundred hostages, should come into the city alone for his conference with them, or else should come with his army as far as the gymnasium outside the city called Cyllarabium, and treat with them there.