Ἑλλήνων δὲ οὐ τασσομένων τηνικαῦτα ἔτι ἐν κοινῷ, ἰδίᾳ δὲ ἑκάστων κατὰ σφᾶς συνισταμένων, οἱ Ἀχαιοὶ μάλιστα ἴσχυον· τυράννων τε γὰρ πλὴν Πελλήνης αἱ ἄλλαι πόλεις τὸν χρόνον ἅπαντα ἀπείρως ἐσχήκεσαν αἵ τε ἐκ πολέμων καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς νόσου συμφοραὶ τῆς λοιμώδους οὐκ ἐς τοσοῦτο Ἀχαιοῖς ἐφʼ ὅσον τοῖς ἄλλοις ἐγένοντο Ἕλλησι. συνέδριόν τε οὖν Ἀχαϊκὸν καλούμενον καὶ ἀπὸ κοινοῦ λόγου βουλεύματά τε ἦν Ἀχαιοῖς καὶ τὰ ἔργα.
ἀθροίζεσθαι δὲ ἐς Αἴγιόν σφισιν ἔδοξεν· αὕτη γὰρ μετὰ Ἑλίκην ἐπικλυσθεῖσαν πόλεων ἐν Ἀχαΐᾳ τῶν ἄλλων δόξῃ προεῖχεν ἐκ παλαιοῦ καὶ ἴσχυεν ἐν τῷ τότε. Ἑλλήνων δὲ τῶν λοιπῶν Σικυώνιοι συνεδρίου πρῶτοι τοῦ Ἀχαιῶν μετέσχον, μετὰ δὲ Σικυωνίους ἐσῄεσαν ἤδη καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Πελοποννησίων οἱ μὲν αὐτίκα, οἱ δὲ χρόνον τινὰ ἐπισχόντες· τοὺς δὲ καὶ ἐκτὸς οἰκοῦντας τοῦ ἰσθμοῦ συντελεῖν ἐς Ἀχαιοὺς ἔπειθεν, ὅτι ἐς πλέον ἰσχύος προϊὸν ἑώρων ἀεὶ τὸ Ἀχαϊκόν.
Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ Ἑλλήνων μόνοι διάφοροί τε Ἀχαιοῖς τὰ μάλιστα ἦσαν καὶ ἐκ τοῦ φανεροῦ πόλεμόν σφισιν ἐπῆγον. Πελλήνην μέν γε Ἀχαιῶν πόλιν Ἆγις εἷλεν ὁ Εὐδαμίδου βασιλεύων ἐν Σπάρτῃ, καὶ ἐξέπεσεν αὐτίκα ἐκ Πελλήνης ὑπὸ Ἀράτου καὶ Σικυωνίων· Κλεομένης δὲ ὁ Λεωνίδου τοῦ Κλεωνύμου, βασιλεὺς οἰκίας τῆς ἑτέρας, ἀντικαθημένους Ἄρατον καὶ Ἀχαιοὺς πρὸς Δύμῃ παρὰ πολύ τε ἐκράτησεν ἐλθόντας ἐς χεῖρας καὶ ὕστερον Ἀχαιοῖς καὶ Ἀντιγόνῳ συνέθετο εἰρήνην.
Ἀντίγονος δὲ οὗτος τηνικαῦτα ἀρχὴν τὴν Μακεδόνων εἶχεν, ἐπιτροπεύων Φίλιππον τὸν Δημητρίου παῖδα ἔτι ἡλικίαν ὄντα· ἦν δὲ καὶ ἀνεψιὸς τῷ Φιλίππῳ καὶ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ συνῴκει. πρὸς τοῦτον οὖν τὸν Ἀντίγονον καὶ Ἀχαιοὺς ποιησάμενος ὁ Κλεομένης σπονδὰς καὶ αὐτίκα παραβὰς ὅσα ὤμοσεν ἠνδραποδίσατο Ἀρκάδων Μεγάλην πόλιν· Λακεδαιμονίοις τε τὸ ἐν Σελλασίᾳ πταῖσμα πρὸς Ἀχαιοὺς καὶ Ἀντίγονον Κλεομένους ἕνεκα καὶ ἐπιορκίας τῆς ἐκείνου συνέβη. Κλεομένους μὲν δὴ καὶ αὖθις ἐν λόγοις τοῖς Ἀρκαδικοῖς ἀφιξόμεθα ἐς μνήμην·
Φίλιππος δὲ ὁ Δημητρίου τὴν Μακεδόνων ἀρχήν, ὡς ἀφίκετο ἐς ἄνδρας, παρὰ ἑκόντος Ἀντιγόνου λαβὼν φόβον τοῖς πᾶσιν Ἕλλησιν ἐνεποίησε, τὰ Φιλίππου τοῦ Ἀμύντου, προγόνου μὲν οὐκ ὄντος αὐτῷ, τῷ δὲ ἀληθεῖ λόγῳ δεσπότου, τά τε ἄλλα αὐτοῦ μιμούμενος καὶ τὰ ἐς θεραπείαν ὅσοις πατρίδας ἀρεστὰ ἦν ἐπʼ οἰκείοις προδιδόναι κέρδεσι. προπίνειν δὲ παρὰ τὰ συμπόσια ἐπὶ δεξιότητι καὶ φιλίᾳ κύλικας οὐκ οἴνου, φαρμάκων δὲ ἐς ὄλεθρον ἀνθρώποις, ἃ δὴ ὁ μὲν τοῦ Ἀμύντου Φίλιππος οὐδʼ ἐπενόησεν ἐμοὶ δοκεῖν ἀρχήν, Φιλίππῳ δὲ τῷ Δημητρίου τὰ φάρμακα τόλμημα ἦν ἐλαφρότατον.
κατεῖχε δὲ καὶ τρεῖς πόλεις φρουραῖς ὁρμητήρια εἶναί οἱ κατὰ τῆς Ἑλλάδος, καὶ ὠνόμαζε δὲ ὑπὸ τῆς ὕβρεως καὶ τῆς ἐς τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν ὑπεροψίας κλεῖς τῆς Ἑλλάδος τὰς πόλεις ταύτας· ἐπὶ μέν γε Πελοποννήσῳ Κόρινθος καὶ ἡ Κορινθίων ἀκρόπολις ἐτετείχιστο, ἐπὶ δὲ Εὐβοίᾳ καὶ Βοιωτοῖς τε καὶ Φωκεῦσι Χαλκὶς ἡ πρὸς τῷ Εὐρίπῳ, κατὰ δὲ Θεσσαλῶν τε αὐτῶν καὶ τοῦ Αἰτωλῶν ἔθνους Μαγνησίαν τὴν ὑπὸ τὸ Πήλιον κατεῖχεν ὁ Φίλιππος. μάλιστα δὲ Ἀθηναίους καὶ τὸ Αἰτωλικὸν ἐπιστρατείαις τε συνεχέσιν ἐπίεζε καὶ λῃστῶν καταδρομαῖς·
ἐμνημόνευσε δέ μοι καὶ πρότερον ὁ λόγος ἐν τῇ Ἀτθίδι συγγραφῇ, ὅσοι τε Ἑλλήνων ἢ βαρβάρων ἐναντία Φιλίππου συνήραντο Ἀθηναίοις καὶ ὡς ὑπὸ ἀσθενείας τῶν συμμάχων ἐπὶ Ῥωμαίους καὶ ἐπικουρίαν τὴν ἐκεῖθεν κατέφευγον οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι. Ῥωμαῖοι δὲ ἐπεπόμφεσαν καὶ οὐ πολλῷ τινι ἔμπροσθεν λόγῳ μὲν ἐπικουρήσοντας Αἰτωλοῖς ἐναντία Φιλίππου, τῷ δὲ ἔργῳ μᾶλλόν τι ἐπὶ κατασκοπῇ τῶν ἐν Μακεδονίᾳ πραγμάτων·
τότε δὲ ἀποστέλλουσιν Ἀθηναίοις στρατιάν τε καὶ ἡγεμόνα Ὀτίλιον· τοῦτο γάρ οἱ τῶν ὀνομάτων ἦν τὸ ἐκδηλότατον, ἐπεὶ καλοῦνταί γε οὐ πατρόθεν οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι κατὰ ταὐτὰ Ἕλλησιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τρία ὁπότε ὀλίγιστα καὶ ἔτι πλέονα ὀνόματα ἑκάστῳ τίθενται. τῷ δὲ Ὀτιλίῳ προσετέτακτο ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων ἀπείργειν ἀπὸ Ἀθηναίων καὶ τοῦ Αἰτωλικοῦ τὸν Φιλίππου πόλεμον.
Ὀτίλιος δὲ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα τοῖς πράγμασι κατὰ τὰ ἐπιτεταγμένα ἐχρῆτο, τάδε δὲ οὐ κατὰ γνώμην οἱ τὴν Ῥωμαίων ἐστὶν εἰργασμένα· Εὐβοέων γὰρ Ἑστίαιαν πόλιν καὶ Ἀντίκυραν τὴν ἐν τῇ Φωκίδι ἑλών, ὑπηκόους κατʼ ἀνάγκην οὔσας Φιλίππου, ἐποίησεν ἀναστάτους. καὶ τοῦδε ἕνεκα ἐμοὶ δοκεῖν, ἐπεὶ ἐπύθετο ἡ βουλή, ἀποστέλλουσιν Ὀτιλίῳ διάδοχον τῆς ἀρχῆς Φλαμίνιον.
In the days when the Greeks had ceased to act in concert, and when every state stood by itself, Achaia enjoyed a preponderance of power. For, except Pellene, none of the Achaean cities had ever known a tyrant, and the calamities of war and pestilence had visited Achaia less heavily than the rest of Greece. Accordingly, the Achaean League, as it was called, took its rise, and concerted and carried out a federal policy. It was resolved that the federal assemblies should be held at Aegium ; for since Helice had been swallowed up by the sea there was no city in Achaia that could vie with Aegium in power and old renown. Of the rest of the Greeks the Sicyonians were the first to join the League; and they were followed sooner or later by other Peloponnesians. Indeed, the steady growth of the Achaean power won adherents to the League even beyond the bounds of Peloponnese.
The Lacedaemonians alone were the bitter foes of the Achaeans, and openly waged war on them. The Spartan king Agis, son of Eudamidas, captured Pellene, a city of Achaia, but was immediately driven out of it by the Sicyonians under Aratus. However, the king of the other house, Cleomenes, son of Leonidas, son of Cleonymus, in a pitched battle at Dyme, gained a decisive victory over the Achaeans, under Aratus, and afterwards concluded a peace with the Achaeans and Antigonus. This Antigonus was then governor of Macedonia, acting as regent for the youthful Philip, son of Demetrius. The regent was a cousin of the young prince, whose mother he had espoused. No sooner, however, had Cleomenes made peace with Antigonus and the Achaeans than he broke all his oaths by subjugating Megalopolis in Arcadia. His perfidy drew down upon his country the defeat of Sellasia, where the Lacedaemonians were worsted by the Achaeans under Antigonus. In my description of Arcadia I shall again have occasion to mention Cleomenes.
When Philip, son of Demetrius, was come to manhood, Antigonus resigned the sovereignty into his hands. The new king struck terror into the whole of Greece by aping the manners and policy of Philip, son of Amyntas, who was in truth not his ancestor, but his lord. In particular he copied his predecessor’s example, by flattering every traitor who was ready to sell his country for gold. At drinking-bouts he would pass the flowing bowl with a ‘Here’s to you, sir’; only the bowl flowed not with wine, but with poison. Such a thing, I do believe, never entered into the head of Philip, son of Amyntas ; but to his namesake, the son of Demetrius, the poisoned cup was child’s play. And as a base of operations against Greece he garrisoned three cities which, in contemptuous mockery of the Greeks, he dubbed the keys of Greece. Peloponnese was dominated by Corinth with its frowning citadel; Euboea, Boeotia, and Phocis, by Chalcis, on the Euripus; and by holding Magnesia, at the foot of Mount Pelion, he menaced Thessaly and Aetolia.
But it was the Athenians and Aetolians whom he most cruelly harassed by constant invasions and raids of freebooters. In my account of Attica I have already enumerated the various peoples, both Greeks and foreigners) who made common cause with Athens against Philip; and I showed how, through the weakness of their allies, the Athenians had to fall back for help upon the Romans. Not long before the Romans had despatched troops, nominally to aid the Aetolians against Philip, but really to spy out the state of affairs in Macedonia. In answer to the Athenian appeal the Romans sent an army under Otilius, for that was the name he was best known by. The Romans do not, like the Greeks, add their fathers’ names to their own, but every man has three names at least, and sometimes more. Otilius had orders to protect the Athenians and Aetolians from the attacks of Philip. He carried out his orders, but incurred the displeasure of his countrymen by capturing and destroying the cities of Hestiaea in Euboea, and Anticyra in Phocis, which had perforce acknowledged the sway of Philip. That, I take it, was why the Senate, on being apprised of what had passed, sent out Flamininus to relieve him of the command.
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