The help asked of Antigonus Doson was given with fatal readiness; but it had to be purchased by the admission of a Macedonian garrison into the Acrocorinthus, one of those “fetters of Greece,” the recovery of which had been among Aratus’s earliest and most glorious triumphs. The battle of Sellasia (B.C. 221) settled the question of Spartan influence. Cleomenes fled to Alexandria and never returned. Sparta was not enslaved by Antigonus; who on the contrary professed to restore her ancient constitution,—probably meaning that the Ephoralty destroyed by Cleomenes was to be reconstituted, and the exiles banished by him recalled. Practically she was left a prey to a series of unscrupulous tyrants who one after the other managed to obtain absolute power, Lycurgus (B.C. 220-210), Machanidas, B.C. 210-207; Nabis, B.C. 207-192; who, though differing in their home administrations, all agreed in using the enmity of the Aetolians in order to harass and oppress the Achaeans in every possible way.
B.C. 213. Death of Aratus.
Aratus died in B.C. 213. The last seven years of his life were embittered by much ill success in his struggles with the Aetolians; and by seeing Philip V., of whose presence in the Peloponnese he was the main cause, after rendering some brilliant services to the league, both in the Peloponnese and the invasion of Aetolia, develop some of the worst vices of the tyrant; and he believed himself, whether rightly or wrongly, to be poisoned by Philip’s order: “This is the reward,” he said to an attendant when he felt himself dying, “of my friendship for Philip.”127
The history of the league after his death followed the same course for some years. The war with the Aetolians went on, sometimes slackly, sometimes vigorously, as Philip V. was or was not diverted by contests with his barbarian neighbours, or by schemes for joining the Carthaginian assaults upon the Roman power.
B.C. 208-183, Philopoemen.
The next phase of vigorous action on the part of the league is that which corresponds with the career of Philopoemen, who had already shown his energy and skill at the battle of Sellasia. He was elected Hipparch in B.C. 210, and Strategus in B.C. 209. In his first office he did much to reorganise the Achaean cavalry and restore them to some discipline,128 and he extended this as Strategus to the whole army.129 His life’s work, however, was the defeating and either killing or confining to their frontier the tyrants of Sparta. But while he was absent from the country after B.C. 200 a new element appeared in the Peloponnese. In 197 the battle of Cynoscephalae put an end for ever to Macedonian influence, and Flamininus proclaimed the liberty of all Greece in B.C. 195 at the Nemean festival.
B.C. 195-194.
But Nabis was not deposed; he was secured in his power by a treaty with Rome; and when Philopoemen returned from Crete (B.C. 193), he found a fresh war on the point of breaking out owing to intrigues between that tyrant and the Aetolians.
B.C. 193.
They suggested, and he eagerly undertook to make, an attempt to recover the maritime towns of which he had been deprived by the Roman settlement.130
193-192.
Nabis at once attacked Gythium: and seemed on the point of taking it and the whole of the coast towns, which would thus have been lost to the league. Philopoemen, now again Strategus (B.C. 192), failed to relieve Gythium; but by a skilful piece of generalship inflicted so severe a defeat on Nabis, as he was returning to Sparta, that he did not venture on further movements beyond Laconia; and shortly afterwards was assassinated by some Aetolians whom he had summoned to his aid.
189-187.
But the comparative peace in the Peloponnese was again broken in B.C. 189 by the Spartans seizing a maritime town called Las; the object being to relieve themselves of the restraint which shut them from the sea, and the possible attacks of the exiles who had been banished by Nabis, and who were always watching an opportunity to effect their return. Philopoemen (Strategus both 189 and 188 B.C.) led an army to the Laconian frontier in the spring of B.C. 188, and after the execution of eighty Spartans, who had been surrendered on account of the seizure of Las, and of the murder of thirty citizens who were supposed to have Achaean proclivities—Sparta submitted to his demand to raze the fortifications, dismiss the mercenaries, send away the new citizens enrolled by the tyrants, and abolish the Lycurgean laws, accepting the Achaean institutions instead. This was afterwards supplemented by a demand for the restoration of the exiles banished by the tyrants. Such of the new citizens (three thousand) as did not leave the country by the day named were seized and sold as slaves.131
B.C. 188.
Sparta was now part of the Achaean league, which at this time reached its highest point of power; and its alliance was solicited by the most powerful princes of the east.
188-183.
It is this period which Polybius seems to have in mind in his description of the league at its best, as embracing the whole of the Peloponnese.132
Lycortas Strategus, B.C. 184-182.
Was in this third period of the existence of the renewed league that his father Lycortas came to the front, and he himself at an early age began taking part in politics.
B.C. 179.
But the terms imposed on Sparta were essentially violent and unjust, and, as it turned out, impolitic. Cowed into submission, she proved a thorn in the side of the league. The exiles continually appealed to Rome; and after Philopoemen’s death (B.C. 183) the affairs of the league began more and more to come before the Roman Senate. As usual, traitors were at hand ready to sell their country for the sake of the triumph of their party; and Callicrates, sent to Rome to plead the cause of the league,133 employed the opportunity to support himself and his party by advising the Senate to give support to “the Romanisers” in every state. This Polybius regards as the beginning of the decline of the league. And the party of moderation, to which he and his father Lycortas belonged, and which wished to assert the dignity and legal rights of their country while offering no provocation to the Romans, were eventually included under the sweeping decree which caused them, to the number of a thousand, to be deported to Italy. We have already seen, in tracing the life of Polybius, how the poor remnants of these exiles returned in B.C. 151, embittered against Rome, and having learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. And how the old quarrels were renewed, until an armed interference of Rome was brought upon them; and how the victory of Mummius at Corinth (B.C. 146), and the consequent settlement of the commissioners, finally dissolved the league into separate cantons, nominally autonomous, but really entirely subject to Rome.134
The constitution of the league presents many points of interest to the student of politics, and has been elaborately discussed by more than one English scholar. I shall content myself here with pointing out some of the main features as they are mentioned by Polybius.135
The league was a federation of free towns, all retaining full local autonomy of some form or other of democracy, which for certain purposes were under federal laws and federal magistrates, elected in a federal assembly which all citizens of the league towns might if they chose attend. All towns of the league also used the same standards in coinage and weights and measures (2, 37). The assembly of the league (σύνοδος) met for election of the chief magistrate in May of each year, at first always at Aegium, but later at the other towns of the league in turn (29, 23); and a second time in the autumn.136 And besides these annual meetings, the Strategus, acting with his council of magistrates, could summon a meeting at any time for three days (e.g. at Sicyon, 23, 17); and on one occasion we find the assembly delegating its powers to the armed levy of league troops, who for the nonce were to act as an assembly (4, 7). Side by side
