Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/493

 CLEOMENES. 485 that Megistouus came from Cleomenes to him, desiring him to deliver up the castle at Corinth, which was then garrisoned by the Achaeans, and offered him a considera- ble sum of money, and that he answered, that matters were not now in his power, but he in theirs. Thus Ara- tus himself writes. But Cleomenes, marching from Argos, and taking in the Troezenians, Epidaurians, and Hermion- eans, came to Corinth, and blocked up the castle, which the Achaeans would not surrender ; and sending for Aratus's friends and stewards, committed his house and estate to their care and management ; and sent Tritymal- lus, the Messenian, to him a second time, desiring that the castle might be equally garrisoned by the Spartans and Achaeans, and promising to Aratus himself double the pension that he received from king Ptolemy. But Aratus, refusing the conditions, and sending his own son with the other hostages to Antigonus, and persuading the Achasans to make a decree for delivering the castle into Antigonus's hands, upon this Cleomenes invaded the territory of the Sicyonians, and by a decree of the Corinthians, accepted Aratus's estate as a gift. In the mean time, Antigonus, with a great army, was passing Geranea ; and Cleomenes, thinking it more advis- able to fortify and garrison, not the isthmus, but the mountains called Onea, and by a war of posts and posi- tions to weary the Macedonians, rather than to venture a set battle with the highly disciplined phalanx, put his design in execution, and very much distressed Antigo- nus. For he had not brought victuals sufficient for his army ; nor was it easy to force a way through, whilst Cleomenes guarded the pass. He attempted by night to pass through Lechoeum, but failed, and lost some men ; so that Cleomenes and his army were mightily encouraged, and so flushed with the victory, that they went merrily to supper ; and Antigonus was very much dejected, being