Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/391

 ARATUS. 383 more does joj without discretion transport and agitate the mind than either fear or sorrow. Antigonus, there- fore, having in this manner possessed himself of Acro- Corinthus, put a garrison into it of those he trusted most, making Persseus the philosopher governor. Now Aratus, even in the lifetime of Alexander, had made an attempt, but, a confederacy being made between Alexander and the Achaeans, he desisted. But now he started afresh, with a new plan of effecting the thing, which was this: there were in Corinth four brothers, Syrians bom, one of whom, called Diodes, served as a soldier in the garrison, but the three others, having sto- len some gold of the king's, came to Sicyon, to one ^gias, a banker, whom Aratus made use of in his busi- ness. To him they immediately sold part of their gold, and the rest one of them, called Erginus, coming often thither, exchanged by parcels. Becoming, by this means, familiarly acquainted with ^gias, and being by him led into discourses concerning the fortress, he told him that in going up to his brother he had observed, in the face of the rock, a side-cleft, leading to that part of the wall of the castle which was lower than the rest. At which ^gias joking with him and saying, " So, you wise man, for the sake of a little gold you have broken into the king's treasure ; when you might, if you chose, get money in abundance for a single hour's work, burglary, you know, and treason being punished with the same death," Er- ginus laughed and told him then, he would break the thing to Diodes (for he did not altogether trust his other brothers), and, retmiiing within a few days, he bargained to conduct Aratus to that part of the wall where it was no more than fifteen feet high, and to do what else should be necessary, together with his brother Diodes. Aratus, therefore, agreed to give them sixty talents if he succeeded, but if he failed in his enterprise, and