Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/397

 ARATUS. 389 after, discoursing with one that said to him that the wise man only is a true general, " Indeed," he replied, "none of Zeno's maxims once pleased me better than this, but I have been converted to another opinion by the yoimg man of Sicyon." This is told by many of Persaeus. Aratus, immediately after, made himself master of the temple of Juno and haven of Lechteum, seized upon five and twenty of the king's ships, together with five himdred horses and four hundred Syrians ; these he sold. The Achteans kept guard in the Acro-Corinthus with a body of four hundred soldiers, and fifty dogs with as many keepers. The Romans, extoUing Philopoemen, called him the last of the Grecians, as if no great man had ever since his time been bred amongst them. But I should call this capture of the Acro-Corinthus the last of the Grecian exploits, being comparable to the best of them, both for the dar- ingness of it, and the success, as was presently seen by the consequences. For the Megarians, revolting from Antigonus, joined Aratus, and the Troezenians and Epi- daurians enrolled themselves in the Achaean commu- nity, and issuing forth for the first time, he entered Attica, and passing over into Salamis, he plundered the island, tumino; the Achtean force everv wav, as if it were just let loose out of prison and set at liberty. All free- men whom he took he sent back to the Athenians with- out ransom, as a sort of first invitation to them to come over to the league. He made Ptolemy become a eon- federate of the Achteans, with the privilege of command both by sea and land. And so great was his power with them, that since he could not by law be chosen their general every year, yet every other year he was, and by liis counsels and actions was in effect always so. For they perceived that neither riches nor reputation, nor the friendship of kings, nor the private interest of his own