Pausanias: Description of Greece Book 7 - Achaea 1-17

[7.1.1] I. The land between Elis and Sicyonia, reaching down to the eastern sea, is now called Achaia after the inhabitants, but of old was called Aegialus and those who lived in it Aegialians. According to the Sicyonians the name is derived from Aegialeus, who was king in what is now Sicyonia; others say that it is from the land, the greater part of which is coast (aigialos).

[7.1.2] Later on, after the death of Hellen, Xuthus was expelled from Thessaly by the rest of the sons of Hellen, who charged him with having appropriated some of the ancestral property. But he fled to Athens, where he was deemed worthy to wed the daughter of Erechtheus, by whom he had sons, Achaeus and Ion. On the death of Erechtheus Xuthus was appointed judge to decide which of his sons should succeed him. He decided that Cecrops, the eldest of them, should be king, and was accordingly banished from the land by the rest of the sons of Erechtheus.

[7.1.3] He reached Aegialus, made his home there, and there died. Of his sons, Achaeus with the assistance of allies from Aegialus and Athens returned to Thessaly and recovered the throne of his fathers: Ion, while gathering an army against the Aegialians and Selinus their king, received a message from Selinus, who offered to give him in marriage Helice, his only child, as well as to adopt him as his son and successor.

[7.1.4] It so happened that the proposal found favour with Ion, and on the death of Selinus he became king of the Aegialians. He called the city he founded in Aegialus Helice after his wife, and called the inhabitants Ionians after himself. This, however, was not a change of name, but an addition to it, for the folk were named Aegialian Ionians. The original name clung to the land even longer than to the people; for at any rate in the list of the allies of Agamemnon, Homer1 is content to mention the ancient name of the land: Throughout all Aegialus and about wide Helice. Hom. Il. 2.575

[7.1.5] At that time in the reign of Ion the Eleusinians made war on the Athenians, and these having invited Ion to be their leader in the war, he met his death in Attica, his tomb being in the deme of Potamus. The descendants of Ion became rulers of the Ionians, until they themselves as well as the people were expelled by the Achaeans. The Achaeans at that time had themselves been expelled from Lacedaemon and Argos by the Dorians.

[7.1.6] The history of the Ionians in relation to the Achaeans I will give as soon as I have explained the reason why the inhabitants of Lacedaemon and Argos were the only Peloponnesians to be called Achaeans before the return of the Dorians. Archander and Architeles, sons of Achaeus, came from Phthiotis to Argos, and after their arrival became sons-in-law of Danaus, Architeles marrying Automate and Archander Scaea. A very clear proof that they settled in Argos is the fact that Archander named his son Metanastes (Settler).

[7.1.7] When the sons of Achaeus came to power in Argos and Lacedaemon, the inhabitants of these towns came to be called Achaeans. The name Achaeans was common to them; the Argives had the special name of Danai. On the occasion referred to, being expelled by the Dorians from Argos and Lacedaemon, the Achaeans themselves and their king Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, sent heralds to the Ionians, offering to settle among them without warfare. But the kings of the Ionians were afraid that, if the Achaeans united with them, Tisamenus would be chosen king of the combined people because of his manliness and noble lineage.

[7.1.8] The Ionians rejected the proposal of the Achaeans and came out to fight them; in the battle Tisamenus was killed, the Ionians were overcome by the Achaeans, fled to Helice, where they were besieged, and afterwards were allowed to depart under a truce. The body of Tisamenus was buried in Helice by the Achaeans, but afterwards at the command of the Delphic oracle the Lacedaemonians carried his bones to Sparta, and in my own day his grave still existed in the place where the Lacedaemonians take the dinner called Pheiditia.

[7.1.9] The Ionians went to Attica, and they were allowed to settle there by the Athenians and their king Melanthus, the son of Andropompus, I suppose for the sake of Ion and his achievements when he was commander-in-chief of the Athenians. Another account is that the Athenians suspected that the Dorians would not keep their hands off them, and received the Ionians to strengthen themselves rather than for any good-will they felt towards the Ionians.

[7.2.1] II. A few years afterwards Medon and Neileus, the oldest of the sons of Codrus, quarrelled about the rule, and Neileus refused to allow Medon to rule over him, because he was lame in one foot. The disputants agreed to refer the matter to the Delphic oracle, and the Pythian priestess gave the kingdom of Athens to Medon. So Neileus and the rest of the sons of Codrus set out to found a colony, taking with them any Athenian who wished to go with them, but the greatest number of their company was composed of Ionians.

[7.2.2] This was the third expedition sent out from Greece under kings of a race different from that of the common folk. The earliest was when Iolaus of Thebes, the nephew of Heracles, led the Athenians and Thespians to Sardinia. One generation before the Ionians set sail from Athens, the Lacedaemonians and Minyans who had been expelled from Lemnos by the Pelasgians were led by the Theban Theras, the son of Autesion, to the island now called after him, but formerly named Calliste.

[7.2.3] The third occasion was the expedition to which I have referred, when the sons of Codrus were appointed leaders of the Ionians, although they were not related to them, but were, through Codrus and Melanthus, Messenians of Pylus, and, on their mother's side, Athenians. Those who shared in the expedition of the Ionians were the following among the Greeks: some Thebans under Philotas, a descendant of Peneleus; Minyans of Orchomenus, because they were related to the sons of Codrus.

[7.2.4] There also took part all the Phocians except the Delphians, and with them Abantes from Euboea. Ships for the voyage were given to the Phocians by Philogenes and Damon, Athenians and sons of Euctemon, who themselves led the colony. When they landed in Asia they divided, the different parties attacking the different cities on the coast, and Neileus with his party made for Miletus.

[7.2.5] The Milesians themselves give the following account of their earliest history. For two generations, they say, their land was called Anactoria, during the reigns of Anax, an aboriginal, and of Asterius his son; but when Miletus landed with an army of Cretans both the land and the city changed their name to Miletus. Miletus and his men came from Crete, fleeing from Minos, the son of Europa; the Carians, the former inhabitants of the land, united with the Cretans. But to resume.

[7.2.6] When the Ionians had overcome the ancient Milesians they killed every male, except those who escaped at the capture of the city, but the wives of the Milesians and their daughters they married.

  The grave of Neileus is on the left of the road, not far from the gate, as you go to Didymi.

The sanctuary of Apollo at Didymi, and his oracle, are earlier than the immigration of the Ionians, while the cult of Ephesian Artemis is far more ancient still than their coming.

[7.2.7] Pindar, however, it seems to me, did not learn everything about the goddess, for he says that this sanctuary was founded by the Amazons during their campaign against Athens and Theseus.2 It is a fact that the women from the Thermodon, as they knew the sanctuary from of old, sacrificed to the Ephesian goddess both on this occasion and when they had fled from Heracles; some of them earlier still, when they had fled from Dionysus, having come to the sanctuary as suppliants. However, it was not by the Amazons that the sanctuary was founded, but by Coresus, an aboriginal, and Ephesus, who is thought to have been a son of the river Cayster, and from Ephesus the city received its name.

[7.2.8] The inhabitants of the land were partly Leleges, a branch of the Carians, but the greater number were Lydians. In addition there were others who dwelt around the sanctuary for the sake of its protection, and these included some women of the race of the Amazons.

But Androclus the son of Codrus (for he it was who was appointed king of the Ionians who sailed against Ephesus) expelled from the land the Leleges and Lydians who occupied the upper city. Those, however, who dwelt around the sanctuary had nothing to fear; they exchanged oaths of friendship with the Ionians and escaped warfare. Androclus also took Samos from the Samians, and for a time the Ephesians held Samos and the adjacent islands.

[7.2.9] But after that the Samians had returned to their own land, Androclus helped the people of Priene against the Carians. The Greek army was victorious, but Androclus was killed in the battle. The Ephesians carried off his body and buried it in their own land, at the spot where his tomb is pointed out at the present day, on the road leading from the sanctuary past the Olympieum to the Magnesian gate. On the tomb is a statue of an armed man.

[7.2.10] The Ionians who settled at Myus and Priene, they too took the cities from Carians. The founder of Myus was Cyaretus the son of Codrus, but the people of Priene, half Theban and half Ionian, had as their founders Philotas, the descendant of Peneleus, and Aepytus, the son of Neileus. The people of Priene, although they suffered much at the hands of Tabutes the Persian and afterwards at the hands of Hiero, a native, yet down to the present day are accounted Ionians. The people of Myus left their city on account of the following accident.

[7.2.11] A small inlet of the sea used to run into their land. This inlet the river Maeander turned into a lake, by blocking up the entrance with mud. When the water, ceasing to be sea, became fresh,3 gnats in vast swarms bred in the lake until the inhabitants were forced to leave the city. They departed for Miletus, taking with them the images of the gods and their other movables, and on my visit I found nothing in Myus except a white marble temple of Dionysus. A similar fate to that of Myus happened to the people of Atarneus, under Mount Pergamus.

[7.3.1] III. The people of Colophon suppose that the sanctuary at Clarus, and the oracle, were founded in the remotest antiquity. They assert that while the Carians still held the land, the first Greeks to arrive were Cretans under Rhacius, who was followed by a great crowd also; these occupied the shore and were strong in ships, but the greater part of the country continued in the possession of the Carians. When Thebes was taken by Thersander, the son of Polyneices, and the Argives, among the prisoners brought to Apollo at Delphi was Manto. Her father Teiresias had died on the way, in Haliartia,

[7.3.2] and when the god had sent them out to found a colony, they crossed in ships to Asia, but as they came to Clarus, the Cretans came against them armed and carried them away to Rhacius. But he, learning from Manto who they were and why they were come, took Manto to wife, and allowed the people with her to inhabit the land. Mopsus, the son of Rhacius and of Manto, drove the Carians from the country altogether.

[7.3.3] The Ionians swore an oath to the Greeks in Colophon, and lived with them in one city on equal terms, but the kingship was taken by the Ionian leaders, Damasichthon and Promethus, sons of Codrus. Afterwards Promethus killed his brother Damasichthon and fled to Naxos, where he died, but his body was carried home and received by the sons of Damasichthon. The name of the place where Damasichthon is buried is called Polyteichides.

[7.3.4] How it befell that Colophon was laid waste I have already related in my account of Lysimachus.4 Of those who were transported to Ephesus only the people of Colophon fought against Lysimachus and the Macedonians. The grave of those Colophonians and Smyrnaeans who fell in the battle is on the left of the road as you go to Clarus.

[7.3.5] The city of Lebedus was razed to the ground by Lysimachus, simply in order that the population of Ephesus might be increased. The land around Lebedus is a happy one; in particular its hot baths are more numerous and more pleasant than any others on the coast. Originally Lebedus also was inhabited by the Carians, until they were driven out by Andraemon the son of Codrus and the Ionians. The grave of Andraemon is on the left of the road as you go from Colophon, when you have crossed the river Calaon.

[7.3.6] Teos used to be inhabited by Minyans of Orchomenus, who came to it with Athamas. This Athamas is said to have been a descendant of Athamas the son of Aeolus. Here too there was a Carian element combined with the Greek, while Ionians were introduced into Teos by Apoecus, a great-grandchild of Melanthus, who showed no hostility either to the Orchomenians or to the Teians. A few years later there came men from Athens and from Boeotia; the Attic contingent was under Damasus and Naoclus, the sons of Codrus, while the Boeotians were led by Geres, a Boeotian. Both parties were received by Apoecus and the Teians as fellow-settlers.

[7.3.7] The Erythraeans say that they came originally from Crete with Erythrus the son of Rhadamanthus, and that this Erythrus was the founder of their city. Along with the Cretans there dwelt in the city Lycians, Carians and Pamphylians; Lycians because of their kinship with the Cretans, as they came of old from Crete, having fled along with Sarpedon; Carians because of their ancient friendship with Minos; Pamphylians because they too belong to the Greek race, being among those who after the taking of Troy wandered with Calchas.

The peoples I have enumerated occupied Erythrae when Cleopus the son of Codrus gathered men from all the cities of Ionia, so many from each, and introduced them as settlers among the Erythraeans.

[7.3.8] The cities of Clazomenae and Phocaea were not inhabited before the Ionians came to Asia. When the Ionians arrived, a wandering division of them sent for a leader, Parphorus, from the Colophonians, and founded under Mount Ida a city which shortly afterwards they abandoned, and returning to Ionia they founded Scyppium in the Colophonian territory.

[7.3.9] They left of their own free-will Colophonian territory also, and so occupied the land which they still hold, and built on the mainland the city of Clazomenae. Later they crossed over to the island through their fear of the Persians. But in course of time Alexander the son of Philip was destined to make Clazomenae a peninsula by a mole from the mainland to the island. Of these Clazomenians the greater part were not Ionians, but Cleonaeans and Phliasians, who abandoned their cities when the Dorians had returned to Peloponnesus.

[7.3.10] The Phocaeans are by birth from the land under Parnassus still called Phocis, who crossed to Asia with the Athenians Philogenes and Damon. Their land they took from the Cymaeans, not by war but by agreement. When the Ionians would not admit them to the Ionian confederacy until they accepted kings of the race of the Codridae, they accepted Deoetes, Periclus and Abartus from Erythrae and from Teos.

[7.4.1] IV. The cities of the Ionians on the islands are Samos over against Mycale and Chios opposite Mimas. Asius, the son of Amphiptolemus, a Samian, says in his epic that there were born to Phoenix Astypalaea and Europa, whose mother was Perimede, the daughter of Oeneus; that Astypalaea had by Poseidon a son Ancaeus, who reigned over those called Leleges; that Ancaeus took to wife Samia, the daughter of the river Maeander, and begat Perilaus, Enudus, Samus, Alitherses and a daughter Parthenope; and that Parthenope had a son Lycomedes by Apollo.

[7.4.2] Thus far Asius in his poem. But on the occasion to which I refer the inhabitants of the island received the Ionians as settlers more of necessity than through good.will. The leader of the Ionians was Procles, the son of Pityreus, Epidaurian himself like the greater part of his followers, who had been expelled from Epidauria by Deiphontes and the Argives. This Procles was descended from Ion, son of Xuthus. But the Ephesians under Androclus made war on Leogorus, the son of Procles, who reigned in Samos after his father, and after conquering them in a battle drove the Samians out of their island, accusing them of conspiring with the Carians against the Ionians.

[7.4.3] The Samians fled and some of them made their home in an island near Thrace, and as a result of their settling there the name of the island was changed from Dardania to Samothrace. Others with Leogorus threw a wall round Anaea on the mainland opposite Samos, and ten years after crossed over, expelled the Ephesians and reoccupied the island.

[7.4.4] Some say that the sanctuary of Hera in Samos was established by those who sailed in the Argo, and that these brought the image from Argos. But the Samians themselves hold that the goddess was born in the island by the side of the river Imbrasus under the withy that even in my time grew in the Heraeum. That this sanctuary is very old might be inferred especially by considering the image; for it is the work of an Aeginetan, Smilis, the son of Eucleides. This Smilis was a contemporary of Daedalus, though of less repute.

[7.4.5] Daedalus belonged to the royal Athenian clan called the Metionidae, and he was rather famous among all men not only for his art but also for his wandering and his misfortunes. For he killed his sister's son, and knowing the customs of his city he went into exile of his own accord to Minos in Crete. There he made images for Minos and for the daughters of Minos, as Homer sets forth in the Iliad 5

[7.4.6] but being condemned by Minos on some charge he was thrown into prison along with his son. He escaped from Crete and came to Cocalus at Inycus, a city of Sicily. Thereby he became the cause of war between Sicilians and Cretans, because when Minos demanded him back, Cocalus refused to give him up. He was so much admired by the daughters of Cocalus for his artistic skill that to please him these women actually plotted against Minos to put him to death.

[7.4.7] It is plain that the renown of Daedalus spread over all Sicily and even over the greater part of Italy. But as for Smilis, it is not clear that he visited any places save Samos and Elis. But to these he did travel, and he it was who made the image of Hera in Samos.

[7.4.8] . . . Ion the tragic poet says in his history that Poseidon came to the island when it was uninhabited; that there he had intercourse with a nymph, and that when she was in her pains there was a fall of snow (chion), and that accordingly Poseidon called his son Chios. Ion also says that Poseidon had intercourse with another nymph, by whom he had Agelus and Melas; that in course of time Oenopion too sailed with a fleet from Crete to Chios, accompanied by his sons Talus, Euanthes, Melas, Salagus and Athamas.

[7.4.9] Carians too came to the island, in the reign of Oenopion, and Abantes from Euboea. Oenopion and his sons were succeeded by Amphiclus, who because of an oracle from Delphi came from Histiaea in Euboea. Three generations from Amphiclus, Hector, who also had made himself king, made war on those Abantes and Carians who lived in the island, slew some in battle, and forced others to surrender and depart.

[7.4.10] When the Chians were rid of war, it occurred to Hector that they ought to unite with the Ionians in sacrificing at Panionium. It is said that the Ionian confederacy gave him a tripod as a prize for valor. Such was the account of the Chians that I found given by Ion. However, he gives no reason why the Chians are classed with the Ionians.

[7.5.1] V. Smyrna, one of the twelve Aeolian cities, built on that site which even now they call the old city, was seized by Ionians who set out from Colophon and displaced the Aeolians; subsequently, however, the Ionians allowed the Smyrnaeans to take their place in the general assembly at Panionium. The modern city was founded by Alexander, the son of Philip, in accordance with a vision in a dream.

[7.5.2] It is said that Alexander was hunting on Mount Pagus, and that after the hunt was over he came to a sanctuary of the Nemeses, and found there a spring and a plane-tree in front of the sanctuary, growing over the water. While he slept under the plane-tree it is said that the Nemeses appeared and bade him found a city there and to remove into it the Smyrnaeans from the old city.

[7.5.3] So the Smyrnaeans sent ambassadors to Clarus to make inquiries about the circumstance, and the god made answer:–

      Thrice, yes, four times blest will those men be
      Who shall dwell in Pagus beyond the sacred Meles.

So they migrated of their own free will, and believe now in two Nemeses instead of one, saying that their mother is Night, while the Athenians say that the father of the goddess6 in Rhamnus is Ocean.

[7.5.4] The land of the Ionians has the finest possible climate, and sanctuaries such as are to be found nowhere else. First because of its size and wealth is that of the Ephesian goddess, and then come two unfinished sanctuaries of Apollo, the one in Branchidae, in Milesian territory, and the one at Clarus in the land of the Colophonians. Besides these, two temples in Ionia were burnt down by the Persians, the one of Hera in Samos and that of Athena at Phocaea. Damaged though they are by fire, I found them a wonder.

[7.5.5] You would be delighted too with the sanctuary of Heracles at Erythrae and with the temple of Athena at Priene, the latter because of its image and the former on account of its age. The image is like neither the Aeginetan, as they are called, nor yet the most ancient Attic images; it is absolutely Egyptian, if ever there was such. There was a wooden raft, on which the god set out from Tyre in Phoenicia. The reason for this we are not told even by the Erythraeans themselves.

[7.5.6] They say that when the raft reached the Ionian sea it came to rest at the cape called Mesate (Middle) which is on the mainland, just midway between the harbor of the Erythraeans and the island of Chios. When the raft rested off the cape the Erythraeans made great efforts, and the Chians no less, both being keen to land the image on their own shores.

[7.5.7] At last a man of Erythrae (his name was Phormio) who gained a living by the sea and by catching fish, but had lost his sight through disease, saw a vision in a dream to the effect that the women of Erythrae must cut off their locks, and in this way the men would, with a rope woven from the hair, tow the raft to their shores. The women of the citizens absolutely refused to obey the dream;

[7.5.8] but the Thracian women, both the slaves and the free who lived there, offered themselves to be shorn. And so the men of Erythrae towed the raft ashore. Accordingly no women except Thracian women are allowed within the sanctuary of Heracles, and the hair rope is still kept by the natives. The same people say that the fisherman recovered his sight and retained it for the rest of his life.

[7.5.9] There is also in Erythrae a temple of Athena Polias and a huge wooden image of her sitting on a throne; she holds a distaff in either hand and wears a firmament on her head. That this image is the work of Endoeus we inferred, among other signs, from the workmanship, and especially from the white marble images of Graces and Seasons that stand in the open before the entrance. A sanctuary too of Asclepius was made by the Smyrnaeans in my time between Mount Coryphe and a sea into which no other water flows.

[7.5.10] Ionia has other things to record besides its sanctuaries and its climate. There is, for instance, in the land of the Ephesians the river Cenchrius, the strange mountain of Pion and the spring Halitaea. The land of Miletus has the spring Biblis, of whose love the poets have sung. In the land of Colophon is the grove of Apollo, of ash-trees, and not far from the grove is the river Ales, the coldest river in Ionia.

[7.5.11] In the land of Lebedus are baths, which are both wonderful and useful. Teos, too, has baths at Cape Macria, some in the clefts of the rock, filled by the tide, others made to display wealth. The Clazomenians have baths (incidentally they worship Agamemnon) and a cave called the cave of the mother of Pyrrhus; they tell a legend about Pyrrhus the shepherd.

[7.5.12] The Erythraeans have a district called Calchis, from which their third tribe takes its name, and in Calchis is a cape stretching into the sea, and on it are sea baths, the most useful baths in Ionia. The Smyrnaeans have the river Meles, with its lovely water, and at its springs is the grotto, where they say that Homer composed his poems.

[7.5.13] One of the sights of Chios is the grave of Oenopion, about whose exploits they tell certain legends. The Samians have on the road to the Heraeum the tomb of Rhadine and Leontichus, and those who are crossed in love are wont to go to the tomb and pray. Ionia, in fact, is a land of wonders that are but little inferior to those of Greece.

[7.6.1] VI. When the Ionians were gone the Achaeans divided their land among themselves and settled in their cities. These were twelve in number, at least such as were known to all the Greek world; Dyme, the nearest to Elis, after it Olenus, Pharae, Triteia, Rhypes, Aegium, Ceryneia, Bura, Helice also and Aegae, Aegeira and Pellene, the last city on the side of Sicyonia. In them, which had previously been inhabited by Ionians, settled the Achaeans and their princes.

[7.6.2] Those who held the greatest power among the Achaeans were the sons of Tisamenus, Daimenes, Sparton, Tellis and Leontomenes; his eldest son, Cometes, had already crossed with a fleet to Asia. These then at the time held sway among the Achaeans along with Damasias, the son of Penthilus, the son of Orestes, who on his father's side was cousin to the sons of Tisamenus. Equally powerful with the chiefs already mentioned were two Achaeans from Lacedaemon, Preugenes and his son, whose name was Patreus. The Achaeans allowed them to found a city in their territory, and to it was given the name Patrae from Patreus.

[7.6.3] The wars of the Achaeans were as follow. In the expedition of Agamemnon to Troy they furnished, while still dwelling in Lacedaemon and Argos, the largest contingent in the Greek army. When the Persians under Xerxes attacked Greece7 the Achaeans it is clear had no part in the advance of Leonidas to Thermopylae, nor in the naval actions fought by the Athenians with Themistocles off Euboea and at Salamis, and they are not included in the Laconian or in the Attic list of allies.

[7.6.4] They were absent from the action at Plataea, for otherwise the Achaeans would surely have had their name inscribed on the offering of the Greeks at Olympia. My view is that they stayed at home to guard their several fatherlands, while because of the Trojan war they scorned to be led by Dorians of Lacedaemon. This became plain in course of time. For when later on the Lacedaemonians began the war with the Athenians,8 the Achaeans were eager for the alliance with Patrae, and were no less well disposed towards Athens.

[7.6.5] Of the wars waged afterwards by the confederate Greeks, the Achaeans took part in the battle of Chaeroneia against the Macedonians under Philip,9 but they say that they did not march out into Thessaly to what is called the Lamian war,10 for they had not yet recovered from the reverse in Boeotia. The local guide at Patrae used to say that the wrestler Chilon was the only Achaean who took part in the action at Lamia.

[7.6.6] I myself know that Adrastus, a Lydian, helped the Greeks as a private individual, although the Lydian commonwealth held aloof. A likeness of this Adrastus in bronze was dedicated in front of the sanctuary of Persian Artemis by the Lydians, who wrote an inscription to the effect that Adrastus died fighting for the Greeks against Leonnatus.

[7.6.7] The march to Thermopylae11 against the army of the Gauls was left alone by all the Peloponnesians alike; for, as the barbarians had no ships, the Peloponnesians anticipated no danger from the Gauls, if only they walled off the Corinthian Isthmus from the sea at Lechaeum to the other sea at Cenchreae.

[7.6.8] This was the policy of all the Peloponnesians at this time. But when the Gauls had somehow crossed in ships to Asia,12 the condition of the Greeks was as follows. No Greek state was preeminent in strength. For the Lacedaemonians were still prevented from recovering their former prosperity by the reverse at Leuctra combined with the union of the Arcadians at Megalopolis and the settlement of Messenians on their border.

[7.6.9] Thebes had been brought so low by Alexander13 that when, a few years later, Cassander brought back her people, they were too weak even to hold their own. The Athenians had indeed the goodwill of Greece, especially for their later exploits, but they never found it possible to recover from the Macedonian war.

[7.7.1] VII. When the Greeks no longer took concerted action, but each state acted for itself alone, the Achaeans enjoyed their greatest power. For except Pellene no Achaean city had at any time suffered from tyranny, while the disasters of war and of pestilence touched Achaia less than any other part of Greece. So we have what was called the Achaean League, and the Achaeans had a concerted policy and carried out concerted actions.

[7.7.2] As a place of assembly they resolved to have Aegium, for, after Helice had been swallowed up by the sea, Aegium from of old surpassed in reputation the other cities of Achaia, while at the time it enjoyed great power. Of the remaining Greeks the Sicyonians were the first to join the Achaean League, and after the Sicyonians there entered it yet other Peloponnesians, some forthwith and others after an interval. Some too who lived outside the Isthmus were persuaded to join the Achaean League by its unbroken growth in power.

[7.7.3] Alone among the Greeks the Lacedaemonians were the bitter enemies of the Achaeans and openly carried on war against them. Pellene, a city of the Achaeans, was captured by Agis, the son of Eudamidas, who was king at Sparta; but he was immediately driven out by the Sicyonians under Aratus. Cleomenes, the son of Leonidas, the son of Cleonymus, king of the other royal house, won a decisive victory at Dyme over the Sicyonians under Aratus, who attacked him, and afterwards concluded a peace with the Achaeans and Antigonus.

[7.7.4] This Antigonus at the time ruled over the Macedonians, being the guardian of Philip, the son of Demetrius, who was still a boy. He was also a cousin of Philip, whose mother he had taken to wife. With this Antigonus then and the Achaeans Cleomenes made peace, and immediately broke all the oaths he had sworn by reducing to slavery Megalopolis, the city of the Arcadians. Because of Cleomenes and his treachery the Lacedaemonians suffered the reverse at Sellasia, where they14 were defeated by the Achaeans under Antigonus. In my account of Arcadia15 I shall again have occasion to mention Cleomenes.

[7.7.5] When Philip, the son of Demetrius, reached man's estate, and Antigonus without reluctance handed over the sovereignty of the Macedonians, he struck fear into the hearts of all the Greeks. He copied Philip, the son of Amyntas, who was not his ancestor but really his master, especially by flattering those who were willing to betray their country for their private advantage. At banquets he would give the right hand of friendship offering cups filled not with wine but with deadly poison, a thing which I believe never entered the head of Philip the son of Amyntas, but poisoning sat very lightly on the conscience of Philip the son of Demetrius.

[7.7.6] He also occupied with garrisons three towns to be used as bases against Greece, and in his insolent contempt for the Greek people he called these cities the keys of Greece. To watch Peloponnesus Corinth was fortified with its citadel; to watch Euboea, the Boeotians and the Phocians, Chalcis on the Euripus; against the Thessalians themselves and the Aetolian people Philip occupied Magnesia at the foot of Mount Pelium. The Athenians especially and the Aetolians he harried with continual attacks and raids of bandits.

[7.7.7] Already, in my account of Attica16 I have described the alliances of Greeks and barbarians with the Athenians against Philip, and how the weakness of their allies urged the Athenians to seek help from Rome. A short time before, the Romans had sent a force ostensibly to help the Aetolians against Philip, but really more to spy on the condition of Macedonia.

[7.7.8] At the appeal of Athens the Romans despatched an army under Otilius, to give him the name by which he was best known. For the Romans differ from the Greeks in their being called, not by the names of their fathers, but by three names at least, if not more, given to each man. Otilius had received orders from the Romans to protect Athenians and Aetolians from war with Philip.

[7.7.9] Otilius carried out his orders up to a point, but displeased the Romans in certain of his acts. Hestiaea in Euboea and Anticyra in Phocis, which had been compelled to submit to Philip, he utterly destroyed. It was, I think, for this reason that the senate, when they heard the news, sent Flamininus to succeed Otilius in his command.

[7.8.1] VIII. On his arrival Flamininus sacked Eretria, defeating the Macedonians who were defending it. He then marched against Corinth, which was held by Philip with a garrison, and sat down to besiege it, while at the same time he sent to the Achaeans and bade them come to Corinth with an army, if they desired to be called allies of Rome and at the same time to show their goodwill to Greece.

[7.8.2] But the Achaeans greatly blamed Flamininus himself, and Otilius before him, for their savage treatment of ancient Greek cities which had done the Romans no harm, and were subject to the Macedonians against their will. They foresaw too that the Romans were coming to impose their domination both on Achaeans and on the rest of Greece, merely in fact to take the place of Philip and the Macedonians. At the meeting of the League many opposite views were put forward, but at last the Roman party prevailed, and the Achaeans joined Flamininus in besieging Corinth.

[7.8.3] On being delivered from the Macedonians the Corinthians at once joined the Achaean League; they had joined it on a previous occasion, when the Sicyonians under Aratus drove all the garrison out of Acrocorinth, killing Persaeus, who had been placed in command of the garrison by Antigonus. Hereafter the Achaeans were called allies of the Romans, and in all respects right zealous allies they proved themselves to be. They followed the Romans to Macedonia against Philip; they took part in the campaign against the Aetolians; thirdly they fought side by side with the Romans against the Syrians under Antiochus.

[7.8.4] All that the Achaeans did against the Macedonians or the host of the Syrians they did because of their friendship to the Romans; but against the Aetolians they had a long standing private quarrel to settle. When the tyranny of Nabis in Sparta was put down, a tyranny marked by extreme ferocity, the affairs of Lacedaemon at once caught the attention of the Achaeans.

[7.8.5] At this time the Achaeans brought the Lacedaemonians into the Achaean confederacy, exacted from them the strictest justice, and razed the walls of Sparta to the ground. These had been built at haphazard at the time of the invasion of Demetrius, and afterwards of the Epeirots under Pyrrhus, but under the tyranny of Nabis they had been strengthened to the greatest possible degree of safety. So the Achaeans destroyed the walls of Sparta, and also repealed the laws of Lycurgus that dealt with the training of the youths, at the same time ordering the youths to be trained after the Achaean method.

[7.8.6] I shall treat of this more fully in my account of Arcadia.17 The Lacedaemonians, deeply offended by the ordinances of the Achaeans, fled to Metellus and the other commissioners who had come from Rome. They had come, not at all to bring war upon Philip and the Macedonians, as peace had already been made between Philip and the Romans, but to judge the charges brought against Philip by the Thessalians and certain Epeirots.

[7.8.7] In actual fact Philip himself and the Macedonian ascendancy had been put down by the Romans; Philip fighting against the Romans under Flamininus was worsted at the place called Dog's Heads,18 where in spite of his desperate efforts Philip was so severely defeated in the encounter that he lost the greater part of his army and agreed with the Romans to evacuate all the cities in Greece that he had captured and forced to submit.

[7.8.8] By prayers of all sorts, however, and by vast expenditure he secured from the Romans a nominal peace. The history of Macedonia, the power she won under Philip the son of Amyntas, and her fall under the later Philip, were foretold by the inspired Sibyl. This was her oracle:–

[7.8.9]

      Ye Macedonians, boasting of your Argive kings,
      To you the reign of a Philip will be both good and evil.
      The first will make you kings over cities and peoples;
      The younger will lose all the honor,
      Defeated by men from west and east.

Now those who destroyed the Macedonian empire were the Romans, dwelling in the west of Europe, and among the allies fighting on their side was Attalus . . . who also commanded the army from Mysia, a land lying under the rising sun.

[7.9.1] IX. On the occasion to which I referred Metellus and the other commissioners resolved not to overlook the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, and asked the officers of the League to summon the Achaeans to a meeting, so that they might receive all together instructions to be gentler in their treatment of Lacedaemon. The officers replied that they would call a meeting of the Achaeans neither for them nor for anyone else who had not a decree of the Roman senate approving the proposal for which the assembly was to be held. Metellus and his colleagues, thinking that the conduct of the Achaeans was very insolent, on their arrival at Rome made before the senate many accusations against the Achaeans, not all of which were true.

[7.9.2] More accusations still against the Achaeans were made by Areus and Alcibiadas, Lacedaemonians of great distinction at Sparta but ungrateful to the Achaeans. For the Achaeans gave them a welcome when exiled by Nabis, and on the tyrant's death restored them to Sparta against the will of the Lacedaemonian people. On this occasion, therefore, they too arose and attacked the Achaeans with great vehemence before the senate; accordingly, the Achaeans, at a meeting of their League, passed sentence of death upon them.

[7.9.3] The Roman senate sent Appius and other commissioners to arbitrate between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans. The mere sight of Appius and his colleagues was sure to be displeasing to the Achaeans, for they brought with them Areus and Alcibiadas, detested by the Achaeans at that time beyond all other men. The commissioners vexed the Achaeans yet more when they came to the assembly and delivered speeches more angry than conciliatory.

[7.9.4] But Lycortas of Megalopolis, than whom no man was more highly esteemed among the Arcadians, and whose friendship with Philopoemen had given him something of his spirit, set forth the case for the Achaeans in a speech suggesting that the Romans were somewhat to blame. But Appius and his colleagues greeted the speech of Lycortas with jeers, acquitted Areus and Alcibiadas of any offence against the Achaeans, and permitted the Lacedaemonians to send an embassy to Rome. Such permission was a contravention of the agreement between the Romans and the Achaeans, which allowed the Achaeans as a body to send a deputation to the Roman senate but forbade any city of the Achaean League to send a deputation privately.

[7.9.5] A deputation of the Achaeans was sent to oppose the Lacedaemonians, and after speeches had been delivered by both sides before the senate, the Romans again despatched the same commissioners, Appius and his former colleagues in Greece, to arbitrate between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans. This commission restored to Sparta those whom the Achaeans had exiled, and they remitted the penalties inflicted by the Achaeans on those who had fled before their trial and had been condemned in their absence. The Lacedaemonian connection with the Achaean League was not broken, but foreign courts were established to deal with capital charges; all other charges were to be submitted for judgment to the Achaean League. The circuit of the city walls was restored by the Spartans right from the foundations.

[7.9.6] The restored Lacedaemonian exiles carried on various intrigues against the Achaeans, hoping to vex them most by the following plot. They persuaded to go up to Rome the exiles of the Achaeans, along with the Messenians who had been held to be involved in the death of Philopoemen and banished on that account by the Achaeans. Going up with them to Rome they intrigued for the restoration of the exiles. As Appius was a zealous supporter of the Lacedaemonians and opposed the Achaeans in everything, the plans of the Messenian and Achaean exiles were bound to enjoy an easy success. Despatches were at once sent by the senate to Athens and Aetolia, with instructions to bring back the Messenians and Achaeans to their homes.

[7.9.7] This caused the greatest vexation to the Achaeans. They bethought themselves of the injustice they had suffered at the hands of the Romans, and how all their services had proved of no avail; to please the Romans they had made war against Philip, against the Aetolians and afterwards against Antiochus, and after all there was preferred before them a band of exiles, whose hands were stained with blood. Nevertheless, they decided to give way.

[7.10.1] X. Such were the events that took place on this occasion. The most impious of all crimes, the betrayal for private gain of fatherland and fellow-citizens, was destined to be the beginning of woes for the Achaeans as for others, for it has never been absent from Greece since the birth of time. In the reign of Dareius, the son of Hystaspes, the king of Persia,19 the cause of the Ionians was ruined because all the Samian captains except eleven betrayed the Ionian fleet.

[7.10.2] After reducing Ionia the Persians enslaved Eretria also, the most famous citizens turning traitors, Philagrus, the son of Cyneas, and Euphorbus, the son of Alcimachua. When Xerxes invaded Greece,20 Thessaly was betrayed by Aleuades,21 and Thebes by Attaginus and Timegenidas, who were the foremost citizen of Thebes. After the Peloponnesian war, Xenias of Elis attempted to betray Elis to the Lacedaemonians under Agis,

[7.10.3] and the so-called “friends” of Lysander at no time relaxed their efforts to hand over their countries to him. In the reign of Philip, the son of Amyntas, Lacedaemon is the only Greek city to be found that was not betrayed; the other cities in Greece were ruined more by treachery than they had been previously by the plague. Alexander, the son of Philip, was so favoured by fortune that he had little need worth mentioning of traitors.

[7.10.4] But when the Greeks suffered defeat at Lamia,22 Antipater, in his eagerness to cross over to the war in Asia, wished to patch up a peace quickly, and it mattered nothing to him if he left free Athens and the whole of Greece. But Demades and the other traitors at Athens persuaded Antipater to have no kindly thoughts towards the Greeks, and by frightening the Athenian people were the cause of Macedonian garrisons being brought into Athens and most other cities.

[7.10.5] My statement is confirmed by the following fact. The Athenians after the disaster in Boeotia did not become subjects of Philip, although they lost two thousand prisoners in the action and one thousand killed. But when about two hundred at most fell at Lamia they were enslaved by the Lacedaemonians. So the plague of treachery never failed to afflict Greece, and it was an Achaean, Callicrates, who at the time I speak of made the Achaeans completely subject to Rome. But the beginning of their troubles proved to be Perseus and the destruction by the Romans of the Macedonian empire.

[7.10.6] Perseus, the son of Philip, who was at peace with Rome in accordance with a treaty his father Philip had made, resolved to break the oaths, and leading an army against the Sapaeans and their king Abrupolis, allies of the Romans, made their country desolate. These Sapaeans Archilochus23 mentions in an iambic line.

[7.10.7] The Macedonians and Perseus were conquered because of this wrong done to the Sapaeans, and afterwards ten Roman senators were sent to arrange the affairs of Macedonia in the best interests of the Romans. When they came to Greece, Callicrates curried favour with them, no form of flattery, whether in word or in deed, being too gross for him to use. One member of the commission, a most dishonorable man, Callicrates so captivated that he actually persuaded him to attend the meeting of the Achaean League.

[7.10.8] When he entered the assembly he declared that while Perseus was at war with Rome the most influential Achaeans, besides helping him generally, had supplied him with money. So he required the Achaeans to condemn them to death. After their condemnation, he said, he would himself disclose the names of the culprits. His words were regarded as absolutely unfair, and the members present demanded that, if certain Achaeans had sided with Perseus, their individual names should be mentioned, it being unreasonable to condemn them before this was done.

[7.10.9] Thereupon the Roman, as he was getting the worst of the argument, brazenly asserted that every Achaean who had held the office of general was included in his accusation, since one and all had favoured the cause of the Macedonians and Perseus. This he said at the bidding of Callicrates. After him rose Xenon, a man of great repute among the Achaeans, and said “The truth about this accusation is as follows. I myself have served the Achaeans as their general, but I am guilty neither of treachery to Rome nor of friendship to Perseus. I am therefore ready to submit to trial either before the Achaean diet or before the Romans themselves.” This frank speech was prompted by a clear conscience,

[7.10.10] but the Roman at once grasped the pretext, and sent for trial before the Roman court all those whom Callicrates accused of supporting Perseus. Never before had Greeks been so treated, for not even the most powerful of the Macedonians, Philip, the son of Amyntas, and Alexander, despatched by force to Macedonia the Greeks who were opposed to them, but allowed them to plead their case before the Amphictyons.24

[7.10.11] But on this occasion it was decided to send up to Rome every one of the Achaean people, however innocent, whom Callicrates chose to accuse. They amounted to over a thousand men. The Romans, holding that all these had already been condemned by the Achaeans, distributed them throughout Etruria and its cities, and though the Achaeans sent embassy after embassy to plead on behalf of the men, no notice was taken of the petitions.

[7.10.12] Sixteen years later,25 when the number of Achaeans in Italy was reduced to three hundred at most, the Romans set them free, considering that their punishment was sufficient. But those who ran away, either at once when they were being brought up to Rome, or later on from the cities to which the Romans sent them, were saved from punishment by no defence if they were recaptured.

[7.11.1] XI. The Romans again despatched a senator to Greece. His name was Gallus, and his instructions were to arbitrate between the Lacedaemonians and the Argives in the case of a disputed piece of territory. This Gallus on many occasions behaved towards the Greek race with great arrogance, both in word and deed, while he made a complete mock of the Lacedaemonians and Argives.

[7.11.2] These states had reached the highest degree of renown, and in a famous war of old had poured out their blood like water because of a dispute about boundaries, while later Philip, the son of Amyntas, had acted as arbitrator to settle their differences; yet now Gallus disdained to arbitrate in person, and entrusted the decision to Callicrates, the most abominable wretch in all Greece.

[7.11.3] There also came to Gallus the Aetolians living at Pleuron, who wished to detach themselves from the Achaean confederacy. Gallus allowed them to send on their own an embassy to Rome, and the Romans allowed them to secede from the Achaean League. The senate also commissioned Gallus to separate from the Achaean confederacy as many states as he could.

[7.11.4] While he was carrying out his instructions, the Athenian populace sacked Oropus, a state subject to them. The act was one of necessity rather than of free-will, as the Athenians at the time suffered the direst poverty, because the Macedonian war had crushed them more than any other Greeks. So the Oropians appealed to the Roman senate. It decided that an injustice had been committed, and instructed the Sicyonians to inflict a fine on the Athenians commensurate with the unprovoked harm done by them to Oropus.

[7.11.5] When the Athenians did not appear in time for the trial, the Sicyonians inflicted on them a fine of five hundred talents, which the Roman senate on the appeal of the Athenians remitted with the exception of one hundred talents. Not even this reduced fine did the Athenians pay, but by promises and bribes they beguiled the Oropians into an agreement that an Athenian garrison should enter Oropus, and that the Athenians should take hostages from the Oropians. If in the future the Oropians should have any complaint to make against the Athenians, then the Athenians were to withdraw their garrison from Oropus and give the hostages back again.

[7.11.6] After no long interval the Oropians were wronged by certain of the garrison. They accordingly despatched envoys to Athens to ask for the restoration of their hostages and to request that the garrison be withdrawn according to the agreement. The Athenians refused to do either of these things, saying that the blame lay, not with the Athenian people, but with the men of the garrison. They promised, however, that the culprits should he brought to account.

[7.11.7] The Oropians then appealed to the Achaeans for aid, but these refused to give it out of friendship and respect for the Athenians. Thereupon the Oropians promised Menalcidas, a Lacedaemonian who was then general of the Achaeans, a gift of ten talents if he would induce the Achaeans to help them. Menalcidas promised half of the money to Callicrates, who on account of his friendship with the Romans had most influence among the Achaeans.

[7.11.8] Callicrates was persuaded to adopt the plan of Menalcidas, and it was decided to help the Oropians against the Athenians. News of this was brought to the Athenians, who, with all the speed each could, came to Oropus, again dragged away anything they had overlooked in the previous raids, and brought away the garrison. As the Achaeans were too late to render help, Menalcidas and Callicrates urged them to invade Attica. But they met with opposition, especially from Lacedaemon, and the army withdrew.

[7.12.1] XII. Though the Oropians had received no help from the Achaeans, nevertheless Menalcidas extorted the money from them. But when he had the bribe in his hands, he began to think it hard luck that he had to share his gains with Callicrates. At first he had recourse to procrastination and deceit about payment, but shortly he plucked up courage and flatly refused to give anything.

[7.12.2] It confirms the truth of the proverb that one fire burns more fiercely than another, one wolf is more savage than other wolves, one hawk swifter than another, that Menalcidas outdid in treachery Callicrates, the worst rascal of his time, one who could never resist a bribe of any kind. He fell foul of the Athenians without gaining anything, and, when Menalcidas laid down his office, accused him before the Achaeans on a capital charge. He said that Menalcidas, when on an embassy to Rome, had worked against the Achaeans and had done all he could to separate Sparta from the Achaean League.

[7.12.3] Thereupon, as the danger he ran was extreme, Menalcidas gave three of the talents he received from Oropus to Diaeus of Megalopolis, who had succeeded him as general of the Achaeans, and on this occasion was so active, because of the bribe, that he succeeded in saving Menalcidas in spite of the opposition of the Achaeans. The Achaeans, individually and as a body, held Diaeus responsible for the acquittal of Menalcidas, but he distracted their attention from the charges made against him by directing it towards more ambitious hopes, using to deceive them the following pretext.

[7.12.4] The Lacedaemonians appealed to the Roman senate about a disputed territory, and the senate replied to the appeal by decreeing that all except capital cases should be under the jurisdiction of the Achaean League. Such was the senate's answer, but Diaeus did not tell the Achaeans the truth, but cajoled them by the declaration that the Roman senate had committed to them the right to condemn a Spartan to death.

[7.12.5] So the Achaeans claimed the right to try a Lacedaemonian on a capital charge, but the Lacedaemonians would not admit that Diaeus spoke the truth, and wished to refer the point to the Roman senate. But the Achaeans seized another pretext, that no state belonging to the Achaean League had the right to send an embassy on its own to the Roman senate, but only in conjunction with the rest of the League.

[7.12.6] These disputes were the cause of a war between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, and the former, realizing that they were not a match for their opponents, sent envoys to their cities and entered into personal negotiations with Diaeus. The cities all made the same reply, that it was unlawful to turn a deaf ear to their general when he proclaimed a campaign; for Diaeus, who was in command of the Achaeans, declared that he would march to make war, not on Sparta but on those that were troubling her.

[7.12.7] When the Spartan senate inquired how many he considered were guilty, he reported to them the names of twenty-four citizens of the very front rank in Sparta. Thereupon was carried a motion of Agasisthenes, whose advice on this occasion enhanced the already great reputation he enjoyed. He bade the twenty-four to go into voluntary exile from Lacedaemon, instead of bringing war upon Sparta by remaining where they were; if they exiled themselves to Rome, he declared, they would before long be restored to their country by the Romans.

[7.12.8] So they departed, underwent a nominal trial at Sparta, and were condemned to death. The Achaeans on their side despatched to Rome Callicrates and Diaeus to oppose the exiles from Sparta before the senate. Callicrates died of disease on the journey, and even if he had reached Rome I do not know that he would have been of any assistance to the Achaeans – perhaps he would have been the cause of greater troubles. The debate between Diaeus and Menalcidas before the senate was marked by fluency rather than by decency on either side.

[7.12.9] The answer of the senate to their remarks was that they were sending envoys to settle the disputes between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans. The journey of the envoys from Rome proved rather slow, giving Diaeus a fresh opportunity of deceiving the Achaeans and Menalcidas of deceiving the Lacedaemonians. Diaeus misled the Achaeans into the belief that the Roman senate had decreed the complete subjection to them of the Lacedaemonians; Menalcidas deceived the Lacedaemonians into thinking that the Romans had entirely freed them from the Achaean League.

[7.13.1] XIII. So the result of the debate was that the Achaeans again came near to actual war with the Lacedaemonians, and Damocritus, who had been elected general of the Achaeans at this time, proceeded to mobilize an army against Sparta. But about this time there arrived in Macedonia a Roman force under Metellus, whose object was to put down the rebellion of Andriscus, the son of Perseus, the son of Philip. The war in Macedonia, it turned out, was easily decided in favour of the Romans,

[7.13.2] but Metellus urged the envoys, sent by the Roman senate to settle the affairs of Asia, to parley with the chiefs of the Achaeans before making the crossing. They were to order them not to attack Sparta, but to await the arrival from Rome of the envoys sent for the purpose of arbitrating between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans.

[7.13.3] They delivered their instructions to the Achaeans under Damocritus when these had already begun a campaign against Lacedaemon, and so, realizing that the Achaeans were set against their advice, proceeded on their way to Asia. The Lacedaemonians, with a spirit greater than their strength, took up arms, and sallied forth to defend their country. But they were soon crushed; a thousand of their bravest youths fell in the battle, and the rest of the soldiery fled towards the city with all the haste they could.

[7.13.4] If Damocritus had made a vigorous effort, the Achaeans could have dashed into the walls of Sparta along with the fugitives from the field of battle. As it was, he at once recalled the Achaeans from the pursuit, and confined his future operations to raids and plunder, instead of prosecuting the siege with energy.

[7.13.5] So Damocritus withdrew his army, and the Achaeans sentenced him to pay a fine of fifty talents for his treachery. Being unable to pay, he left the Peloponnesus and went into exile. Diaeus, who was elected general after Damocritus, agreed, when Metellus sent another embassy, to involve the Lacedaemonians in no war, but to await the arrival of the arbitrators from Rome.

[7.13.6] But he invented another trick to embarrass the Lacedaemonians. He induced the towns around Sparta to be friendly to the Achaeans, and even introduced garrisons into them, to be Achaean bases against Sparta.

[7.13.7] The Lacedaemonians elected Menalcidas to be their general against Diaeus, and although they were utterly unprepared for war, being especially ill-provided with money, while in addition their land had remained unsown, he nevertheless dared to break the truce, and took by assault and sacked Iasus, a town on the borders of Laconia, but at that time subject to the Achaeans.

[7.13.8] Having again stirred up war between Lacedaemonians and Achaeans he incurred blame at the hands of his countrymen, and, failing to find a way of escape for the Lacedaemonians from the peril that threatened them, he took his own life by poison. Such was the end of Menalcidas. At the time he was in command of the Lacedaemonians, and previously he had commanded the Achaeans. In the former office he proved a most stupid general, in the latter an unparalleled villain.

[7.14.1] XIV. There also arrived in Greece the envoys despatched from Rome to arbitrate between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, among them being Orestes. He invited to visit him the magistrates in each of the Greek cities, along with Diaeus. When they arrived at his lodging, he proceeded to disclose to them the whole story, that the Roman senate decreed that neither the Lacedaemonians nor yet Corinth itself should belong to the Achaean League, and that Argos, Heracleia by Mount Oeta and the Arcadian Orchomenus should be released from the Achaean confederacy. For they were not, he said, related at all to the Achaeans, and but late-comers to the League.

[7.14.2] The magistrates of the Achaeans did not wait for Orestes to conclude, but while he was yet speaking ran out of the house and summoned the Achaeans to an assembly. When the Achaeans heard the decision of the Romans, they at once turned against the Spartans who happened to be then residing in Corinth, and arrested every one, not only those whom they knew for certain to be Lacedaemonians, but also all those they suspected to be such from the cut of their hair, or because of their shoes, their clothes or even their names. Some of them, who succeeded in taking refuge in the lodging of Orestes, they actually attempted even from there to drag away by force.

[7.14.3] Orestes and his colleagues tried to check their violence, reminding them that they were committing unprovoked acts of criminal insolence against the Romans. A few days afterwards the Achaeans shut up in prison the Lacedaemonians they held under arrest, but separated from them the foreigners and let them go. They also despatched to Rome Thearidas, with certain other members of the Achaean government. These set out, but meeting on the journey the Roman envoys who had been sent after Orestes to deal with the dispute between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, they too turned back.

[7.14.4] When the time came for Diaeus to relinquish his office, Critolaus was elected general by the Achaeans. This Critolaus was seized with a keen but utterly unthinking passion to make war against the Romans. The envoys from the Romans had by this time already arrived to adjudicate on the dispute between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, and Critolaus had a conference with them at Tegea in Arcadia, being most unwilling to summon the Achaeans to meet them in a general assembly. However, in the hearing of the Romans he sent messengers with instructions to summon the deputies to the assembly, but privately he sent orders to the deputies of the various cities to absent themselves from the meeting

[7.14.5] When the deputies did not attend, Critolaus showed very clearly how he was hoodwinking the Romans. He urged them to wait for another meeting of the Achaeans, to take place five months later, declaring that he would not confer with them without the general assembly of the Achaeans. When the envoys realized that they were being deceived, they departed for Rome but Critolaus summoned a meeting of the Achaeans at Corinth, and persuaded them both to take up arms against Sparta and also to declare war openly on Rome.

[7.14.6] For a king or state to undertake a war and be unlucky is due to the jealousy of some divinity rather than to the fault of the combatants; but audacity combined with weakness should be called madness rather than ill-luck. But it was such a combination that overthrew Critolaus and the Achaeans. The Achaeans were also encouraged by Pytheas, who at that time was Boeotarch at Thebes, and the Thebans promised to give enthusiastic support in the war.

[7.14.7] The Thebans had been sentenced, at the first ruling given by Metellus, to pay a fine for invading the territory of Phocis with an armed force; at the second to compensate the Euboeans for laying waste Euboea; at the third to compensate the people of Amphissa for ravaging their territory when the corn was ripe for harvest.

[7.15.1] XV. The Romans, learning the news from the envoys sent to Greece and from the despatches of Metellus, decided that the Achaeans were in the wrong, and they ordered Mummius, the consul elected for that year, to lead a fleet with a land force against them. As soon as Metellus learned that Mummius and his army were coming26 to fight the Achaeans, he was full of enthusiasm to bring the war to a conclusion without help before Mummius reached Greece.

[7.15.2] So he despatched envoys to the Achaeans, bidding them release from the League the Lacedaemonians and the other states mentioned in the order of the Romans, promising that the Romans would entirely forgive them for their disobedience on the previous occasion. While making these proposals for peace he marched from Macedonia through Thessaly and along the gulf of Lamia. But Critolaus and the Achaeans would listen to no suggestions for an agreement, and sat down to besiege Heracleia, which refused to join the Achaean League.

[7.15.3] Then, when Critolaus was informed by his scouts that the Romans under Metellus had crossed the Spercheius, he fled to Scarpheia in Locris, without daring even to draw up the Achaeans in the pass between Heracleia and Thermopylae, and to await Metellus there. To such a depth of terror did he sink that brighter hopes were not suggested even by the spot itself, the site of the Lacedaemonian effort to save Greece,27 and of the no less glorious exploit of the Athenians against the Gauls.28

[7.15.4] Critolaus and the Achaeans took to flight, but at a short distance from Scarpheia they were overtaken by the men of Metellus, who killed many and took about a thousand prisoners. Critolaus was neither seen alive after the battle nor found among the dead. If he dared to plunge into the marsh of the sea at the foot of Mount Oeta he must inevitably have sunk into the depths without leaving a trace to tell the tale.

[7.15.5] So the end of Critolaus offers a wide field for conjecture. A thousand picked troops of Arcadia, who had joined Critolaus in his enterprise, took the field and advanced as far as Elateia in Phocis, into which city they were received by the inhabitants on the ground of some supposed ancient connection between them. But when the Phocians heard of the disaster to Critolaus and the Achaeans, they ordered the Arcadians to depart from Elateia.

[7.15.6] As they were retreating to the Peloponnesus the Romans under Metellus fell upon them near Chaeroneia. It was then that the vengeance of the Greek gods overtook the Arcadians, who were slain by the Romans on the very spot on which they had deserted from the Greeks who were struggling at Chaeroneia against the Macedonians under Philip.

[7.15.7] Diaeus once more came forward to command the Achaean army. He proceeded to set free slaves, following the example of Miltiades and the Athenians before the battle of Marathon, and enlisted from the cities of the Achaeans and Arcadians those who were of military age. The muster, including the slaves, amounted roughly to six hundred cavalry and fourteen thousand foot.

[7.15.8] And here Diaeus sank into utter folly. Although he knew that Critolaus and the whole force of Achaia had put up such a poor fight against Metellus, he nevertheless detached about four thousand, put them under the command of Alcamenes, and despatched them to Megara to garrison the city, and to stay the advance of Metellus and the Romans, should they march that way.

[7.15.9] When the picked Arcadian troops had been overthrown near Chaeroneia, Metellus moved his army and marched against Thebes, for the Thebans had joined the Achaeans in investing Heracleia, and had taken part in the engagement of Scarpheia. Then the inhabitants, of both sexes and of all ages, abandoned the city and wandered about Boeotia, or took refuge on the tops of the mountains.

[7.15.10] But Metellus would not allow either the burning of sanctuaries of the gods or the destruction of buildings, and he forbade his men to kill any Theban or take prisoner any fugitive. If, however, Pytheas should be caught, he was to be brought before him. Pytheas was discovered immediately, brought before Metellus and punished. When the army approached Megara, Alcamenes and his men did not face it, but straightway fled to the camp of the Achaeans at Corinth.

[7.15.11] The Megarians surrendered their city to the Romans without a blow, and when Metellus came to the Isthmus he again made overtures to the Achaeans for an agreed peace. For he was possessed of a strong desire to settle by himself the affairs of both Macedonia and Achaia. His efforts, however, were thwarted by the senselessness of Diaeus.

[7.16.1] XVI. Mummius, bringing with him Orestes, the commissioner sent earlier to deal with the dispute between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, reached the Roman army at early dawn, and sending Metellus and his forces to Macedonia, himself waited at the Isthmus for his whole force to assemble. There came three thousand five hundred cavalry, while the infantry amounted to twenty-three thousand. They were joined by a company of Cretan archers and by Philopoemen, at the head of some troops sent by Attalus from Pergamus on the Caicus.

[7.16.2] Certain of the Italian troops along with the auxiliaries were stationed by Mummius twelve stades away, to be an outpost for the whole army. The contempt of the Romans made them keep a careless look-out, and the Achaeans, attacking them in the first watch, killed some, drove yet more back to the camp, and took some five hundred shields. Puffed up with this success the Achaeans marched out to battle before the Romans began their attack.

[7.16.3] But when Mummius advanced to meet them, the Achaean horse at once took to flight, without waiting for even the first charge of the Roman cavalry. The infantry were depressed at the rout of their horse, but nevertheless received the onslaught of the Roman men-at-arms; overwhelmed by numbers and faint with their wounds they offered a spirited resistance, until a thousand picked Romans fell upon their flank and utterly routed them.

[7.16.4] If after the battle Diaeus had boldly thrown himself into Corinth and received the fugitives within the walls, the Achaeans might have been able to get favorable terms from Mummius, by putting him to the trouble of a protracted siege. As it was, when the Achaeans were but beginning to yield, Diaeus fled straight for Megalopolis, his conduct towards the Achaeans showing a marked contrast to that of Callistratus, the son of Empedus, towards the Athenians.

[7.16.5] This man commanded some cavalry in Sicily, and when the Athenians and their partners in the expedition were being massacred at the river Asinarus, he courageously cut a way through the enemy at the head of his horsemen. He brought most of them safe to Catana, and then returned by the same way back to Syracuse. Finding the enemy still plundering the Athenian camp, he cut down some five of them, and then both he and his horse received mortal wounds and died.

[7.16.6] So he won glory for the Athenians and for himself, by saving the men under his command and seeking his own death. But Diaeus having ruined the Achaeans came to tell the tidings of disaster to the people of Megalopolis, killed his wife with his own hand, just to save her from being taken prisoner, and then committed suicide by drinking poison. He may be compared to Menalcidas for his avarice, and proved equally like him in the cowardice of his death.

[7.16.7] As soon as night fell, the Achaeans who had escaped to Corinth after the battle fled from the city, and there fled with them most of the Corinthians themselves. At first Mummius hesitated to enter Corinth, although the gates were open, as he suspected that an ambush had been laid within the walls. But on the third day after the battle he proceeded to storm Corinth and to set it on fire.

[7.16.8] The majority of those found in it were put to the sword by the Romans, but the women and children Mummius sold into slavery. He also sold all the slaves who had been set free, had fought on the side of the Achaeans, and had not fallen at once on the field of battle. The most admired votive offerings and works of art were carried off by Mummius; those of less account he gave to Philopoemen, the general sent by Attalus; even in my day there were Corinthian spoils at Pergamus.

[7.16.9] The walls of all the cities that had made war against Rome Mummius demolished, disarming the inhabitants, even before assistant commissioners were despatched from Rome, and when these did arrive, he proceeded to put down democracies and to establish governments based on a property qualification. Tribute was imposed on Greece, and those with property were forbidden to acquire possessions in a foreign country. Racial confederacies, whether of Achaeans, or Phocians, or Boeotians, or of any other Greek people, were one and all put down.

[7.16.10] A few years later the Romans took pity on Greece, restored the various old racial confederacies, with the right to acquire property in a foreign country, and remitted the fines imposed by Mummius. For he had ordered the Boeotians to pay a hundred talents to the people of Heracleia and Euboea, and the Achaeans to pay two hundred to the Lacedaemonians. Although the Romans granted the Greeks remission of these payments, yet down to my day a Roman governor has been sent to the country. The Romans call him the Governor, not of Greece, but of Achaia, because the cause of the subjection of Greece was the Achaeans, at that time at the head of the Greek nation.29 This war came to an end when Antitheus was archon at Athens, in the hundred and sixtieth Olympiad,30 at which Diodorus of Sicyon was victorious.31

[7.17.1] XVII. It was at this time that Greece was struck with universal and utter prostration, although parts of it from the beginning had suffered ruin and devastation at the hand of heaven. Argos, a city that reached the zenith of its power in the days of the heroes, as they are called, was deserted by its good fortune at the Dorian revolution.

[7.17.2] The people of Attica, reviving after the Peloponnesian war and the plague, raised themselves again only to be struck down a few years later by the ascendancy of Macedonia. From Macedonia the wrath of Alexander swooped like a thunderbolt on Thebes of Boeotia. The Lacedaemonians suffered injury through Epaminondas of Thebes and again through the war with the Achaeans. And when painfully, like a shoot from a mutilated and mostly withered trunk, the Achaean power sprang up, it was cut short, while still growing, by the cowardice32 of its generals.

[7.17.3] At a later time, when the Roman imperial power devolved upon Nero, he gave to the Roman people the very prosperous island of Sardinia in exchange for Greece, and then bestowed upon the latter complete freedom. When I considered this act of Nero it struck me how true is the remark of Plato, the son of Ariston, who says that the greatest and most daring crimes are committed, not by ordinary men, but by a noble soul ruined by a perverted education.33

[7.17.4] The Greeks, however, were not to profit by the gift. For in the reign of Vespasian, the next emperor after Nero, they became embroiled in a civil war; Vespasian ordered that they should again pay tribute and be subject to a governor, saying that the Greek people had forgotten how to be free.

1. Hom. Il. 2.575 2. See Pind. fr. 174. 3. This is rather a strange sense to give to enostêse, and perhaps with Sylburg we should read enosêse, “became unhealthy,” (owing to its being stagnant). 4. Paus. 1.9.7 5. Hom. Il. 18.592 foll. 6. That is, Nemesis. 7. 480 B.C. 8. 432 B.C. 9. 338 B.C. 10. 323 B.C.

11. 279 B.C. 12. 278 B.C. 13. 335 B.C. 14. 222 B.C. 15. See Paus. 8.27.5. 16. See Paus. 1.36.5. 17. See Paus. 8.51. 18. 197 B.C. 19. 494 B.C. 20. 480 B.C.

21. Sylburg would read Aleuadôn, “by the Aleuads.” 22. 322 B.C. 23. Fr. 49 (Bergk). 24. 167 B.C. 25. 151 B.C. 26. The reading of the MSS., aphikoito, should mean “had arrived,” a meaning inconsistent with the end of the sentence. It seems likely, therefore, that Kayser's emendation, aphixoito, is right. 27. 480 B.C. 28. 279 B.C. 29. With Frazer's reading: “when the Romans subdued Greece, Achaia was at the head, etc.” 30. 140 B.C. 31. Pausanias seems to have made a mistake, as Corinth was taken in 146 B.C. 32. kakia means literally “badness,” and includes in this context all the bad qualities a stratêgos could have – disloyalty and corruptibility as well as cowardice. 33. Plat. Rep. 491e