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By this time the day began to break, and the theater was filled with a multitude that were held in suspense by uncertain reports and knew nothing distinctly of what had happened, until a public crier came forward and proclaimed that Aratus, the son of Clinias, invited the citizens to recover their liberty.
In the evil times, Sicyon, a city near Achaia, fell under the power of a tyrant, and about the time that Pyrrhus was killed, Clinias, a citizen of Sicyon, made a great attempt to free his townsmen, but he was found out, his house attacked, and he and his family all put to death, except his son Aratus, a little boy of seven years old, who ran away from the dreadful sight, and went wandering about the town, till by chance he came into the house of the tyrant’s sister.
But Aratus, still bent on effecting his old project, and impatient that tyranny should maintain itself in so near a city as Argos, sent to Aristomachus to persuade him to restore liberty to that city, and to associate it to the Achaeans, and that, following Lydiades's example, he should rather choose to be the general of a great nation, with esteem and honor, than the tyrant of one city, with continual hatred and danger.
Instead of seizing the tyranny for himself, as he might easily have done, Aratus consulted only the advantage of his country, and with this view united Sicyon with the Achaean league. The accession of so important a town does not appear to have altered the constitution of the confederacy.
Aratus was resolved to keep Sicyon free, and in order to make her strong enough, he persuaded the citizens to join her to the Achaian League; and he soon became the leading man among all the Achaians, and his example made other cities come into the same band of union.
The Achaeans, in virtue of a defensive treaty of alliance, sent to demand succors, as they expected every day that the Aetolians would attempt to enter Peloponnesus, from the territory of Megara. They had sent Aratus, their general, to collect forces to hinder this incursion.
By this time Aratus, being grown a youth, was in much esteem, both for his noble birth and his spirit and disposition, which, while neither insignificant nor wanting in energy, were solid, and tempered with a steadiness of judgment beyond his years.
Although general of the Achæan League, and one of the greatest men of his day, Aratus was far from being rich; and, in order to obtain the required sum, he had to sell all he had, and even pawn his wife's few jewels. Then, in the midst of the darkness, one rainy night, Diocles led the Achæan soldiers along a steep path, which they had to climb in Indian file.
Such was the opinion of Crates, who lived in the time of Alexander; of Aratus, of Cleanthes, of Cleomedes, of Strabo, of Pomponius Mela, of Macrobius, and many others. Hipparchus proposed a different system, and led the world into an error, which for a long time retarded the maritime communication of Europe and India.
So that though the light-armed soldiers had sallied out and driven the Lacedaemonians as far as their camp, and had come even to their tents, yet would not Aratus lead his men forward, but, posting himself in a hollow watercourse in the way thither, stopped and prevented the citizens from crossing this.
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