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It was a great pity that these two free states in Laconia and Achaia were only wasting their strength against each other, instead of joining against Macedon. Aratus cared more for Achaia than for Greece, and soon was again at war with Sparta, and Cleomenes marched out against him.
But Cleomenes wrote a sarcastic letter to him, and desired to know, as from a friend, whither he intended to march at night; and Aratus answering, that having heard of his design to fortify Belbina, he meant to march thither to oppose him, Cleomenes rejoined, that he did not dispute it, but begged to be informed, if he might be allowed to ask the question, why he carried those torches and ladders with him.
He retreated, and Cleomenes in great joy put his troops in mind how in old times the Spartans never asked how many were the foe, but only where they were. Then he followed the Achaians and gained a great victory; indeed there was a doubt at first whether Aratus were not slain; but he had marched off with the remnant of the army, and next was heard of as having taken Mantinea.
He composed two comedies in Greek, some epigrams, and a translation of Aratus into Latin verse. He married Agrippina, the daughter of M. Agrippa, by whom he had nine children.
But the king, being now persuaded by Apelles, Megaleas, and other courtiers, that endeavored to ruin the credit Aratus had with him, took the side of the contrary faction, and joined them in canvassing to have Eperatus chosen general by the Achaeans.
Aratus was so hard pressed that he was compelled to solicit the assistance of the Macedonians.
Cleomenes faced them at Pallantium, and offered battle, but Aratus, being cowed by his bravery, would not suffer the general to engage, but retreated, amidst the reproaches of the Achaeans, and the derision and scorn of the Spartans, who were not above five thousand.
From this point of view we might certainly say that a widely gaping fissure which had nothing prejudicial in it to Aratus Pisonii among the foliage of the mangrove bushes, was not suitable to the Ocypoda living in sand; that in the latter, in order to prevent the penetration of the sand, the orifice of the branchial cavity must be placed at its lowest part, directed downwards, and concealed between broad surfaces fringed with protective brushes of hair.
It was composed of every Achaean who had attained the age of thirty, and possessed the right of electing the officers of the league, and of deciding all questions of war, peace, foreign alliances, and the like. In the year 245 B.C. Aratus was elected STRATEGUS of the league, and again in 243.
Wherefore Aratus is much blamed, that in a stormy and tempestuous time, like a cowardly pilot, he should forsake the helm, when it was even perhaps his duty to have insisted, whether they would or no, on saving them; or if he thought the Achaean affairs desperate, to have yielded all up to Cleomenes, and not to have let Peloponnesus fall once again into barbarism with Macedonian garrisons, and Acro-Corinthus be occupied with Illyric and Gaulish soldiers, and, under the specious name of Confederates, to have made those masters of the cities whom he had held it his business by arms and by policy to baffle and defeat, and, in the memoirs he left behind him, loaded with reproaches and insults.
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