Antigonus Doson Will Help the League
These arguments seemed to Antigonus to have been
put by Aratus with equal sincerity and ability: and after
listening to them, he eagerly took the first necessary step by
writing a letter to the people of Megalopolis with an offer of
assistance, on condition that such a measure should receive the
consent of the Achaeans. When Nicophanes and Cercidas
returned home and delivered this despatch from the king,
-- 145 --
reporting at the same time his other expressions of goodwill and
zeal in the cause, the spirits of the people of Megalopolis were
greatly elated; and they were all eagerness to attend the
meeting of the league, and urge that measures should be taken
to secure the alliance of Antigonus, and to put the management of the war
in his hands with all despatch. note
Aratus learnt privately from Nicophanes the
king's feelings towards the league and towards
himself; and was delighted that his plan had not failed, and
that he had not found the king completely alienated from
himself, as the Aetolians hoped he would be. He regarded
it also as eminently favourable to his policy, that the people
of Megalopolis were so eager to use the Achaean league
as the channel of communication with Antigonus. For his
first object was if possible to do without this assistance; but
if he were compelled to have recourse to it, he wished that
the invitation should not be sent through himself personally,
but that it should rather come from the Achaeans as a nation.
For he feared that, if the king came, and conquered Cleomenes
and the Lacedaemonians in the war, and should then adopt any
policy hostile to the interests of the national constitution, he
would have himself by general consent to bear the blame of
the result: while Antigonus would be justified, by the injury
which had been inflicted on the royal house of Macedonia
in the matter of the Acrocorinthus. Accordingly when
Megalopolitan envoys appeared in the national council,
and showed the royal despatch, and further declared the
general friendly disposition of the king, and added an appeal
to the congress to secure the king's alliance without delay;
and when also the sense of the meeting was clearly shown
to be in favour of taking this course, Aratus rose, and, after
setting forth the king's zeal, and complimenting the meeting
upon their readiness to act in the matter, he proceeded to
urge upon them in a long speech that "They should try if
possible to preserve their cities and territory by their own
efforts, for that nothing could be more honourable or more
expedient than that: but that, if it turned out that fortune
declared against them in this effort, they might then have
recourse to the assistance of their friends; but not until they
-- 146 --
had tried all their own resources to the uttermost." This
speech was received with general applause: and it was decided
to take no fresh departure at present, and to endeavour to
bring the existing war to a conclusion unaided.
