The Achaeans Must Appeal to Antigonus
But when Ptolemy, despairing of retaining the league's
note
friendship, began to furnish Cleomenes with
supplies,—which he did with a view of setting
him up as a foil to Antigonus, thinking the
Lacedaemonians offered him better hopes than
the Achaeans of being able to thwart the policy of the Macedonian kings.; and when the Achaeans themselves had suffered
three defeats,—one at Lycaeum in an engagement with Cleomenes whom they had met on a march; and again in a pitched
battle at Ladocaea in the territory of Megalopolis, in which
Lydiades fell; and a third time decisively at a place called Hecatomboeum in the territory of Dyme where their whole forces had
been engaged,—after these misfortunes, no further delay was
possible, and they were compelled by the force of circumstances
to appeal unanimously to Antigonus. Thereupon Aratus sent
his son to Antigonus, and ratified the terms of the subvention.
The great difficulty was this: it was believed to be certain that
the king would send no assistance, except on the condition of
the restoration of the Acrocorinthus, and of having the city
of Corinth put into his hands as a base of operations in this
war; and on the other hand it seemed impossible that the
Achaeans should venture to put the Corinthians in the king's
power against their own consent. The final determination of
the matter was accordingly postponed, that they might
investigate the question of the securities to be given to the
king.
