Execution of Aristomachus
Again Phylarchus says that Aristomachus the Argive,
note
a man of a most distinguished family, who
had been despot of Argos, as his fathers had
been before him, upon falling into the hands of Antigonus
and the league "was hurried off to Cenchreae and there
racked to death,—an unparalleled instance of injustice and
cruelty." But in this matter also our author preserves his
peculiar method. He makes up a story about certain
cries of this man, when he was on the rack, being heard
through the night by the neighbours: "some of whom," he
says, "rushed to the house in their horror, or incredulity,
or indignation at the outrage." As for the sensational story,
let it pass; I have said enough on that point. But I must
express my opinion that, even if Aristomachus had committed
no crime against the Achaeans besides, yet his whole life and
-- 155 --
his treason to his own country deserved the heaviest possible
punishment. And in order, forsooth, to enhance this man's
reputation, and move his reader's sympathies for his sufferings,
our historian remarks that he had not only been a tyrant
himself, but that his fathers had been so before him. It would
not be easy to bring a graver or more bitter charge against a
man than this: for the mere word "tyrant" involves the idea
of everything that is wickedest, and includes every injustice
and crime possible to mankind. And if Aristomachus endured
the most terrible tortures, as Phylarchus says, he yet would
not have been sufficiently punished for the crime of one day,
in which, when Aratus had effected an entrance into Argos
with the Achaean soldiers,—and after supporting the most
severe struggles and dangers for the freedom of its citizens, had
eventually been driven out, because the party within who were
in league with him had not ventured to stir, for fear of the
tyrant,—Aristomachus availed himself of the pretext of their
complicity with the irruption of the Achaeans to put to the rack
and execute eighty of the leading citizens, who were perfectly
innocent, in the presence of their relations. I pass by the
history of his whole life and the crimes of his ancestors; for
that would be too long a story.
