Greek Texts & Translations

THE year of office as Strategus of the younger Aratus had ^note now come to an end with the rising of the Pleiades; for that was the arrangement of time then observed by the Achaeans. ^note Accordingly he laid down his office and was succeeded in the command of the Achaeans by Eperatus; Dorimachus being still Strategus of the Aetolians.

It was at the beginning of this summer that Hannibal entered upon open war with Rome; started from New Carthage; and crossing the Iber, definitely began his expedition and march into Italy; while the Romans despatched Tiberius Sempronius to Libya with an army, and Publius Cornelius to Iberia.

This year, too, Antiochus and Ptolemy, abandoning diplomacy, and the support of their mutual claims upon Coele-Syria by negotiation, began actual war with each other.

As for Philip, being in need of corn and money for his ^note army, he summoned the Achaeans to a general assembly by means of their magistrates. When the assembly had met, according to the federal law, at Aegium, ^note the king saw that Aratus and his son were indisposed to act for him, because of the intrigues against them in the matter of the election, which had been carried on by Apelles; and that Eperatus was naturally inefficient, and an object of general contempt. These

facts convinced the king of the folly of Apelles and Leontius, and he once more decided to stand by Aratus. He therefore persuaded the magistrates to transfer the assembly to Sicyon; and there inviting both the elder and younger Aratus to an interview, he laid the blame of all that had happened upon Apelles, and urged them to maintain their original policy. Receiving a ready consent from them, he then entered the Achaean assembly, and being energetically supported by these two statesmen, carried all the measures that he desired. For the Achaeans past ^note a vote decreeing "that five hundred talents should be paid to the king at once for his last campaign; that three months' pay should be given to his army, and ten thousand medimni of corn: and that, for the future, so long as the king should remain in the Peloponnese as their ally in the war, he should receive seventeen talents a month from the Achaeans.