The Aetolians and Illyrians Invade Achaia
The Epirotes and King Philip on hearing the ambassadors consented to admit the Messenians to alliance; but though
the conduct of the Aetolians caused them momentary indignation, they were not excessively moved by it, because it was no
more than what the Aetolians habitually did. Their anger,
therefore, was short-lived, and they presently voted against
going to war with them. So true is it that an habitual course
of wrong-doing finds readier pardon than when it is spasmodic
or isolated. The former, at any rate, was the case with the
Aetolians: they perpetually plundered
Greece, and levied unprovoked war upon many of its people: they did not deign either
to make any defence to those who complained, but answered
only by additional insults if any one challenged them to arbitration for injuries which they had inflicted, or indeed which they
meditated inflicting.
Treachery of the Spartans. |
And yet the Lacedaemonians, who had but recently been liberated
by means of Antigonus and the generous zeal
of the Achaeans, and though they were bound not to commit
any act of hostility towards the Macedonians and Philip, sent
clandestine messages to the Aetolians, and arranged a secret
treaty of alliance and friendship with them.
The army had already been enrolled from the Achaeans of
Invasion of Achaia by the Aetolians and Illyrians. |
military age, and had been assigned to the duty
of assisting the Lacedaemonians and Messenians, when Scerdilaidas and Demetrius of
Pharos sailed with ninety galleys beyond
Lissus,
contrary to the terms of their treaty with
Rome. These men
first touched at
Pylos, and failing in an attack upon it, they
separated: Demetrius making for the
Cyclades, from some
of which he exacted money and plundered others; while
Scerdilaidas, directing his course homewards, put in at
Naupactus with forty galleys at the instigation of Amynas, king of
the Athamanes, who happened to be his brother-in-law; and
after making an agreement with the Aetolians, by the agency
of Agelaus, for a division of spoils, he promised to join them
in their invasion of
Achaia. With this agreement made with
Scerdilaidas, and with the co-operation of the city of Cynaetha,
Agelaus, Dorimachus, and Scopas, collected a general levy
of the Aetolians, and invaded
Achaia in conjunction with the
Illyrians.
