More Aetolian Outrages
Meanwhile Aratus, the Achaean Strategus, had despatched an appeal for help to Philip; was
Measures taken by Aratus. |
collecting the men selected for service; and was
sending for the troops, arranged for by virtue of
the treaty, from
Sparta and
Messenia.
The Aetolians at first urged the people of Cleitor to
abandon
The Aetolians at the temple of Artemis. They fail at Cleitor. |
their alliance with the Achaeans and adopt one
with themselves; and upon the Cleitorians
absolutely refusing, they began an assault upon
the town, and endeavoured to take it by an
escalade. But meeting with a bold and determined resistance
from the inhabitants, they desisted from the attempt; and
breaking up their camp marched back to Cynaetha, driving off
with them on their route the cattle of the goddess.
They burn Cynaetha and return home. |
They at
first offered the city to the Eleans, but upon their refusing to
accept it, they determined to keep the town in their own
hands, and appointed Euripides to command
it: but subsequently, on the alarm of an army
of relief coming from
Macedonia, they set fire
to the town and abandoned it, directing their march to
Rhium with the purpose of there taking ship and crossing
home.
But when Taurion heard of the Aetolian
invasion, and what had taken place at Cynaetha,
and saw that Demetrius of Pharos had sailed
into Cenchreae from his island expedition, he urged the latter
to assist the Achaeans, and dragging his galleys across the
Isthmus to attack the Aetolians as they crossed the gulf.
Now though Demetrius had enriched himself by his island
expedition, he had had to beat an ignominious retreat, owing to
the Rhodians putting out to sea to attack him: he was therefore
glad to accede to the request of Taurion, as the latter undertook the expense of having his galleys dragged across the
Isthmus.
1 He accordingly got them across, and arriving two
days after the passage of the Aetolians, plundered some places
on the seaboard of
Aetolia and then returned to
Corinth.
The Lacedaemonians had dishonourably failed to send the
full complement of men to which they were
bound by their engagement, but had despatched
a small contingent only of horse and foot, to
save appearances.
Aratus however, having his Achaean troops, behaved in this
instance also with the caution of a statesman,
rather than the promptness of a general: for
remembering his previous failure he remained
inactively watching events, until Scopas and Dorimachus had
accomplished all they wanted and were safe home again;
although they had marched through a line of country which
was quite open to attack, full of defiles, and wanting only a
trumpeter
2 to sound a call to arms. But the great disaster
and misfortunes endured by the Cynaethans at the hands
of the Aetolians were looked upon as most richly deserved by
them.