Aratus Poisoned
Though regarding the Messenians as open enemies,
Philip was unable to inflict serious damage upon them, in spite
of his setting to work to devastate their territory; but he was
guilty of abominable conduct of the worst description to men
who had been his most intimate friends. For on the elder
Aratus showing disapproval of his proceedings at
Messene, he
caused him not long afterwards to be made
away with by poison, through the agency of
Taurion who had charge of his interests in the
Peloponnese.
Death of Aratus, B. C. 213. |
The crime was not known at the time by other
people; for the drug was not one of those which kill on the
spot, but was a slow poison producing a morbid state of the body.
Aratus himself however was fully aware of the cause of his illness;
and showed that he was so by the following circumstance.
Though he kept the secret from the rest of the world, he did not
conceal it from one of his servants named Cepholon, with whom
he was on terms of great affection. This man waited on him
during his illness with great assiduity, and having one day
pointed out some spittle on the wall which was stained with
blood, Aratus remarked, 'That is the reward I have got for
my friendship to Philip." Such a grand and noble thing is
disinterested virtue, that the sufferer was more ashamed, than
the inflicter of the injury, of having it known, that, after so
many splendid services performed in the interests of Philip, he
had got such a return as that for his loyalty.
1
In consequence of having been so often elected Strategus
of the Achaean league, and of having performed
so many splendid services for that people, Aratus
after his death met with the honours he deserved,
both in his own native city and from the league
as a body. They voted him sacrifices and the honours of
heroship, and in a word every thing calculated to perpetuate his
memory; so that, if the departed have any consciousness, it is
but reasonable to think that he feels pleasure at the gratitude
of the Achaeans, and at the thought of the hardships and
dangers he endured in his life. . . .
