hen he was only twenty he wrote to friends at Sicyon, and finding them
of the same mind with himself, he climbed the walls at night and met
them. The people gathered round him, and he caused it to be proclaimed
with a loud voice, "Aratus, the son of Clinias, calls on Sicyon to resume
her liberty." The people all began rushing to the tyrant's house. He
fled by an underground passage, and his house was set on fire, but not
one person on either side was killed or wounded. Aratus was resolved to
keep Sicyon free, and in order to make her strong enough, he persuaded
the citizens to join her to the Achaian League; and he soon became the
leading man among all the Achaians, and his example made other cities
come into the same band of union. He further tried to gain strength by
an alliance with Egypt, and he went thither to see Ptolemy III., called
Euergetes, or the Benefactor. It is said that Ptolemy's good-will was
won by Aratus' love of art, and especially of pictures. Apelles, the
greatest Grecian painter, was then living, and had taken a portrait of
one of the tyrants of Sicyon. Aratus had destroyed all their likenesses,
and he stood a long time looking at this one before he could bring
himself to condemn it, but at last he made up his mind that it must not
be spared. Ptolemy liked him so much that he granted him 150 talents for
the city, and the Achaians were so much pleased that they twice elected
him their general, and the second time he did them a great service.

[Picture: Corinth]

In the middle of the Isthmus of Corinth stood the city, and in the midst
was a fort called Acro-Corinthus, perched on a high hill in the very
centre of the city, so that whoever held it was master of all to the
south, and old Philip of Macedon used to call it the Corinthian shackles
of Greece. The king of Macedon, Antigonus III., now held it; but Aratus
devised a scheme to take it. A Corinthian named Erginus had come to
Sicyon on business, and there met a friend of Aratus, to whom he chanced
to mention that there was a narrow path leading up to the Acro-Corinthus
at a place where the wall was low. Aratus heard of this, and promised
Erginus sixty talents if he would guide him to the spot; but as he had
not the money, he placed all his gold and silver plate and his wife's
jewels in pledge for the amount.

On the appointed night Aratus came with 400 men, carrying
scaling-ladders, and placed them in the t