emple of Juno, outside the city,
where they all sat down and took off their shoes. A heavy fog came on,
and entirely hid them; and Aratus, with 100 picked men, came to the rock
at the foot of the city wall, and there waited while Erginus and seven
others, dressed as travellers, went to the gates and killed the sentinel
and guard, without an alarm. Then the ladders were fixed, and Aratus
came up with his men, and stood under the wall unseen, while four men
with lights passed by them. Three of these they killed, but the fourth
escaped, and gave the alarm. The trumpets were sounded, and every street
was full of lights and swarmed with men; but Aratus, meantime, was trying
to climb the steep rocks, and groping for the path leading up to the
citadel. Happily the fog lifted for a moment, the moon shone out, and he
saw his way, and hastened up to the Acro-Corinthus, where he began to
fight with the astonished garrison. The 300 men whom he had left in the
temple of Juno heard the noise in the city and saw the lights, then
marched in and came to the foot of the rock, but not being able to find
the path, they drew up at the foot of a precipice, sheltered by an
overhanging rock, and there waited in much anxiety, hearing the battle
overhead, but not able to join in it. The Macedonian governor, in the
meantime, had called out his men, and was going up to support the guard
in the fort, blowing his trumpets, when, as he passed these men, they
dashed out on him, just as if they had been put in ambush on purpose, and
so dismayed them in the confusion that they fancied the enemy five times
as many, as the moon and the torches flashed on their armour, and they
let themselves all be made prisoners.

[Picture: View looking across Isthmus of Corinth]

By the time morning had come Corinth was in the hands of the Achaians,
and Aratus came down from the fortress to meet the people in the theatre.
His 400 men were drawn up in two lines at its entrances, and the
Corinthians filled the seats, and shouted with an ecstasy of joy, for it
was the first time for nearly a century that true Greeks had gained any
advantage over Macedonians. Aratus was worn out by anxiety, his long
march, and night of fighting, and as he stood leaning on his spear he
could hardly rally strength to address them, and while giving back to
them the keys of their city, which they had never had since Philip's
time, he exhorted them to join the League, which t