he leant his arm sideways against a pillar and laid his
head on it, and so he waited in silence till word was brought him that
the citizens wished him to escape.

He quietly left Sparta and sailed for Alexandria, where the king, Ptolemy
the Benefactor, at first was short and cold with him, because he would
not cringe to him, but soon learned to admire him, treated him as a
brother, promised him help to regain Sparta, and gave him a pension,
which he spent in relieving other exiled Greeks. But the Benefactor
died, and his son, Ptolemy Philopator, was a selfish wretch, who hated
and dreaded the grave, stern man who was a continual rebuke to him, and
who, the Alexandrians said, walked about like a lion in a sheepfold. He
refused the fleet his father had promised, would not let Cleomenes go
back alone to try his fortune on Antigonus' death, and at last, on some
report of his meaning to attack Cyrene, had him shut up with his friends
in a large room. They broke forth, and tried to fight their way to a
ship, but they were hemmed in, no one came to their aid, and rather than
be taken prisoners, they all fell on their own swords; and on the
tidings, Ptolemy commanded all the women and children to be put to death.
Cratesiclea saw her two grandsons slain before her eyes, and then crying,
"Oh, children, where are ye gone?" herself held out her neck for the
rope.

[Picture: Temple of Neptune]

CHAP. XXXVII. PHILOPOEMEN, THE LAST OF THE GREEKS. B.C. 236-184.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]

The jealousy and rivalry of Aratus and the Achaians had made them put
themselves under the power of Macedon, in order thus to overthrow Sparta.
Aratus seemed to have lost all his skill and spirit, for when the robber
AEtolians again made an attack on the Peloponnesus, he managed so ill as
to have a great defeat; and the Achaians were forced again to call for
the help of the Macedonians, whose king was now Philip, son to Antigonus.

A war went on for many years between the Macedonians, with the Achaians
on the one hand and the AEtolians on the other. Aratus was a friend and
adviser to Philip, but would gladly have loosened the yoke he had helped
to lay on Greece. When the old Messenian town of Ithome fell into the
hands of Philip, he went into the temple of Jupiter, with Aratus and
another adviser called Demetrius the Pharian, to consult the sacrifices
as to whether he should put