Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/398

390 ARATUS. country, nor any thing else was so dear to him as the increase of the Achaean power and greatness. For he believed that the cities, weak individually, could be pre- served by nothing else but a mutual assistance under the closest bond of the common interest ; and, as the mem- bers of the body live and breathe by the union of all in a single natural growth, and on the dissolution of this, when once they separate, pine away and putrify, in the same manner are cities ruined by being dissevered, as well as preserved when, as the members of one great body they enjoy the benefit of that providence and counsel that govern the whole. Now being distressed to see that, whereas the chief neighboring cities enjoyed their own laws and liberties, the Argives were in bondage, he took counsel for destroy-- ing their tyrant Aristomachus, being very desirous both to pay his debt of gratitude to the city where he had been bred up, by restoring it its liberty, and to add so considerable a town to the Achasans. Nor were there some wanting who had the courage to undertake the thing, of whom JSschylus and Charimeues the soothsayer were the chief But they wanted swords ; for the tyrant had prohibited the keeping of any under a great penalty. Therefore Aratus, having provided some small daggers at Corinth and hidden them in the packsaddles of some packhorses that carried ordinary ware, sent them to Argos. But Charimenes letting another person into the design, JEschylus and his partners were angry at it, and henceforth would have no more to do with him, and took their measures by themselves, and Charimenes, on finding this, went, out of anger, and informed against them, just as they were on their way to attack the tyrant; however, the most of them made a shift to escape out of the market-place, and fled to Corinth. Not long after, Aristomachus was slain by some slaves, and