Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/419

ARATUS. 411 and celebrated sacrifices, processions, and games in honor of Antigonus, Aratus's citizens setting the example and receiving Antigonus, who was lodged and entertained at Aratus's house. All these things they treated as his fault, not knowing that having once put the reins into Antigonus's hands, and let himself be borne by the impetus of regal power, he was no longer master of any thing but one single voice, the liberty of which it was not so very safe for him to use. For it was very plain that Aratus was much troubled at several things, as appeared by the business about the statues. For Anti- gonus replaced the statues of the tyrants of Argos that had been thrown down, and on the contrary threw down the statues of all those that had taken the Acro- Corinthus, except that of Aratus, nor could Aratus, by all his entreaties, dissuade him. Also, the usage of the Mantineans by the Achaeans seemed not in accordance with the Grecian feelings and manners. For being masters of their city by the help of Antigonus, they put to death the chief and most noted men amongst them ; and of the rest, some they sold, others they sent, bound in fetters, into Macedonia, and made slaves of their wives and children ; and of the money thus raised, a third part they divided among themselves, and the other two thirds were distributed among the Mace- donians. And this might seem to have been justified by the law of retaliation; for although it be a barbarous thing for men of the same nation and blood thus to deal with one another in their fury, ^'ct necessity makes it, as Simonides says, sweet and something excusable, being the proper thing, in the mind's painfid and inflamed con- dition, to give alleviation and relief But for what was afterwards done to that city, Aratus cannot be defended on any ground either of reason or necessity. For the Argives having had the city bestowed on them by Anti-