beginning of the first real federation which Greece had ever known. This federation, of which Aratus at once became the leading spirit, was beyond all doubt what the Germans happily term a Bundesstaat, as distinguished from a Staatenbund;[1] that is, it constituted a State in itself, and was not merely an alliance of perfectly independent cities. Plutarch, who had studied it carefully, in order to write his life of Aratus, thus briefly sketches it in his later biography of Philopœmen (ch. viii.): —
"Aratus was the first who raised the commonwealth of the Achæans to dignity and power. For whereas before they were in a low condition, scattered in unconnected cities, he combined them in one body, and gave them a moderate civil government worthy of Greece. And as it happens in running waters that when a few small bodies stop others stick to them, and one part strengthening another the whole becomes one firm and solid mass, so it was with Greece. At a time when she was weak and easily broken, dispersed in a variety of independent cities, the Achæans first united themselves: and then attaching some of the neighbouring cities by assisting them to expel their tyrants, while others voluntarily joined them for the sake of that unanimity which they beheld in so well constituted a government, they conceived the design of incorporating Peloponnesus into one great power."
The general idea of the character of the League which is here indicated is borne out by the valuable evidence of Polybius, whose connection with it in its later days was an important though a melancholy one. Chiefly from him we learn the following significant facts.[2] Unlike the older Greek leagues,
