Polybius, Histories, book 5, Aratus Elected Strategus

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Aratus Elected Strategus

When the next winter came, Philip having departed

Winter of B. C. 218-217.

to Macedonia, and the Achaean Strategus Eperatus having incurred the contempt of the Achaean soldiers and the complete disregard of the mercenaries, no one would obey his orders, and no preparation was made for the defence of the country. This was observed by Pyrrhias, who had been sent by the Aetolians to command the Eleans.

Disorder in Achaia owing to the incompetence of the Strategus Eperatus.

He had under him a force of thirteen hundred Aetolians, and the mercenaries hired by the Eleans, as well as a thousand Elean infantry and two hundred Elean cavalry, amounting in all to three thousand: and he now began committing frequent raids, not only upon the territories of Dyme and Pharae, but upon that of Patrae also. Finally he pitched his camp on what is called the Panachaean Mountain, which commands the town of Patrae, and began wasting the whole district towards Rhium and Aegium. The result was that the cities, being exposed to much suffering, and unable to obtain any assistance, began to make difficulties about paying their contribution to the league; and the soldiers finding their pay always in arrear and never paid at the right time acted in the same way about going to the relief of the towns. Both parties thus mutually retaliating on each other, affairs went from bad to worse, and at last the foreign contingent broke up altogether.

May, B.C. 217. Aratus the elder elected Strategus.

And all this was the result of the incompetence of the chief magistrate. The time for the next election finding Achaean affairs in this state, Eperatus laid down his office, and just at the beginning of summer Aratus the elder was elected Strategus.¹

Such was the position of affairs in Europe. We have now

140th Olympiad, Asia.

arrived at a proper juncture, both of events and of time, to transfer our narrative to the history of Asia. I will therefore resume my story of the transactions which occurred there during the same Olympiad.

1 Here again, as in 5, 1, the outgoing Strategus appears to go out of office at the time of the election of his successor (see note on ch. 1, and cp. 4, 6). There seems to have been some variety of practice. Perhaps the interval was left somewhat to mutual arrangement, the summer solstice being the outside limit.

Histories. Polybius. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. translator. London, New York. Macmillan. 1889. Reprint Bloomington 1962.

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Polybius, Histories