even furnish great statesmen, for all the heroes of the league were to come from outside Achaea itself. Still, the Achaean League is one of the most remarkable federations in history before the adoption of the present Constitution of the United States.

We know that there was some kind of a confederation in Achaea as early as the Persian War. Under the Macedonian rule the league was destroyed, and tyrants were set up in several of the ten Achaean cities. But, about 280 B.C., four small towns revived the ancient confederacy. The tyrants from the neighboring towns were driven out, and the union swiftly absorbed all Achaea. One generous incident belongs to this part of the story: Iseas, tyrant of Cerynea, voluntarily gave up his power and brought his city into the league.

So far Macedonia had not interfered. The Gallic invasion just at this time (§ 229) spread ruin over all the north of Hellas, and probably prevented hostile action in Achaea by the Macedonian king. Thus the federation became securely established.

244. The Constitution. - During this period the constitution was formed. The chief authority of the league was placed in a federal congress, or Assembly. This was not a representative body, but a mass meeting: it was made up of all citizens of the league who chose to attend. To prevent the city where the meeting was held from outweighing the others, each city was given only one vote. The Assembly was held twice a year, for only three days at a time, and in some small city, so that a great capital should not overshadow the rest of the league. It chose yearly a Council of Ten, a Senate, and a General (or president), with various subordinate officers. The same General could not be chosen two years in succession.

This government raised federal taxes and armies, and represented Achaea in all foreign relations. Each city remained a

1 That is, ten or twelve menor even one man - from a distant town cast the vote of that city, and counted just as much as several hundred from a city nearer the place of meeting.

distinct state, with full control over all its internal matters

and with its own Assembly, Council, and Generals; but no city of itself could make peace or war, enter into alliances, or send ambassadors to another state. That is, the Achaean League was a true federation, and not a mere alliance.

In theory, the constitution was extremely democratic in practice, it proved otherwise. Men attended the Assembly at their own expense; any Achaean might come, but only the wealthy could afford to do so, as a regular thing. Moreover, since the meetings of the Assembly were few and brief, great authority had to be left to the General and Council. Any Achaean was eligible to these offices; but poor men could hardly afford to take them, because they had no salaries. The Greek system of a primary assembly was suited only to single cities. A primary assembly made the city of Athens a perfect democracy: the same institution made the Achaean League intensely aristocratic.

The constitution, it is plain, avoided several evils common in early attempts at federation. It had two great faults. (1) It made little use of representation, which no doubt would have seemed to the Achaeans undemocratic, but which in practice would have enabled a larger part of the citizens to have a voice in the government; and (2) all cities, great or small, had the same vote.

This last did not matter so much perhaps at first, for the little Achaean towns did not differ greatly in size; but it became a plain injustice when the union came later to contain some of the most powerful cities in Greece. However, this feature was almost universal in early confederacies, and it was the principle of the American Union until 1789.1

1 The one exception of note was the Lycian Confederacy in Asia Minor. The Lycians were not Greeks, apparently; but they had taken on some Greek culture, and their federal union was an advance even upon the Achaean. It was absorbed by Rome, however, in 54 A.D., before it played an important part in history. In its Assembly, the vote was taken by cities, but the cities were divided into three classes: the largest had three votes each, the next class two each, and the smallest only one.

245. The First Expansion beyond Achaea. The power of the General was so great that the history of the league is the bioggraphy of a few great men. The most remarkable of these leaders was Aratus of Sicyon. Sicyon was a city on the Corinthian gulf, just outside Achaea, to the east. In this period it was ruled by a vile and bloody tyrant, who drove many leading citizens into exile. Among these exiles was the family of Aratus. When a youth of twenty years (251 B.C.), Aratus planned, by a night attack, to overthrow the tyrant and free his native city. The daring venture was brilliantly successful; but it aroused the hatred of Macedon, and, to preserve the freedom so nobly won, Aratus brought Sicyon into the Achaean federation.

246. Aratus: Character and Services. - Five years afterward Aratus was elected General of the league, and thereafter, he held that office each alternate year (as often as the constitution permitted) until his death, thirty-two years later.

Aratus hated tyrants, and longed for a free and united Greece. He extended the league far beyond the borders of Achaea, and raised it into a champion of Hellenic freedom. He aimed at a noble end, but did not refuse base means. He was incorruptible himself, and he lavished his vast wealth for the union; but he was bitterly jealous of other leaders. With plenty of daring in a dashing project, as he many times proved, he lacked nerve to command in battle; he frequently showed cowardice, and he never won a real victory in the field. Still, despite his many defeats, his persuasive power and his merits kept him the confidence of the union to the end of a long public life.

247. Growth of the League; Lydiadas. In his second generalship, Aratus freed Corinth from her Macedonian tyrant by a desperate night attack upon the garrison of the citadel. That

1 Aratus is the first statesman known to us from his own memoirs. That work itself no longer exists, but Plutarch drew upon it for his Life, as did Polybius for his History.

powerful city then entered the union. So did Megara, which itself drove out its Macedonian garrison. The league now commanded the Isthmus, and was safe from attack by Macedonia. Then several cities in Arcadia joined, and, in 234, Megalopolis (§ 211) was added, at that time one of the leading cities in Greece. Some years earlier its government had become a tyranny: Lydiadas, a gallant and enthusiastic youth, seized despotic power, meaning to use it for good ends.1 The growth of the Achaean League opened a nobler way: Lydiadas resigned his tyranny, and as a private citizen brought the Great City into the union.

This act made Lydiadas a popular hero, and Aratus became his bitter foe. The new leader was the more lovable figure, generous and ardent, a soldier as well as a statesman. He several times became General of the league, but even in office he was often thwarted by the disgraceful trickery of the older

man.

- For many years

248. The Freeing of Athens and Argos. Aratus had aimed to free Athens and Argos-sometimes by heroic endeavors, sometimes by assassination and poison. In 229, he succeeded. He bought the withdrawal of Macedonian troops from the Peiraeus, and Athens became an ally, though not a member, of the league.2 The tyrant of Argos was persuaded or frightened into following the example of Iseas and Lydiadas, -as indeed had happened meanwhile in many smaller cities, and Argos joined the confederacy.

The league now was the commanding power in Hellas. It included all Peloponnesus except Sparta and Elis. Moreover, all Greece south of Thermopylae had become free, largely through the influence of the confederacy,- and most of the

1 This was true of several tyrants in this age, and it was due no doubt in part to the new respect for monarchy since Alexander's time, and in part to new theories of government taught by the philosophers.

2 The old historic cities, Athens and Sparta, could not be brought to look favorably upon such a union.

states not inside the union had at least entered into friendly alliance with it.

249. The Conflict with Sparta; Social Reforms in Sparta. But now came a conflict with Sparta. The struggle was connected with a great reform within that ancient city. The forms of the Lycurgan constitution had survived through many centuries, but at this time Sparta had only seven hundred full citizens (cf. §§ 203, 210). This condition brought about a violent agitation for reform, the beginning of which indeed had become noticeable a hundred and fifty years before.

About the year 243, Agis, one of the Spartan kings, set himself to do again what Lycurgus had done in legend. Agis was a youthful hero, full of noble daring and pure enthusiasm. He gave his own property to the state and persuaded his relatives and friends to do the like. He planned to abolish all debts, and to divide the land among forty-five hundred Spartan "Inferiors" (§ 203) and fifteen thousand Perioeci,refounding the state upon a broad and democratic basis.

Agis refused to use violence, and sought his ends by constitutional means only. Soon the conservative party rose in fierce opposition. By order of the Ephors, the young king was seized, with his noble mother and grandmother, and murdered in prison," the purest and noblest spirit that ever perished through deeming others as pure and noble as himself."

But the ideals of the martyr lived on. His wife was forced to marry Cleomenes, son of the other king; and from her this prince adopted the hopes of Agis. Cleomenes became king in 236. He had less of high sensitiveness and of stainless honor than Agis, but he is a grand and colossal figure. He bided his time; and then, when the Ephors were planning to use force against him, he struck first.

Aratus had led the Achaean League into war1 with Sparta in order to unite all the Peloponnesus; but the military genius of Cleomenes made even enfeebled Sparta a match for the

1 In a battle in this war Aratus held back the Achaean phalanx while Lydiadas, heading a gallant charge, was overpowered by numbers.