By the late 260s Antigonus Gonatas appeared to have consolidated Macedonian rule over Greece. City states such as Athens and Sparta may have had a glorious past, but as the Chremonidean War had shown, even when they united they were no match for a Hellenistic king. The league-states, however, were a different matter entirely. They were larger to begin with and, owing to their federal structure, eminently capable of expansion (see Boxes 21.3 and 23.4). A state such as the Aetolian League, which stretched from the Adriatic to the Aegean, might resist the King of Macedonia. Yet Antigonid Macedonia’s most dangerous opponent came from the northern Peloponnese. Here, in Achaia, a league of twelve cities had existed in the fourth century, but it had become defunct. In 280, however, four of the original towns - Dyme, Patrae, Tritaea, and Pharae - renewed the League and in the next few years the remaining eight towns rejoined (Pol. II 41). But the Achaian League’s true rise began in 251 when conspirators in neighboring Sicyon seized power from the tyrant Nicocles. The conspirators’ leader was a young Sicyonian called Aratus who understood that the city-state of Sicyon was too small to survive in this age (Plut. Arat. 4-9).
Antigonus’ nephew Alexander, who had been his governor in Corinth and on Euboea, had just rebelled, and Antigonus and he were at war (Trog. Prol. 26; Plut. Arat. 12 and 17). Since Nicocles had been an ally of Alexander’s, Sicyon too was at war against Alexander. Rather than let Sicyon be destroyed by a war for which it was too small, Aratus persuaded his fellow citizens to join the Achaian League (Plut. Arat. 9) which soon negotiated an alliance with Alexander against Antigonus (circa 250; Plut. Arat. 18). Aratus meanwhile traveled to Egypt and persuaded Ptolemy II Philadelphus to support this alliance financially (Plut. Arat. 12-14).
Because the Aetolians held Thermopylae and because a good part of the Macedonian fleet must have been in Alexander’s hands in Chalcis and Corinth, Antigonus’ ability to send an army onto the Peloponnese was compromised,
And his control over many Peloponnesian cities through the tyrants whom he had installed was crumbling. Some Arcadian towns, for example, soon made alliances with the Achaian League (Paus. VIII 10,6). In the early 240s Alexander died, and his widow, Nicaea, assumed control. This princess, reversing her husband’s policy, acted to shore up Antigonid Macedonia’s position in Greece. She offered Demetrius, Antigonus Gonatas’ son, her hand. Demetrius was already married to a Seleucid princess, Stratonice, the daughter of Antiochus I Soter, but the reasons for making that alliance had passed, so Demetrius divorced her and married anew according to the current diplomatic situation (Plut. Arat. 17). Stratonice returned to Syria. She did not meekly acquiesce in her abrupt removal from a position of power, but instead waited until such time as she might be able once again to play a political role. to Nicaea’s decisive action, however, Antigonus Gonatas regained control of Euboea and the northeastern Peloponnese.
The newly restored Antigonid position would, however, be shattered in 243, when Aratus, with the help of traitors in the Macedonian garrison, succeeded in seizing Acrocorinth, the citadel of Corinth, in a daring raid by night. The deed made him famous, secured him the leading position in the Achaian League until his death, and established the Achaian League as the dominant state on the Peloponnese since not only Corinth, but also Megara, Epidaurus, and Troezen soon joined (Plut. Arat. 18-24).
World History
