The Achaian League, before its dissolution in the late fourth century, had traditionally held its assemblies at the centrally located sanctuary of Zeus Homarius near Aegium (IG V,2,344,8; IvonMagnesia, 39). Aegium was not one of the four cities which reformed the League in 280, but as soon as it did rejoin in 275 (Pol. II 41), assemblies once again took place at the sanctuary there (Strab. VIII 7,3, p. 385). However, from 189 bc onwards assemblies began to take place in all member cities in rotation (Liv. XXXVIII 30). For the first 25 years of the reformed League (280-255), each member city in rotation annually elected a Secretary and two Strategoi as the League's chief officers. From 255 onwards the entire League annually elected a single Strategos as its chief officer (Pol. II 43; cf. Strab. l. c.). Immediate re-election was not allowed, so Aratus of Sicyon, the League's most prominent statesman, for much of his career was Strategos every other year (Plut. Cleom. 15,1). Other League officials were the Cavalry Commander and the Naval Commander (Syll. 3, 490).
For the League's first few decades the Assembly, at which in theory all male citizens above the age of thirty were present (Pol. XXIX 24), met at set times (Pol. IV 7), although an extraordinary meeting, a Synkletos, could be held if needed (Pol. XXIX 24). By 185, however, the Assembly was convened only in certain situations: to vote
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On matters of war and peace or at the request of the Roman Senate (Liv. XXXIX 33; cf. Pol. XXIII 5).
Polybius often mentions a League council (e. g., Pol. XXIX 24), but gives few details. Analogy with the Aetolian League's council suggests that it had many members, presumably taken proportionally from all member cities (see Box 21.3). The presence of a standing committee for the council, the Damiourgoi, also suggests that that the council's membership was large, that is to say, it could not easily meet in its entirety. Presumably after the Assembly stopped meeting under normal circumstances the council elected the officers.
In 198 there were ten Damiourgoi (Liv. XXXII 22). These arranged for meetings of the Assembly (Liv. XXXVIII 30) and presumably the council. They also chaired the Assembly's meetings and put questions to the vote (Liv. XXXII 22). In 183 the Roman commander T. Quinctius Flamininus wrote to the Strategos and the Damiourgoi to request a meeting of the Assembly (Pol. XXIII 5). In other words a request could be delivered to the Damiourgoi (as to the Strategos) at any time. Another body, called the Synarchiai, which met in secret (Pol. XXVIII 13) could make executive decisions for the Achaian League (Pol. XXVII 2). The Strategos was a member of this body (Pol. l. c.) to which surely the Damiourgoi too belonged. It is not known whether other officials such as the cavalry commander did also. It may be that the Synarchiai were simply the League's annual officers plus the Damiourgoi. The day-to-day administration of the League in any case resided with these officers, the Damiourgoi, and anyone else who happened to belong to the Synarchiai.
Like the Aetolian League (see Box 21.3) the Achaian League had a flexible structure which allowed it easily to incorporate new members. As with the Aetolian League, the immediate award of political rights served as an inducement to join. In the Assembly, each new member city (unless the Assembly in 198 was anomalous) received one vote on a par with all those cities which were already members and in addition could proportionally to its size send members to the council. Someone from a city not originally Achaian (such as Aratus of Sicyon) could hold office in the League.
Desperate to regain Corinth, Antigonus made an alliance with the Aetolian League; the Achaians meanwhile sought aid from Ptolemy III Euergetes (who gave Aratus a subsidy of six talents per year) and Sparta. In 241, Sparta’s King Agis IV led out an army to help the Achaians ward off the expected Aetolian attack, but Agis IV and Aratus soon quarreled. Aratus wished to avoid a full-scale battle while Agis IV desired one and when the Aetolians finally attacked, Agis IV had already returned home. They went past Corinth and Sicyon and seized the Sicyonian town of Pellene, but Aratus’ troops surprised them while they were plundering the city and drove them out. The Aetolians lost some 700 men and, having little desire to continue a proxy war for Antigonus, returned home (Plut. Arat. 31-32; Agis, 13-15). The Aetolian and Achaian Leagues now made peace (Plut. Arat. 33).
In 239 Antigonus Gonatas died. He had built up the Macedonian supremacy in Greece in the late 270s and early 260s, only to watch it dissolve in his old age. When his son Demetrius II succeeded him, the only Antigonid possessions left in central Greece and the Peloponnese were Euboea (with a strong Macedonian garrison at Chalcis), Athens (with a Macedonian garrison in the Peiraeus), and Argos which the tyrants Aristomachus and, after his assassination, Aristippus held for Macedonia (Plut. Arat. 25).
The Aetolian and Achaian Leagues now formed an alliance (Plut. Arat. 33; Pol. II 44). Since the Aetolians held Thermopylae, it was difficult for Demetrius II to launch any attack against them; but he still held Chalcis connected by a bridge to Boeotia. From Chalcis then he presumably crossed over into Boeotia. Faced with a Macedonian army in their land the Boeotians deserted the Aeto-lians (Pol. XX 5). Demetrius II, however, in the so-called Demetrian War found himself unable to achieve any signal victory against the Aetolians, whom the Achaians supported.
On the Peloponnese, meanwhile, Aratus strove to capture Argos, the chief remaining Macedonian bastion in the area. In 235 he led out the Achaian army against Aristippus, the tyrant of Argos, who initially defeated him, though Aratus did take the town of Cleonae. While Aristippus was attempting to retake it, Aratus sprang a surprise attack. Some 1,500 Argives, including Aristippus, fell with allegedly not one single casualty on the Achaian side. The victory was impressive, even if a second tyrant called Aristomachus gained control of Argos before Aratus could seize it (Plut. Arat. 27-29; Pol. II 59). Shortly thereafter, Lydiadas, who had recently seized power in Megalopolis, voluntarily stepped down from his position, and at his urging Megalopolis joined the Achaian League (Plut. Arat. 30).
By 231 Demetrius II was fighting a difficult war against the Dardanians to the north of Macedonia (Trog. Prol. 28; Liv. XXXI 28), and he had to desist from wars in Greece. The Achaians for their part could not dislodge him from Argos or Athens. But in 229 Demetrius II died, leaving behind a young boy, Philip, for whom his cousin Antigonus Doson (“the one who will give” - because Doson tended to promise that he would do something rather than simply doing it) became regent. Doson soon made himself king, but he adopted his ward and thus preserved the Antigonid line of succession (Plut. Paul. 8; Just. XXVIII 3,9-10). Macedonia in any case was still at war against the Dardanians.
Given Macedonia’s problems, it probably went unnoticed that around this time pirates under the Illyrian queen Teuta became such a disturbance that the Romans for the first time intervened in the eastern Adriatic. In 229 a Roman fleet arrived to put a stop to the piracy. In the end, Rome placed various Greek cities in the Adriatic (including Corcyra) under its protection and although Rome assumed no direct or even indirect control over these regions, it did establish a certain sphere of influence (Pol. II 2-12; III 16 and 18-19).
Macedonia had more pressing concerns elsewhere. In Greece, Aristomachus, the tyrant of Argos, opened negotiations with the Achaian League. He laid down his position, and Argos joined the League, with the tyrants of Hermione and Phleius shortly following suit (Pol. II 44 and 60; Plut. Arat. 34-35). That eliminated the last vestige of Macedonian authority on the Peloponnese. In Athens Diogenes, the commander of the Macedonian garrison, agreed to leave provided that he received 150 talents to pay his troops. It took time to raise the sum, but in the end Athens’ freedom was bought (Plut. Arat. 34). The Boeotians, meanwhile, regained their independence from the Macedonians as well (Pol. XX 5). By 227, with the exception of Euboea and Thessaly, all of mainland Greece was independent for the first time since the Battle of Chaeroneia in 338. Yet much had changed in 110 years - two gigantic leagues, Achaia and Aetolia, both of which had been backwaters in the classical period, now dominated. They had ingested many smaller leagues and indeed many city-states including once powerful towns such as Corinth and Argos. A few city-states remained, however - most prominently Athens with its glorious past and Sparta which despite all still had ambitions. But it had been the Aetolians and the Achaians who had proved capable of resisting the Macedonians and of restoring the freedom of the Greeks.
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