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who was still a child, and Cleomenes, king of Sparta. They saw that Antigonus was undisputed master of Macedonia and at the same time the open and avowed enemy of the Achaeans owing to their seizure by treachery of the Acrocorinthus, and they supposed that if they could get the Lacedaemonians also to join them in their project, exciting first their animosity against the League, they could easily crush the Achaeans by attacking them at the proper time all at once and from all quarters. This indeed they would in all probability soon have done, but for the most important factor which they had overlooked in their plans. They never took into consideration that in this undertaking they would have Aratus as their opponent, a man capable of meeting any emergency. Consequently the result of their intrigues and unjust aggression was that not only did they entirely fail in their designs, but on the contrary consolidated the power of the League, and of Aratus who was then Strategus, as he most adroitly diverted and spoilt all their plans. How he managed this the following narrative will show. 46. Aratus saw that the Aetolians were ashamed of openly declaring war on them, as it was so very recently that the Achaeans had helped them in their war against Demetrius, but that they were so much of one mind with the Lacedaemonians and so jealous of the Achaeans that when Cleomenes broke faith with them and possessed himself of Tegea, Mantinea, and Orchomenus, cities which were not only allies of the Aetolians, but at the time members of their league, they not only showed no resentment, but