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Traduzione

actually set their seal to his occupation. It was evident that they, who on previous occasions, owing to their lust of aggrandizement, found any pretext adequate for making war on those who had done them no wrong, now allowed themselves to be treacherously attacked and to suffer the loss of some of their largest cities simply in order to see Cleomenes become a really formidable antagonist of the Achaeans. Aratus, therefore, and all the leading men of the Achaean League decided not to take the initiative in going to war with anyone, but to resist Spartan aggression. This at least was their first resolve ; but when shortly afterwards Cleomenes began to fortify against them the so-called Athenaeum in the territory of Megalopolis, and to show himself their avowed and bitter enemy, they called the Council of the League together and decided on open war with Sparta. This was the date at which the war known as the Cleomenic war began; and such was its origin. 47. The Achaeans at first decided to face the Lacedaemonians single-handed, considering it in the first place most honourable not to owe their safety to others but to protect their cities and country unaided, and also desiring to maintain their friendship with Ptolemy owing to the obligations they were under to him, and not to appear to him to be seeking aid elsewhere. But when the war had lasted for some time, and Cleomenes, having overthrown the ancient polity at Sparta and changed the constitutional