45.3
At any rate Aratus was plainly annoyed at many acts of the king, and especially at his treatment of the statues in Argos; for those of the tyrants, which had been cast down, Antigonus set up again, while those of the captors of Acrocorinthus, which were standing, he threw down, that of Aratus only excepted; and though Aratus made many appeals to him in the matter, he could not persuade him.
45.4
It was thought also that the treatment of Mantineia by the Achaeans was not in accord with the Greek spirit. For after mastering that city with the aid of Antigonus, they put to death the leading and most noted citizens, and of the rest, some they sold into slavery, while others they sent off into Macedonia in chains, and made slaves of their wives and children, dividing a third of the money thus raised among themselves, and giving the remaining two-thirds to the Macedonians.
45.5
It is true that this came under the law of reprisal;The repeated treacheries of the Mantineians towards the Achaeans are related at length in Polybius, ii. 57 f. for though it is a terrible thing to treat men of the same race and blood in this way, out of anger, still in dire stress even cruelty is sweet, as Simonides says, when men, as it were, give satisfaction and healing care to a mind that is in anguish and inflamed. But the subsequent treatment of the city by Aratus was neither necessary nor honourable, and cannot be excused.
