DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1004#0345
300
DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
eounsels, and animated by the example, of wise and intrepid leaders—had
fallen with them, never more to rise: when, therefore, these cities were
reduced to this condition, there occurred a favourable opportunity for Achaia
to prove what results eould be attained by the arts and virtues of rare
growth in Grecian soil, namely, those of civil harmony and concord,
The twelve cities of Achaia, whose names are preserved by Herodotus and
Strabo, being united in a compact body among themselves, and enjoying
a form of civil polity wisely tempered by an admixture of popular and
aristocratic elements, subsisted, as has been said, during a long period in a
state of happy and undisturbed prosperity. The political storm which
broke upon Greece from Macedonia shattered for a time the league which
bound them together; but when that had passed, some of the fragments
again coalesced, and the effects soon began to disappear_ of their former
dissolution. In the year n. c. 280, when the attention of the Macedonian
princes was engaged at home by domestic discords, four of the Achaean
cities, Dyme, Patras, Triteea, and Pharos, took advantage of the opportunity
thus afforded them for reviving the independence of their country; when
five years had elapsed, they were joined by jEgium, Cerynea, and Bura,
which had ejected their tyrants, or expelled their Macedonian garrisons.
To these, four others shortly afterwards attached themselves; the twelfth,
DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
eounsels, and animated by the example, of wise and intrepid leaders—had
fallen with them, never more to rise: when, therefore, these cities were
reduced to this condition, there occurred a favourable opportunity for Achaia
to prove what results eould be attained by the arts and virtues of rare
growth in Grecian soil, namely, those of civil harmony and concord,
The twelve cities of Achaia, whose names are preserved by Herodotus and
Strabo, being united in a compact body among themselves, and enjoying
a form of civil polity wisely tempered by an admixture of popular and
aristocratic elements, subsisted, as has been said, during a long period in a
state of happy and undisturbed prosperity. The political storm which
broke upon Greece from Macedonia shattered for a time the league which
bound them together; but when that had passed, some of the fragments
again coalesced, and the effects soon began to disappear_ of their former
dissolution. In the year n. c. 280, when the attention of the Macedonian
princes was engaged at home by domestic discords, four of the Achaean
cities, Dyme, Patras, Triteea, and Pharos, took advantage of the opportunity
thus afforded them for reviving the independence of their country; when
five years had elapsed, they were joined by jEgium, Cerynea, and Bura,
which had ejected their tyrants, or expelled their Macedonian garrisons.
To these, four others shortly afterwards attached themselves; the twelfth,