In still another respect distrust of monarchy and aversion to the "tyranny" on which Antigonus Gonatas had based his Greek empire, are betrayed in the institutions of the Achæans. The rule of a city by a tyrant and membership in the league were regarded as incompatible with one another. This was, doubtless, a requirement of the federal laws, which, consisting of treaties negotiated between the original cities in 275 B.C. and at the admission of new cities thereafter, of oaths by which these treaties were sanctioned, and of general enactments made from time to time by special legislative process, bound the citizens of the individual cities no less than did the local laws which they themselves passed. Otherwise the city-states were at liberty to adopt whatever form of government they chose. The league championed neither democracy nor oligarchy, though its working favored the well-to-do classes. At most it compelled a certain uniformity in local administration, its general attitude being admirably symbolized by its monetary arrangements, wherein the standard was determined by the federal authority while the coins were issued by the constituent cities.[133] * * * * * The very constitutions of the Achæan and the Ætolian leagues disclose the importance of the part which the Greek policy of Antigonus Gonatas played in the creation of these dangerous adversaries of himself and his country. It is true that his son, Demetrius II, fought them to a standstill, wrested from Ætolia a large part of its acquisitions, and might have dissolved both leagues by force, had not Epirus deserted him and gone over to their side; had not the Illyrian pirates whom he let loose on this new enemy provoked the Romans to cross the Adriatic; and had not the Dardanians moved down on Macedon and defeated and killed him in battle. Such "had nots" belonged, however, to the constant possibilities, and complications of this sort were ever occurring in the struggle of Macedon for the hegemony of Greece. On this occasion their issue was so disastrous for Macedon that the hour of the two leagues seemed come.