Sicyon is also remarkable as a place which was at an early time, and for a long period, governed by tyrants. Its first tyrants were Orthagoras and his family; for when the ancient aristocracy fell in its struggles with the democracy, the leaders of the democrats usurped the tyrannis. In the time of Philip and Alexander, it likewise had several tyrants, whose rule you may regard as an interlude, if you like. But it had also military tyrants, as in the time of Demetrius Poliorcetes, when one family established itself as such, until Aratus delivered the city. Aratus himself is considered by Strabo in the light of a tyrant; but this is unfair, if we consider the mild manner in which he managed affairs, and the odium which attaches to the name, though it is not altogether incorrect in as much as Aratus personally was actually more powerful than the magistrates and the laws. At the time when the Achaean league was broken up by the Romans, Sicyon too suffered very much; in the days of Pausanias, however much he may try to conceal it, Sicyon was only a village, though it still possessed some great buildings, but others lay in ruins or had crumbled away. Afterwards, so far as I know, it is no longer mentioned in history. At present the site of ancient Sicyon is occupied by the village of Wasiliki. PHLIUS, situated between Sicyon and Argos[23], had, like Sicyon, arisen out of the Argive kingdom. In the Homeric Catalogue it does not bear this name, but is called Ἀραιθυρέη. The town was situated in a beautiful valley between the ranges of hills which stretch from the north of Arcadia to the Isthmus and the Onean and Geranian mountains, but are here considerably extended. Phlius has no great reputation in the history of Greece; it was less important than Sicyon, though it was an independent place as early as the Persian wars. From Xenophon’s Hellenica, it is evident that in his time Phlius was very populous, if we may judge from the number of hoplites and of the emigrants during the disturbances. But afterwards it sank and shared the general fate of Greece, so that perhaps the great population in the time of Xenophon may have been accidental, owing to the distracted state of Argos. The ethnic name is _Phliasius_, for which Cicero in one of his letters writes _Phliuntius_; but when reminded of the error by his friend, he apologises, by saying that he had allowed himself to be misled by a false analogy.[24]