Cleomenes hearing this, said, that he was unjustly dealt with; for they ought to have told him so plainly at first, and not, now he was come even to their doors, show their jealousy, and deny him admission. And writing an epistle to the Achæans about the same subject, the greatest part of which was an accusation of Aratus; and Aratus, on the other side, ripping up his faults to the assembly, he hastily dislodged, and sent a trumpeter to denounce war against the Achæans, but not to Argos, but to Ægium, as Aratus delivers, that he might not give them notice enough to make provision for their defence. Upon this, the Achæans were mightily disturbed; the common people expecting a division of the land, and a release from their debts: and the chief men being on many accounts displeased with Aratus, and some angry, and at odds with him, as the occasion of the Macedonians' descent on Peloponnesus. Encouraged by these misunderstandings, Cleomenes invades Achæa; and first took Pellene by surprise, and beat out the Achæan garrison; and afterwards brought over Pheneon and Pentelæon to his side. Now the Achæans suspecting some treacherous designs at Corinth and Sicyon, sent their horse and mercenaries out of Argos to have an eye upon those cities; and they themselves went to Argos to celebrate the Nemean games. Cleomenes advertised of this march, and hoping (as it afterwards fell out) that upon an unexpected advance to the city, now busied in the solemnity of the games, and thronged with numerous spectators, he should raise a considerable terror and confusion amongst them; by night, he marched with his army to the walls, and taking the quarter of the town called Aspis, which lies above the theatre, a place well fortified, and hard to be approached, he so terrified them, that none offered to resist, but agreed to accept a garrison, to give twenty citizens for hostages, and to assist the Lacedæmonians, and that he should have the chief command. This action considerably increased his reputation, and his power; for the antient Spartan kings, though they many ways endeavoured to effect it, could never bring Argos to be stedfastly and sincerely theirs. And Pyrrhus, a most experienced captain, and brave soldier, though he entered the city by force, could not keep possession, but was slain himself with a considerable part of his army. Therefore they admired the dispatch and contrivance of Cleomenes; and those that before derided him for saying that he imitated Solon and Lycurgus in releasing the people from their debts, and in equally dividing the wealth of the citizens, were now persuaded, that he was the cause of the desirable alterations in the Spartan commonwealth. For, before, they were very low in the world, and so unable to secure their own, that the Ætolians invading Laconia, brought away fifty thousand slaves; so that one of the elder Spartans is reported to have said, that "they had done Laconia a