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In detail the events that took place for the
liberation of Sikyon are as follows, according to Plutarch:
Aratos spent his time at Argos in athletics, especially in palaestra,
competing and winning trophies. His friends were the philosopher Ecdelos
of Megalopolis and Aristomachos of Sikyon, an exile.
The opportunity to act was given to Aratos when a man, brother of the
exile Xenocles, came to Argos, having escaped from the prison
of Sikyon, told him of a part in the walls from which they could easily
enter the town. Aratos upon hearing this, he sent Xenocles and his two
servants to inspect the wall, which they did. The only problem was a
gardener and his dogs, who had his house near it. After that, they
decided to make the attempt and started preparing and equipping
themselves with arms, ladders, etc.
Aratos sent five men as travelers to the gardener's house at Sikyon, in
order to secure him and his dogs and he led his soldiers to Nemea
succeeding to avoid observation from the spies of Nicokles. From there
marching at night he calculated to arrive at the gardener's house with
the rest exiles, around midnight. When they arrived, they found that
indeed their friends had secured the gardener, but not his dogs, which
they were barking. Anyway, they placed the ladders against the wall but
when they started mounting, the sikyonian army officer in his early
change of guard was passing with his men, holding the bell and
lights. Immediately they clung to their ladders and escaped
observation. The guards passed failing to notice them and after waiting
for the new guard to pass, they continued mounting the wall. When few
entered the city, they sent a message to Aratos, but at that time a big
dog, in one of the towers above, started replying to the barking of the
gardener's dogs. The guard on the opposite tower asked why the dog was
barking and the reply of the sentinel was because of the bell and the
lights. All these were heard with great relief from Aratos men. When
Aratos came to the wall, the light made ladders proved weak and took
them extra time to mount the wall.
At last they entered the city and forty men seized the guard's
house, which was near the tyrants residence and secured the mercenaries.
By now it was day and they started sending messages to friends inside
the town, telling them to gather in the Theater. When the people
arrived, a herald announced that Aratos, the son of Kleinias, invites
the people to liberate Sikyon.
Immediately, the people run to the tyrants house and set it to fire and
soon the flames were visible as far as Corinth, but the soldiers and
some of the people extinguished it, in order to plunder it.
Nicokles had escaped from the house by an underground passage.
Not even one single person was slain or wounded from this revolution.
Eighty exiles, who had been expelled by Nicokles, and five hundred more,
who had been exiled during the last fifty years by former tyrants, were
recalled, giving them back their houses and lands.
King Antigonous of Macedonia did not like to see a free Sikyon
and he was looking for an opportunity to suppress it. |
