For twenty-five years, then, this league of cities continued, electing for a certain period a Secretary of state and two Strategi.
After this they decided to elect one Strategus and entrust him with the general direction of their affairs, the first to be nominated to this honourable office being Margus of Caryneia.
Four years later during Margus' term of office, Aratus of Sicyon, though only twenty years of age, freed his city from its tyrant by his enterprise and courage, and, having always been a passionate admirer of the Achaean polity, made his own city a member of the League.
Eight years after this, during his second term of office as Strategus, he laid a plot to rule the citadel of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Corinth&groupId=493&placeId=928">Corinth</a> which was held by Antigonus, thus delivering the Peloponnesians from a great source of fear, and induced the city he had liberated to join the League. In the same term of office he obtained the adhesion of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Megara&groupId=746&placeId=1361">Megara</a> to the Achaeans by the same means.
These events took place in the year before that defeat of the Carthaginians which forced them to evacuate <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a> and submit for the first time to pay tribute to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>.
Having in so short a space of time thus materially advanced his projects, he continued to govern the Achaean nation,
all his schemes and action being directed to one object,
the expulsion of the Macedonians from the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Peloponnese&groupId=861&placeId=1552">Peloponnese</a>, the suppression of the tyrants, and the re-establishment on a sure basis of the ancient freedom of every state.
During the life of Antigonus Gonatas he continued to offer a most effectual opposition both to the meddlesomeness of this king and the lust for power of the Aetolians,
although the two were so unscrupulous and venturesome that they entered into an arrangement for the purpose of dissolving the Achaean League.
Walbank Commentary