The Achaeans, although they had suffered such very serious reverses, yet did not abandon their purpose or their self-reliance,
but on Aristoteles of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Argos&groupId=361&placeId=689">Argos</a> revolting against the partisans of Cleomenes, they sent a force to his assistance and entering the city by surprise under the command of their Strategus, Timoxenus, established themselves there.
We should look on this achievement as the principal cause of the improvement in their fortunes which ensued. For events clearly showed that it was this which checked Cleomenes' ardour and subdued in advance the spirit of his troops.
Though his position was stronger than that of Antigonus, and he was much better off for supplies, as well as animated by greater courage and ambition,
no sooner did the news reach him the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Argos&groupId=361&placeId=689">Argos</a> had been seized by the Achaeans than he instantly took himself off, abandoning all these advantages, and made a precipitate retreat, fearing to be surrounded on all sides by the enemy.
Gaining entrance to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Argos&groupId=361&placeId=689">Argos</a> he possessed himself of part of the city, but, on the Achaeans making a gallant resistance, in which the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Argives&groupId=361&placeId=688">Argives</a> joined with all the zeal of renegades, this plan broke down too, and, marching by way of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Mantinea&groupId=731&placeId=1339">Mantinea</a>, he returned to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sparta&groupId=660&placeId=1208">Sparta</a>.
Walbank Commentary