Again he tells us that Aristomachus of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Argos&groupId=361&placeId=689">Argos</a>, a man of most noble birth, having himself been tyrant of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Argos&groupId=361&placeId=689">Argos</a> and being descended from tyrants, was led away captive to Cenchreae and there racked to death, no man deserving less such a terrible fate.
Exercising in this case too his peculiar talent, the author gives us a made-up story of his cries when on the rack having reached the ears of the neighbours, some of whom, horrified at the crime, others scarcely crediting their senses and others in hot indignation ran to the house.
About Phylarchus' vice of sensationalism I need say no more, for I have given sufficient evidence of it;
but as for Aristomachus, even if he had been guilty of no other offence to the Achaeans, I consider that the general tenor of his life and his treason to his own country rendered him worthy of the most severe punishment.
Our author, it is true, with the view of magnifying his importance and moving his readers to share his own indignation at his fate, tells us that he "not only had been a tyrant himself but was descended from tyrants."
It would be difficult for anyone to bring a graver or more bitter accusation against a man. Why! the very word "tyrant" alone conveys to us the height of impiety and comprises in itself the sum of all human defiance of law and justice.
Aristomachus, if it is true that he was subjected to the most terrible punishment, as Phylarchus tells us, did not get his full deserts for the doings on one day;
I mean the day on which when Aratus with the Achaeans had gained entrance to the town and fought hard to free the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Argives&groupId=361&placeId=688">Argives</a> at great risk, but was finally driven out, because none of those inside the city who had agreed to join him ventured to stir
owing to their fear of the tyrant, Aristomachus, availing himself of the pretext that certain persons were cognisant of the entrance of the Achaeans, put to death eighty of the leading citizens who were quite innocent, after torturing them before the eyes of their relatives.
I say nothing of the crimes that he and his ancestors were guilty of all through their lives: it would be too long a story.
Walbank Commentary