We must not therefore think it shocking if he met with treatment similar to what he had inflicted: it would have been much more so had he died in peace, without experiencing any such.
Nor should we charge Antigonus and Aratus with criminal conduct, if having captured him in war they had tortured and put to death a tyrant, any man who killed and punished whom even in the time of peace would have been applauded and honoured by all right-thinking people.
When I add that in addition to all his other offences he broke his faith with the Achaeans, what fate shall we say was too bad for him?
Not many years previously he had laid down his tyranny, finding himself in an embarrassed position owing to the death of Demetrius, and quite contrary to his expectation suffered no harm, being protected by the Achaeans,
who showed themselves most lenient and generous; for not only did they inflict no punishment on him for the crimes he had committed during his tyranny, but receiving him with the highest dignity, making him their Strategus and Commander-in-chief.
But instantly dismissing from his mind all these benefits, the moment it seemed to him that his prospects would be somewhat more brilliant if he sided with Cleomenes, he broke away from the Achaeans, transferring from them to the enemy at a most critical time his personal support and that of his country.
Surely when they got him into their hands, he should not have been racked to death at night in Cenchreae, as Phylarchus says, but should have been led round the whole Peloponnesus and tortured as a spectacle for the public until dead.
Yet notwithstanding his abominable character, all the harm he suffered was to be drowned in the sea by the officers in command at Cenchreae.
Walbank Commentary