The year of office of the younger Aratus came to an end at the rising of the Pleiades, such being then the Achaean reckoning of time.
On his retirement he was succeeded by Eperatus, Dorimachus being still the strategus of the Aetolians.
Contemporaneously in the early summer, Hannibal, having now openly embarked on the war against <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>, had started from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=New Carthage&groupId=791&placeId=1430">New Carthage</a>, and having crossed the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Ebro&groupId=549&placeId=1031">Ebro</a> was beginning to march on <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Italy&groupId=656&placeId=1199">Italy</a> in pursuit of his plan;
the Romans at the same time sent Tiberius Sempronius Longus to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Africa&groupId=300&placeId=294">Africa</a> with an army and Publius Cornelius Scipio to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Spain&groupId=983&placeId=1735">Spain</a>,
and Antiochus and Ptolemy, having abandoned the attempt to settle by diplomatic means their dispute about <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Coele-Syria&groupId=484&placeId=908">Coele-Syria</a>, went to war with each other.
King Philip, being in want of corn and money for his army, summoned the Achaeans through their magistrates to a General Assembly.
When this met at Aegium according to the law of the League, noticing that Aratus was little disposed to help him owing to the intrigues of Apelles against him at the late election, and that Eperatus was by nature no man of action and was held in contempt by all,
he became convinced by these facts of the error that Apelles and Leontius had committed, and decided to take the part of Aratus.
He therefore persuaded the magistrates to transfer the Assembly to Sicyon and there meeting the elder and younger Aratus in private and laying all the blame for what had happened on Apelles, he begged them not to desert their original policy.
Upon their readily consenting, he entered the assembly and with the support of these statesmen managed to obtain all he wanted for his purpose.
For the Achaeans passed a vote to pay him at once fifty talents for his first campaign, to provide three months' pay for his troops and ten thousand medimni of corn,
and for the future as long as he remained in the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Peloponnese&groupId=861&placeId=1552">Peloponnese</a> fighting in alliance with them he was to receive seventeen talents per month from the League.
Walbank Commentary