When Philip, king of Macedon, wished to seize on the cardinal of Messene, he told the magistrates of that city that he wished to visit the citadel and sacrifice to Zeus. He went up with his suite and sacrificed, and when, as is the custom, the entrails of the slaughtered victim were offered him he received them in his hands and stepping a little aside, held them out to Aratus and those with him and asked, "What does the sacrifice signify? To withdraw from the citadel or remain in possession of it?"
Demetrius said on the spur of the moment "If you have the mind of a diviner, it bids you withdraw at once, but if you have the mind of a vigorous king it tells you to keep it, so that you may not after losing this opportunity see hand in vain for another more favourable one. For it is only by holding both his horns that you can keep the ox under," meaning by the horns Mount Ithome and the Acrocorinthus and by the ox the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Peloponnese&groupId=861&placeId=1552">Peloponnese</a>.
Philip then turned to Aratus and said, "Is your advice the same?" When Aratus made no answer, he asked him to say exactly what he thought.
After some hesitation he spoke as follows. "If without breaking faith with the Messenians you can keep this place, I advise you to keep it.
But if by seizing and garrisoning it you are sure to lose all other citadels and the garrison by which you found the allies guarded when Antigonus handed them down to you" — meaning by this good faith — "consider if it will not be better now to withdraw your men and leave good faith here guarding with it the Messenians as well as the other allies."
Philip's personal inclination was to play false, as he showed by his subsequent conduct;
but as he had been severely censured a short time previously by the younger Aratus for killing the men, and as the elder Aratus spoke now with freedom and authority, and begged him not to turn a deaf ear to his advice, he felt ashamed, and taking him by the hand said, "Let us go back by the way we came . . ."
Walbank Commentary