Messenians had now become Philip's enemies, but he was unable to inflict any serious damage on them, although he made an attempt to devastate their territory.
Towards his most intimate friends, however, he was guilty of the greatest brutality. It was not long before through the agency of Taurion, his commissioner in the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Peloponnese&groupId=861&placeId=1552">Peloponnese</a>, he poisoned the elder aratus who had disapproved of his treatment of Messene.
The fact was not generally known at the time, the drug not being one of those which kill at once, but one which takes time and produces a sickly condition of the body;
but aratus himself was aware of the criminal attempt, as the following circumstance shows.
While keeping it secret from everybody else, he could not refrain from revealing it to Cephalon, an old servant with whom he was very familiar. This servant waited on him during his illness with great assiduity, and on one occasion when he called attention to some spittle on the wall being tinged with blood, aratus said "That, Cephalon, is the reward I have got from Philip for my friendship."
Such a great and fine quality is moderation that the sufferer was more ashamed than the doer of the deed to feel that after acting in union with Philip in so many great enterprises and after such devotion to his interests he had met with so base a reward for his loyalty.
This man then, because he had so often held the chief office in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Achaea&groupId=272&placeId=533">Achaea</a>, and owing to the number and importance of the benefits he had conferred on the nation, had fitting honours paid him on his death both by his own city and by the Achaean League.
They voted him sacrifices and honours such as are paid to heroes, and everything in short which contributes to immortalize a man's memory, so that, if the dead have any feeling, he must take pleasure in the gratitude of the Achaeans and in the recollection of the hardships and perils he suffered in his life. . . .
Walbank Commentary