Aratus (271-213 BC) was a Greek statesman and general of distinction whose main goal in life was the destruction of tyrants in the Peloponnesus.

Orphaned at the age of 7 when his family was massacred by a dictator, Aratus alone escaped to Argos. In 251 B.C., as leader of an exile assault force, he scaled the walls of Sicyon unobserved one night, captured the guardroom, and at dawn harangued the Sicyonians into overthrowing their dictator. At the age of 20 he became the idol of the Sicyonian democrats.

Aratus was a shrewd diplomat. He recalled all Sicyonian exiles but averted civil war within Sicyon. He brought Sicyon into the Achaean League, one of the two Greek federations of city-states of the time. From 245 on, the Achaean League elected him general every alternate year. The general, not allowed to succeed himself, implemented federal policy and executed the league's strategy. Aratus now...