5.4
When Aratus had heard this, he sent with Xenocles two servants of his own, Seuthas and Technon, to make an examination of the wall; for he was resolved, if he could, to hazard the whole enterprise on one secret and swift attempt, rather than in a long war and in open contests to match his private resources against those of a tyrant.
5.5
So when Xenocles and his party came back with measurements of the wall which they had taken, and with a report that the place was by nature not impassable nor even difficult (although they declared that it was hard to get to it undetected owing to a certain gardener’s dogs, which were little beasts, but extraordinarily fierce and savage), Aratus at once undertook the business.
6.1
Now the laying in of arms was nothing unusual, since almost everybody at that time indulged in robberies and predatory forays; and as for scaling-ladders, Euphranor the engineer made them openly, since his trade screened him from suspicion; and he too was one of the exiles.
6.2
As for men, each of the friends of Aratus in Argos furnished him with ten out of the few they had, and he himself equipped thirty of his own servants with arms. Through Xenophilus, the foremost of the robber captains, he also hired a few soldiers, to whom it was given out that a foray was to be made into the territory of Sicyon to seize the horses of Antigonus. And most of them were sent on ahead in small bands to the tower of Polygnotus, with orders to wait there.
6.3
Aratus also sent on in advance Caphisias, lightly armed, with four companions; their orders were to come to the gardener’s when it was dark, pretending to be travellers, and after taking up quarters there for the night, to shut up him and his dogs; for there was no other way to get past them. The scaling-ladders, which could be taken apart, were packed in boxes, and thus concealed were sent on ahead in waggons.
