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In 222 B.C. Antigonos III Doson, king of Macedonia and father of Philip V, had decided for quite some time to intervene in the war between the new Sparta of Kleomenes III and the Achaean league and was trying to confront the spartan army in open battle. The amount of allies Antigonos had managed to rise was enough to persuade Ptolemy III of Egypt to stop sending money to Kleomenes, finally deciding Kleomenes to risk a major battle despite being hugely outnumbered by the macedonian army. This battle happened at Sellasia, just north of Sparta, and led to the first parading of an enemy king inside the warrior city. But the triumph of Antigonos did not last since he learned just days later that his kingdom was being invaded by illyrian forces, forcing him to go north will all speed.

Here's the twist : this illyrian invasion will now happen one month before it actually took place (in June instead of July) and force Antigonos to turn north earlier, thus giving Kleomenes some breathing space.

While the Macedonian army crosses the isthmus at all speed, Kleomenes decides to use this time to reunite the Peloponnese under his control, taking as first target the city of Argos. It had always been the campaign's goal of Kleomenes to take that city which had rebelled against him, in the hope that it would subdue all the other cities south of the isthmus. The Argives, terrified by the sudden appearance of 6000 spartan heavy infantry and some 15 000 light infantery, opened their city, remembering the sack of Megalopolis two months before. Still, Kleomenes needed money to pay his forces and wanted to make an example : he thus let his men pillage Argos, from which he took about 250 talents of silver to go into his warchest, leaving him with a total sum of about 500 talents.

After this, Kleomenes marched toward Corinth, wanting to secure the isthmus : he hoped that gaining a position of force would lead Ptolemy III to reconsider his position and restore his support for Kleomenes by lending him his fleet to protect the coast and giving him gold, not a stupid view.

In Corinth the Spartan were easily able to storm the ill defended city but had to face a strong garrison of about a thousand men in the impregnable Accrocorinth citadel. Leaving behind a force of some 3000 light infantry, Kleomenes retired to the interior of the Peloponnese to keep pacifying his rear.
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