Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/160

 138 HISTORY OF GREECE. and served somewhat to countervail a mortifying revelation which had reached the Spartans a little before from a different quarter. Polydamas, an eminent citizen of Pharsalus in Thessaly, carne to Sparta to ask for aid. He had long been on terms of hospitality with the Lacedaemonians ; while Pharsalus had not merely been in alliance with them, but was for some time occupied by one of their garrisons. 1 In the usual state of Thessaly, the great cities Larissa, Pherae, Pharsalus, and others, each holding some smaller cities in a state of dependent alliance, were in disagreement with each other, often even in actual war. It was rare that they could be brought to concur in a common vote for the election of a supreme chief or Tagus. At his own city of Pharsalus, Polydamas was now in the ascendant, enjoying the confidence of all the great family factions who usually contended for predominance ; to such a degree, indeed, that he was entrusted with the custody of the citadel and the entire management of the revenues, receipts as well as disbursements. Being a wealthy man, " hospitable and ostentatious in the Thessalian fashion," he advanced money from his own purse to the treasury whenever it was low, and repaid himself when public funds came in. 2 But a greater man than Polydamas had now arisen in Thes- saly, Jason, despot of Pherae ; whose formidable power, threat- ening the independence of Pharsalus, he now came to Sparta to denounce. Though the force of Jason can hardly have been very considerable when the Spartans passed through Thessaly, six years before, in their repeated expeditions against Olynthus, he was now not only despot of Pherae, but master of nearly all the Thessalian cities (as Lykophron of Pheras had partially succeeded in becoming thirty years before), 3 as well as of a large area of 1 Diodor. xiv, 82. bttore 6e Ttepiyevoi-o rfjf Trpoaodov, cnrehuuBavev }]v 6e Kal o/l/lwf 0t/lofev6f re Kal fie-yahonpeTTTjf rbv QerrafaKov rpoirov. Such loose dealing of the Thessalians with their public revenues helps us iO understand how Philip of Macedon afterwards got into his hands tho management of their harbors and customs-duties (Demosthefl. OlyntL. i, p. 15; ii, p. 20). It forms a striking contrast with the exacfciesj of the Athe- nian people about their public receipts and disbursements, as testified in the inscriptions yet remaining. 3 Xen. He'llen. ii, 3, 4.
 * Xen. Hellen. vi, 1, 3. Kal owore JJ.KV kv6eri<; elrj, Trap' &O.VTOV irpoasridet.