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 FLLOPIDAS IN THESSALY. 263 a free Greek from a free community ; accordingly so long as these Messenians had been either enslaved, or in exile, they would never have been allowed to contend for the prize under that designation. So much the stronger was the impression produced, when, in 368 B. c., after an interval of more than three centuries, Damiscus the Messenian was proclaimed victor. No Theory (or public legation for sacrifice) could have come to Olympia from Sparta, since she was then at war both with Eleians and Arcadians ; probably few individual Lacedaemonians were present ; so that the spectators, composed generally of Greeks unfriendly to Sparta, would hail the proclamation of the new name as being an evidence of her degra- dation, as well as from sympathy with the long and severe oppres- sion of the Messenians. 1 This Olympic festival, the first after he great revolution occasioned by the battle of Leuktra, was doubtless a scene of earnest anti-Spartan emotion. During this year 368 B. c., the Thebans undertook no march into Peloponnesus ; the peace-congress at Delphi probably occu- pied their attention, while the Arcadians neither desired nor needed their aid. But Pelopidas conducted in this year a Theban force into Thessaly, in order to protect Larissa and the other cities against Alexander of Pheras, and to counterwork the ambitious projects of that despot, who was soliciting reinforcement from Athens. In his first object he succeeded. Alexander was com- pelled to visit him at Larissa, and solicit peace. This despot, however, alarmed at the complaints which came from all sides against his cruelty, and at the language, first, admonitory, after- wards, menacing, of Pelopidas soon ceased to think himself in safety, and fled home to Pheras. Pelopidas established a defen- sive union against him among the other Thessalian cities, and then marched onward into Macedonia, where the regent Ptolemy, not strong enough to resist, entered into alliance with the The- bans ; surrendering to them thirty hostages from the most distin- guished families in Macedonia, as a guarantee for his faithful adherence. Among the hostages was the youthful Philip, son of Amyntas, who remained in this character at Thebes for some See the contrary, or Spartan, feeling, disgust at the idea of persons who had just been their slaves, presenting themselves as spectators and competitors in the plain f Olympia, set forth in Isokrates, Or. vi, <Ar fhidamus) s. Ill, 112.