Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/229

 THESSALY. 203 tries besides. He could muster eight thousand cavalry, twenty thousand hoplites, and peltasts or light infantry in numbers far more considerable. 1 A military power of such magnitude, in the hands of one alike able and aspiring, raised universal alarm, and would doubtless have been employed in some great scheme of conquest, either within or without Greece, had not Jason been suddenly cut off by assassination in 370 B. c., in the year succeed- ing the battle of Leuktra. 2 His brothers Polyphron and Poly- dorus succeeded to his position as tagus, but not to his abilities or influence. The latter a brutal tyrant, put to death the former, and was in his turn slain, after a short interval, by a successor yet worse, his nephew Alexander, who lived and retained power at Pherae, for about ten years (368-358 B. c.) During a portion of that time Alexander contended with suc- cess against the Thebans, and maintained his ascendency in Thes- saly. But before the battle of Mantineia in 362 B. c., he had been reduced into the condition of a dependent ally of Thebes, and had furnished a contingent to the army which marched under Epaminondas into Peloponnesus. During the year 362-361 B. c., he even turned his hostilities against Athens, the enemy of Thebes ; carrying on a naval war against her, not without partial success, and damage to her commerce. 3 And as the foreign ascendency of Thebes everywhere was probably impaired by the death of her great leader Epaminondas, Alexander of Pherae recovered strength ; continuing to be the greatest potentate in Thessaly, as well as the most sanguinary tyrant, until the time of his death in the beginning of 359 B. c. 4 He then perished, in the vigor of age 1 Xenoph. Hellcn. vi 1, 19. z Xenoph. Helhn. vi. 4, 32. 3 Demosthenes adv. Polyklem, p. 1207. s. 5, 6 ; Diodor. xv. 61-95. See my previous Volume X. Ch. Ixxx. p. 370. 4 I concur with Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fast. Hellen. ad. ann. 359 B. c., and Appendix, c. 15) in thinking that this is the probable date of the assassi- nation of Alexander of Phera; which event is mentioned by Didcrus (xvi. 14) under the year 357-356 B. c., yet in conjunction with a series of subse- quent events, and in a manner scarcely constraining us to believe that hi meant to affirm the assassination itself as having actually taken place in that year. To the arguments adduced by Mr. Clinton, another may be added, ftorrowed from the expression of Plutarch (Pelopidas, c. 35) ol.iyov varr-