Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/68

 36' HISTORY OF GREECE. one could at first believe the fact. The Theban leaders con- tended that it was another Alexander, the son of Aeropus, at tho head of a Macedonian army of relief.^ In this incident we may note two features, which character- ized Alexander to the end of his life ; matchless celerity of movement, and no less remarkable favor of fortune. Had news of the Theban rising first reached him while on the Danube or among the distant Triballi, — or even when embarrassed in the difficult region round Pelion, — he could hardly by any effort have arrived in time to save the Kadmeia. But he learnt it just when he had vanquished Kleitus and Glaukias, so that his hands were perfectly free — and also when he was in a position pecu- liarly near and convenient for a straight march into Greece with- out going back to Pella. From the pass of Tschangon (or of the river Devol,) near which Alexander's last victories were gained, his road lay southward, following downwards in part the higher course of the river Haliakmon, through Upper Macedonia or the regions called Eord«a and Elymeia which lay on his left, while the heights of Pindus and the upper course of the river Aous, occupied by the Epirots called Tymphoei and Parauzei, were on the right. On the seventh day of march, crossing the lower ridges of the Cambunian mountains (which separate Olym- pus from Pindus and Upper Macedonia from Thessaly), Alex- ander reached the Thessalian town of Pelinna. Six days more brought him to the Boeotian Onchestus.^ He was already within Thermopylae, before any Greeks were aware that he was in march, or even that he was alive. The question about occupy- ing Thermopylai by a Grecian force was thus set aside. The difficulty of forcing that pass, and the necessity of forestalling Athens in it by stratagem or celerity, was present to the mind of Alexander, as it had been to that of Philip in his expedition of 34G B. c, against the Phokians. His arrival, in itself a most formidable event, told with double force on the Greeks from its extreme suddenness. "We can ' Airian, i. 7, 9. Nortlicrn Greece, ch. vi. p. 300-304; ch. xxviii. p. 303-305. etc ; and for Alexander's line of marcli, the map at the end of the volume.
 * Arrian, i. 7. 6. See, respecting this region, Colonel Leake's Travels in