In the following year (n.c. 367), an army was again sent out under Epaminondse, through fear of whom tho prisoners were released. Subweptently. Alexander renewed his attacks on the liberty of the Thessalien cities, and greatly extended his dominion in the tributary elletrkte. The Thewalians again appealed to the Thebans, and Pelopidas was sent out to aid them (n.c. 364), who fell in his first battle, In which however Alexander was defeated. The campaign coded in the tyrant being obliged to resign his conquests, withdraw hie troops from Phtbiotis and Magnesia, and enter into an alliance with Theboe. At last., his wife Thebe conspired with her three half brothers to murder Alexander (a.c. 359). They effected their purpose; and one of them, Thriphonus, assumed the government. At the end of me. 353, Lycophron, another of the brothers, was at the head of attain'. The new dynasty, however, seems to have been as unpopular with the Tbeeeallana as the old one, and accordingly, with the Aleuadas at their head, they applied to Philip, king of Macedon, and requested hie assistance. Philip invaded Thessaly, and, after gaining some success, was obliged to retire; but he shortly afterwards returned at the bead of a large army, and made himself master of the whole country, Lycophron withdrawing into Phooia. Philip restored popular government at Phermo (Diodorus, xvi. 38), but kept possession of its port, Pagatee, and garrisoned Magnesia with his own troops. About ac. 344, either the tyrants of Pherte or their party there had regained their ascendancy, and Philip was again invited to dislodge them. This ho effected with ease, and then availed himself of the opportunity to make Thessaly entirely subservient to his interests. After expelling the dynasty of the tyrants, he garrisoned the citadel of Pheras with his own troops—revived the tetradarchies as political divisions of the country—and at the head of the four governments he placed his devoted adherents, the chiefs of the Alcuad party, so that they were in reality his viceroys or deputies. He also received the
harbour duties and customs of the country, and appropriated to him self the tribute which had always been paid to Larissa her subject Perrhuebian cantons. (Strabo, ix. p. 440.) On Philips death, the states of Thessaly passed a decree confirming to his son Alexander the supreme station which Philip had held in their councils. The Thessalians took a very prominent part against Macedonia in the Lamian war, which followed soon after Alexander's death (n.c. 323), and which nearly proved fatal to the Macedonian influence, not only in Thessaly, but over the whole continent of Greece. By the skilful generalship of Antipater, Leonnatus, and Craterus, however, Thessaly was preserved to the Macedonian crown till the reign of Philip, son of Demetrius, from whom it was taken by the Romans after the battle of Cynoseephalm (ex. 197). All Thessaly was then declared free (Liv., xxxiii. 32) by a decree of tho Roman senate and people ; but from that time it may be considered as under the dominion of Rome, though its possession was disputed by Antiochus (Liv., xxxvi. 9), and again by Perseus, son of Philip, between whom and the Romans it was the arena of more than one conflict. It was already a liannan province when the fate of the empire of the world was decided by the battle between Pompey and Caesar on the plains of Pharsalus.
The slave-merchants of Greece were generally Thessalians. (Aria tophanes, Plutus,' 517.) Their chief slave-market was Pagaste, the port of Pherte.