The great body of Thessalians, as well as the Magnetes and the Phthiot Achæans, were among those subject to the ascendency of Thebes. Even the powerful and cruel despot, Alexander of Pheræ, was numbered in this catalogue.[415] The cities of fertile Thessaly, possessed by powerful oligarchies with numerous dependent serfs, were generally a prey to intestine conflict and municipal rivalry with each other; disorderly as well as faithless.[416] The Aleuadæ, chiefs at Larissa—and the Skopadæ, at Krannon—had been once the ascendent families in the country. But in the hands of Lykophron and the energetic Jason, Pheræ had been exalted to the first rank. Under Jason as tagus (federal general), the whole force of Thessaly was united, together with a large number of circumjacent tributaries, Macedonian, Epirotic, Dolopian, etc., and a well-organized standing army of mercenaries besides. He could muster eight thousand cavalry, twenty thousand hoplites, and peltasts or light infantry in numbers far more considerable.[417] 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 succeeding the battle of Leuktra.[418] His brothers Polyphron and Polydorus 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 Pheræ, for about ten years (368-358 B. C.). [415] Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 5, 4; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 35. Wachsmuth states, in my judgment, erroneously, that Thebes was disappointed in her attempt to establish ascendency in Thessaly (Hellenisch. Alterthümer, vol. ii. x. p. 338). [416] Plato, Kriton, p. 53 D; Xenoph. Memorab. i. 2. 24; Demosthen. Olynth. i. p. 15. s. 23; Demosth. cont. Aristokratem, p. 658. s. 133. “Pergit ire (the Roman consul Quinctius Flamininus) in Thessaliam: ubi non liberandæ modo civitates erant, sed ex omni colluvione et confusione in aliquam tolerabilem formam redigendæ. Nec enim temporum modo vitiis, ac violentiâ et licentiâ regiâ (_i. e._ the Macedonian) turbati erant; sed inquieto etiam ingenio gentis, nec comitia, nec conventum nec concilium ullum, non per seditionem et tumultum, jam inde a principio ad nostram usque ætatem, traducentis” (Livy, xxxiv. 51). [417] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1, 19. [418] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 32.