In this incident we may note two features, which characterized 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 peculiarly near and convenient for a straight march into Greece without 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 Eordæa 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 Tymphæi and Parauæi, were on the right. On the seventh day of march, crossing the lower ridges of the Cambunian mountains (which separate Olympus from Pindus and Upper Macedonia from Thessaly), Alexander reached the Thessalian town of Pelinna. Six days more brought him to the Bœotian Onchestus.[85] He was already within Thermopylæ, before any Greeks were aware that he was in march, or even that he was alive. The question about occupying Thermopylæ 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 346 B. C., against the Phokians. [85] Arrian, i. 7. 6. See, respecting this region, Colonel Leake’s Travels in Northern Greece, ch. vi. p. 300-304; ch. xxviii. p. 303-305, etc.; and for Alexander’s line of march, the map at the end of the volume. His arrival, in itself a most formidable event, told with double force on the Greeks from its extreme suddenness. We can hardly doubt that both Athenians and Thebans had communications at Pella—that they looked upon any Macedonian invasion as likely to come from thence—and that they expected Alexander himself (assuming him to be still living, contrary to their belief) back in his capital before he began any new enterprise. Upon this hypothesis—in itself probable, and such as would have been realized if Alexander had not already advanced so far southward at the moment when he received the news[86]—they would at least have known beforehand of his approach, and would have had the option of a defensive combination open. As it happened, his unexpected appearance in the heart of Greece precluded all combinations, and checked all idea of resistance. [86] Diodorus (xvii. 9) incorrectly says that Alexander came back unexpectedly from _Thrace_. Had this been the fact, he would have come by Pella.