I will now put together the few fragments of Thessalian history which have come down to us. The family of the Aleuadae, a Heracleid family, was the most celebrated of all, and ruled at Larissa; it formed an oligarchy even within the ruling nation; at the time of the Persian wars it was so powerful as to be in possession of the whole government, and it is probable that the Thessalian kings mentioned by Thucydides belonged to it. The Scopadae were another great and noble family at Pharsalus. The nobility of Thessaly, like that of the Sarmatians and that of the middle ages, were numerous, whence the best part of the Thessalian armies consisted of horsemen; they scarcely had any infantry at all; a Thessalian phalanx does not occur anywhere, and peltasts are not mentioned till later times. Notwithstanding the state of dissolution in which we find Thessaly, there still existed a bond among the different states, which embraced even the neighbouring nations, the Magnetes, the Achaeans of Phthia, and the Peraebians; it is possible that the Thessalians, may have ruled over the tribes which touched upon their borders, but the latter were never really subdued by them, and the Peraebians seem to have been under the direct supremacy of Larissa. About thirty or forty years after the Peloponnesian war, when the disorganisation had increased, the town of Pherae, which had formerly been insignificant, rose into importance, and Jason, a man of great parts, came forward there as tyrant, and was elected dictator by the whole of Thessaly under the title of ταγός, in which capacity he ruled over Thessaly and even over the countries dependent on it. He was succeeded by his brothers, and then by his nephew Alexander; but his dynasty, like those of all usurpers in Greece, passed away, and afterwards Thessaly was in a state of greater dissolution than ever. The Aleuadae now renewed their claims, but the Thessalians happened at the time, in common with the Boeotians, to be involved in the unfortunate war against the Phocians, and Magnesia on that occasion recovered its independence. In these circumstances, Philip of Macedonia appeared among them under the mask of a friend, pretending that he would assist them, that he would subdue the Phocians, and reduce Magnesia to obedience; he was accordingly appointed tagus, and intrusted with the administration of their revenues arising from port dues and the tribute of their dependencies. Philip abused this ridiculous confidence, which was in reality an act of treason of the Thessalians against themselves, and put himself in permanent possession of the common domain of which he had undertaken the management, especially the Thessalian port of Pagasae, from which the revenues were very large. Thessaly, which was now divided into four parts, henceforth belonged to the crown of Macedonia. Very feeble attempts only were made by the Thessalians to recover their independence: in the Lamian war they endeavoured in vain to shake off the