In Thessaly itself the political circumstances were unfavourable to a display of patriotic feeling. That land of great plains, so contrasted in its physical characteristics to the rest of Greece, had bred a political system which was also in violent contrast to the forms of government existing at the time in the other regions of the country. There prevailed a quasi-feudalism such as might perhaps have found some counterpart in the Argolic plain, when the lords of Mycenæ and of Tiryns held sway, but the like of which had, by the beginning of the fifth century, long vanished from the Hellenic lands. It was the physical which produced the political contrast. #THESSALY.# The fertile, unimpeded plains of Thessaly permitted the growth of rich landed proprietors on a large scale, families of whom, like the Aleuadæ in Larisa, or their relatives the Skopadæ in Krannon, or like Jason of Pheræ in later days, were enabled to establish their supremacy over a large area. The great ambition of the Thessalian baron was to make himself Tagos, or Captain of all Thessaly; which end he seems to have pursued without scruple as to the means. When it was merely a question of maintaining his power against reluctant forces at home, he had a powerful weapon at his back in the feudal cavalry whose effectiveness was due to the unimpeded nature of the field of operations. He could play a part, and he did play a part, so long as Greece had a history of her own, which would have been impossible in the intricate mountain regions of the rest of the land. But nature had bestowed one more favour upon his system, by raising the formidable barrier of Mount Œta between him and the rest of Greece. That it was which prevented the Hellenic spirit of independence from penetrating to the name-place, if not the birth-place, of the Hellene; and the Thessalian, though one in body, was never during the historic period one in spirit with the men of his own race. Thermopylæ was in no mere strategic sense the gate of Greece. And yet in the spare glimpses of Thessalian history which are given in the contemporary historians, it is evident that the mass of the population did not at all times tamely acquiesce in this state of semi-feudal submission. The few occasions on which Greek States did interfere effectively in Thessalian affairs were provided by the discontent of the governed many against the governing few. It may well be supposed that some such state of things was in existence at this time, or had been existent within a very recent period. ◆H. vii. 6, 8, 130.◆ The Aleuadæ, whom Herodotus describes as Kings in Thessaly, had invited the Persian,—for motives of self-interest, it may be certain,—to interfere in the affairs of Greece; and this invitation, addressed to Xerxes some years before the actual march of invasion, while the whole question was still in the air, contributed not a little, so Herodotus says, to Xerxes’ final decision.[100] ◆H. vii. 172.◆