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The king answered the Larissan ambassadors in mild terms, that "he came into their country, not with a design of making war, but of protecting and establishing the liberty of the Thessalians." He sent a person to make a similar declaration to the people of Pherae; who, without giving him any answer, sent to the king, in the capacity of ambassador, Pausanias, the first magistrate of their state.
With the beginning of the winter following, Ramphias and his companions penetrated as far as Pierium in Thessaly; but as the Thessalians opposed their further advance, and Brasidas whom they came to reinforce was dead, they turned back home, thinking that the moment had gone by, the Athenians being defeated and gone, and themselves not equal to the execution of Brasidas's designs.
The assault was carried on without intermission or relaxation either by day or by night, because the consul thought that it would have a powerful effect on the spirits of the rest of the Thessalians, if the first who made trial of the Roman strength were unable to withstand it; and this at the same time subdued the obstinacy of the Macedonians.
He made the longest address that day to the Thessalians and other Greeks, who answered him with loud shouts, desiring him to lead them on against the barbarians, upon which he shifted his javelin into his left hand, and with his right lifted up towards heaven, besought the gods, as Callisthenes tells us, that if he was of a truth the son of Jupiter, they would he pleased to assist and strengthen the Grecians.
Now, the Thessalians, a few months before, had of themselves sent ambassadors to Caesar, offering him the free use of everything in their power, and requesting a garrison for their protection. But the report, already spoken of, of the battle at Dyrrachium, which it had exaggerated in many particulars, had arrived before him.
Of these, that which was most in vogue was the following: "Unwept, unburied, on this mountain high, Stranger, Thessalians thirty thousand lie; They fell before Ætolia's sons in war. And Romans, brought by Titus from afar. Æmathia weeps their loss. Bold Philip too, Flies like a deer, and knows not what to do."
There was a trifling affair at Phrygia between a squadron of the Athenian horse with the Thessalians and the Boeotian cavalry; in which the former had rather the best of it, until the heavy infantry advanced to the support of the Boeotians, when the Thessalians and Athenians were routed and lost a few men, whose bodies, however, were recovered the same day without a truce.
In his speech in his own defence he reminded the court that he was the proxenus, or resident agent at Athens, not of the rich Ionians or Thessalians, as some other Athenians were, with a view to their own profit and influence, but of the Lacedæmonians, a people whoso frugal habits he had always been eager and proud to imitate; so that he himself cared nothing for wealth, but loved to enrich the state with money taken from its enemies.
In this way the more conspicuous patriots among the Thessalians, Aetolians, Acarnanians, Lesbians and so forth, were removed from their native land; and, in particular, more than a thousand Achaeans were thus disposed of a step taken with the view not so much of prosecuting those who were carried off, as of silencing the childish opposition of the Hellenes.
When Pelopidas was come to Pharsalus, he formed an army, and presently marched against Alexander; and Alexander understanding that Pelopidas had few Thebans with him, and that his own infantry was double the number of the Thessalians, faced him at Thetidium. Some one told Pelopidas, "The tyrant meets us with a great army;" "So much the better," he replied, "for then we shall overcome the more."
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