Thessaly

Later Cleomenes ' treacherous plot against Demaratus became known;

He led a Lacedaemonian army to Thessaly, and when he could have subdued all the country he took a great bribe.

Messengers came from Thessaly from the Aleuadae (who were princes of Thessaly) and invited the king into Hellas with all earnestness;

he was establishing a democracy in Thessaly along with Prometheus, and arming the serfs against their masters.

It was near this date, and at about the time of an eclipse of the sun, that Lycophron of Pherae, who wanted to make himself ruler of all Thessaly, defeated in battle those among the Thessalians who opposed him, namely the Larisaeans and others, and slew many of them.

And Agesilaus, passing through Macedonia, arrived in Thessaly.

Joy to thee also, Admetus, king of Thessaly.

Tell me what need is bringing thee to the Thessalian land, to visit this city of the Pheraeans?

Then came I to this land and kept a stranger’s flocks, and to this day have been the saviour of this house.

In this way Brasidas stole a rapid march through Thessaly, before any one was prepared to stop him, and reached Perdiccas and Chalcidice.

so that, had not Thessaly, by the constitution of their country, been under the dominion of a few individuals, rather than in the enjoyment of civil equality, he would never have made his way;

For on other grounds it was not easy to pass through Thessaly without an escort, and with an armed force, especially, to pass through a neighbour's country without having obtained his consent, was regarded with suspicion by all the Greeks alike.

I have been sent on missions to Thessaly, to Macedonia, to Molossia, to Thesprotia, to Italy, and to Sicily.

and besides there is the question of Thessaly.

First he seized Amphipolis, next Pydna, then Potidaea, after that Methone, lastly he invaded Thessaly.

Then having settled Pherae, Pagasae, Magnesia, and the rest of that country to suit his purposes, off he went to Thrace, and there, after evicting some of the chiefs and installing others, he fell sick.

If in each of the cities of Greece there had been some one man such as I was in my appointed station in your midst, nay, if Thessaly had possessed one man and Arcadia one man holding the same sentiments that I held, no Hellenic people beyond or on this side of Thermopylae would have been exposed to their present distresses:

Do you imagine, I said, that when he was expelling their despots, or again when he was presenting them with Nicaea and Magnesia, they ever dreamed that a Council of Ten would be established among them, as it is today, or that the same man who restored to them the Amphictyonic meeting at Thermopylae would also appropriate their own peculiar revenues?

For Attica, he said, has neither great mountains nor rivers flowing through it, as the Peloponnese and Thessaly have;

And if all the houses should fall by an earthquake, as once at Sparta, and all the sheep should perish, so that none had clothing in plenty, and not only Attica but Boeotia too and the Peloponnese and Thessaly should be overtaken by want, as they say happened once before, I shall live no worse nor more in want.

Arcadia takes some, and some the people of Thessaly;

That holy land by Peneus fed, nestling in all its beauty at Olympus’ foot, is said, so have I heard, to be a very granary of wealth and teeming fruitfulness;

Thus, as we are informed by Plutarch, when Philip had overrun Thessaly, destroying and plundering the whole country, Flaminius ordered his troops to march in a regular manner, as through a ceded country which had become their own.

and we know that Philip reached the height he did because, at the outset, he sent money to the Peloponnese, Thessaly, and the rest of Greece, and those with power in the cities and authority you tell us marvellous stories, little thinking that your conduct is no secret;

For he served first at Corinth, then in Thessaly and again throughout the Theban war, and wherever else he heard of an army being collected, he went abroad holding a command;

He spent his time in Thessaly when the Thessalians were the most prosperous people in Hellas;

they made bold to reduce Thessaly to subjection;

Has he not converted the Thessalians, whose power formerly extended over Macedonia, into an attitude so friendly to him that every Thessalian has more confidence in him than in his own fellow countrymen?

The Thessalians, they say, and the Thebans, and all those who belong to the Amphictyony, stand ready to follow your lead while the Argives, the Messenians, the Megalopolitans, and many of the others are prepared to join forces with you and wipe out the Lacedaemonians;

[Then followed in the letter the practical advice of Isocrates to the future rulers of Thessaly, presumably setting forth the advantages of a government under a constitution, i.

Thessaly is divinely blessed.

We shall further praise his noble brothers, because they exalt and strengthen the traditional laws of the Thessaliaaans;

And do you not think that the conduct of Socrates would seem most disgraceful?

and if you wish to go to Thessaly, I have friends there who will make much of you and will protect you, so that no one in Thessaly shall annoy you.

but if you escape after so disgracefully requiting wrong with wrong and evil with evil, breaking your compacts and agreements with us, and injuring those whom you least ought to injure—yourself, your friends, your country and us—we shall be angry with you while you live, and there our brothers, the laws in Hades’ realm, will not receive you graciously;

And surely, even if you have not wandered over the plains of Thessaly, you have heard of goose-farms and crane-farms there and you believe that they exist.

But when they parted from him, Critias fled to Thessaly, and got among men who put lawlessness before justice;