DEATH OF ALEXANDER. 249 in Laconia and Arcadia. Pelopidas entered Thessaly at the head of an army, and took Larissa with various other cities into Theban protection ; apparently under the acquiescence of Alexander of Macedon. with whom he contracted an alliance. 1 A large portion of Thessaly thus came under the protection of Thebes in hostility to the dynasty of Pherae, and to the brutal tyrant Alexander who now ruled in that city. Alexander of Macedon found that he had difficulty enough in naintaining his own dominion at home, without holding T' >*n- lian towns in garrison. He was harassed by intestine dissensions, and after a reign of scarcely two years, was assassinated (368 B. C.) by some conspirators of Alorus and Pydna, two cities (half Macedonian, half Hellenic) near the western coast of the Ther- .maic Gulf. Ptolemaeus (or Ptolemy) of Alorus is mentioned as leader of the enterprise, and Apollophanes oi Pydna as one of the agents. 2 But besides these conspirators, there was also another enemy, Pausanias, a man of the royal lineage and a pretender to the throne; 3 who, having been hitherto in banishment, was now returning at the head of a considerable body of Greeks, sup- ported by numerous partisans in Macedonia, and was already master of Anthemus, Therme, Strepsa, and other places in or 1 Diodor. xv, 67. The transactions of Macedonia and Thessaly at this period are difficult to make out clearly. What is stated in the text comes from Diodorus ; who affirms, however, farther, that Pelopidas marched into Macedonia, and brought back as a hostage to Thebes the youthful Philip, brother of Alexander. This latter affirmation is incorrect; we know that PhJlip was in Macedonia, and free, after the death of Alexander. And I believe Aat the march of Pelopidas into Macedonia, with the bringing back of Philip as a hostage, took place in the following year 368 B. c. Justin also states (vii. 5) erroneously, that Alexander of Macedon gave his brother Philip as a hostage, first to the Illyrians, next to the Thebans. 2 Demosthen. De Fals. Leg. c. 58, p. 402 ; Diodorus, xv, 71. Diodorus makes the mistake of calling this Ptolemy son of Amyntas and brother of Perdikkas ; though he at the same time describes him as IlroAe/zatof ' A.?MpiTijf, which description would hardly be applied to one of the royal brothers. Moreover, the passage of JSschines, Fals. Leg. c. 14, p. 250, shows that Ptolemy was not son of Amyntas ; and Dexippus (ap. Syicellum, p. 263) confirms the fact. See these points discussed in Mr. Fynes Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, Ap- pendix, c. 4. 3 Diodor. xvi, 2. 11*
