310 HISTORY OF GREECE. erfui force of seven thousand hoplites into Thessaly, and put them- selves at the head of their partisans in that country. With this united army, they pressed Alexander hard, completely worsted him, and reduced him to submit to their own terms. He was compelled to relinquish all his dependencies in Thessaly ; to confine lu'mself to Pherse, with its territory near the Gulf of Pagaste ; and to swear adherence to Thebes as a leader. All Thessaly, together with the Phthiot Achaeans and the Magnetes, became annexed to the headship of the Thebans, who thus acquired greater ascendency in Northern Greece than they had ever enjoyed before. 1 The power of Alexander was effectually put down on land ; but he still continued both powerful and predatory at sea, as will be seen in the ensuing year. have immediately preceded the out-march of Pelopidas, does not seem to have been as yet certainly identified. Dodwell. on the authority of an as- tronomical friend, places it on the 13th of June, 364 B. c., at five o'clock in the morning. On the other hand, Calvisius places it on the 13th of July in the same Julian year, at a quarter before eleven o'clock in the day (see L'Art de Verifier les Dates, torn, i, p. 257). "We may remark, that the day named by Dodwell (as he himself admits) would not fall within the Olym- pic year 364363 B. c., but during the months preceding the commencement of that year. Moreover Dodwell speaks as if there were no other months in the year, except June, July, and August, fit for military expeditions ; an hypothesis not reasonable to admit. Sievers and Dr. Thirlwall both accept the eclipse mentioned by Dodwell, as marking the time when the expedition of Pelopidas commenced June 364 B. c. But against this, Mr. Clinton takes no notice of it in his tables ; which seems to show that he was not satisfied as to the exactness of Dod- well's statement or the chronological identity. If it should turn out, on farther astronomical calculations, that there occurred no eclipse of the sun in the year 363 B. c., visible at Thebes, I should then fix upon the eclipse mentioned by Calvisius (13 July 364 B.C.) as identifying the time of the expedition of Pelopidas ; which would, on that supposition, precede by eight or nine months the commencement of the transmarine cruise of Epa- minondas. The eclipse mentioned by Calvisius is preferable to that men- tioned by Dodwell, because it falls within the Olympic year indicated by Diodorus. But it appears to me that farther astronomical information is >re re- quired. 1 Plutarch, Pelopid. c. 35.
