against the will of his fellow citizens, who all held that a great
portent had been shown in heaven about some celebrated man. However,
he was all the fiercer against Alexander, remembering his own
sufferings, and hoping from his conversations with Thêbê, that by this
time his own family would have turned against him. He was also much
encouraged by the glory of the action, that, at a time when the
Lacedæmonians were sending out generals and governors to help
Dionysius the Sicilian tyrant, and when the Athenians had Alexander in
their pay, and had even set up a bronze statue of him as a public
benefactor, he might show the Greeks that it was the Thebans alone who
took up arms in defence of the oppressed, and who put an end to the
violent and illegal rule of despots in Greece.

XXXII. When he had come to Pharsalus and collected his army there, he
marched straight to attack Alexander. But he, seeing that Pelopidas's
force of Thebans was small, while he had more than double his numbers
of Thessalian hoplites, met him near the shrine of Thetis. When some
one said to Pelopidas that the tyrant was coming on with a great
force, he answered. "So much the better, for we shall conquer more."

Between the two armies, near the place called Kynoskephalæ, or the
Dog's Heads, were some high and isolated hills. Each party tried to
occupy these with their infantry, but Pelopidas, knowing his cavalry
to be numerous and good, sent it to charge that of the enemy. The
enemy's horse was routed, and pursued over the plain, but meanwhile
Alexander had secured the hills, and when the Thessalian infantry came
afterwards, and tried to force their way up the hill into that strong
position, he was able to cut down the foremost, while the rest
suffered from his missiles and could do nothing. Pelopidas now
recalled the cavalry, and sent it to attack the enemy's position in