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 Kynoskephalae, 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 flank, while he himself took his shield and ran to join the infantry in their fight on the hill.  Pushing his way through their ranks till he reached the front he infused such strength and ardour into them, that the enemy thought that they attacked with new bodies as well as new spirit.  They repulsed one or two assaults, but seeing that the infantry resolutely came on, and also that the cavalry had returned from its pursuit and was threatening their flank, they made an orderly retreat.  Pelopidas, when he gained the height, saw below him the whole of the enemy not yet beaten, but confused and shaken.  He stood still and looked around him, seeking Alexander himself.  When he saw him, on the right, rallying and encouraging his mercenaries, he could no longer restrain his rage, but kindling at the sight, and, reckless of his own person and of his duties as a general, rushed far beyond the rest, shouting and challenging the tyrant to fight.  He would not await the attack, but took refuge in the ranks of his body-guard.  Pelopidas attacked these troops and cut them down, wounding several mortally, but they from a distance struck him through his armour with their spears, till the Thessalians in great anxiety charged down the hill to the rescue.  But he had by this time fallen.

The cavalry now charged and routed the whole body, and pursuing them to a great distance, strewed the country with corpses, for they cut down more than three thousand of them.

XXXIII.  It was no wonder that the Thebans who were there grieved at the death of Pelopidas, and called him their father, their saviour, their teacher in all that was best and noblest; but the Thessalians and their allies, who decreed greater honours than had ever been shown to any brave man, proved their gratitude to him, even more by their sorrow.  It is said that the men who were at the fight did not