Qualla: Battle of Cynoscephalae (364 BC)

Battle of Cynoscephalae (364 BC): Introduction

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrey Ivanov, Public domain. An eclipse darkened the sky over Thebes on the 13th of July, 364 BC, and the priests read it as a warning. The army that had been voted to march north simply dissolved. Pelopidas went anyway. Against the counsel of the priests and the open disapproval of his own city, the great Theban general rode for Thessaly with a band of volunteer horsemen, gathering allies as he went. Within weeks he would win a battle against odds of two to one, and lose his life at the height of it, on a string of low hills the Greeks called Cynoscephalae, the dog's heads.

Image: Andrey Ivanov | Public domain

Battle of Cynoscephalae (364 BC): Not That Cynoscephalae

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrey Ivanov, Public domain. These hills carry a famous name twice over. The Cynoscephalae most people remember is the battle of 197 BC, where Roman legions broke a Macedonian phalanx and announced Rome's arrival as the master of Greece. This is the older fight, fought on the same broken ground 167 years ear...

Image: Andrey Ivanov | Public domain

Battle of Cynoscephalae (364 BC): The Tyrant of Pherae

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrey Ivanov, Public domain. Alexander had seized power in the Thessalian city of Pherae in 369 BC by murdering his own uncle, Polyphron, and from there he had spread the dominance of Pherae over the other cities of the region. The Thessalians, desperate, kept appealing to Thebes for help. Pelopidas had hist...

Image: Andrey Ivanov | Public domain

Battle of Cynoscephalae (364 BC): The Day on the Hills

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrey Ivanov, Public domain. Alexander may have fielded as many as twenty thousand troops; Pelopidas had perhaps half that, much of it a rough, untrained phalanx scraped together in Thessaly. Both sides lunged first for the high ground between the armies. Alexander's more experienced men took the heights, bu...

Image: Andrey Ivanov | Public domain

Battle of Cynoscephalae (364 BC): A Victory Bought Dear

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrey Ivanov, Public domain. His soldiers did not break. Enraged, the Thebans and Thessalians reformed, and with their cavalry they shattered Alexander's army; by Plutarch's account some three thousand of his men died, many in the rout that followed. The cost on the winning side was the only man who could no...

Image: Andrey Ivanov | Public domain

Battle of Cynoscephalae (364 BC): What the Battle Decided

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrey Ivanov, Public domain. The war was won. Alexander was forced to surrender the cities he had taken, hand Magnesia and Achaea Phthiotis to Thebes, and accept the humiliating role of a subordinate ally, ruler, as Diodorus put it, "over Pherae alone." Thebes became the hegemon of Thessaly. The tyrant's own...

Image: Andrey Ivanov | Public domain