Battle of Cynoscephalae (364 BC)

The Battle of Cynoscephalae was a military engagement in 364 BC between the forces of Thebes and its Thessalian allies, led by Pelopidas, against the army of Alexander of Pherae. Pelopidas's army defeated Alexander's much larger force, ending Alexander's attempts to secure hegemony in Thessaly, though Pelopidas himself was killed.

Alexander had extended the dominance of Pherae over the other cities of Thessaly since his assumption of power in 369 BC, leading the Thessalians to request military support from Thebes, then the dominant military power in Greece. After inconclusive interventions in 369 and 368, the Thebans voted to send a force of 7,000 under Pelopidas in 364, but the army was disbanded following a solar eclipse on 13 July, considered a bad omen. Pelopidas set out for Thessaly with a small force of volunteer cavalry, and recruited further untrained troops from the Thessalians. The final compositions of the opposing forces are unclear: Alexander is believed to have outnumbered Pelopidas by a factor of around two to one, and to have commanded around 17,000–20,000 troops.

The armies met at Cynoscephalae, a hilly region to the west of Pherae. In the initial phases of the battle, both attempted to use light infantry to seize the high ground between them: Alexander's forces ultimately succeeded, while Pelopidas's cavalry won control of the low-lying plain to the south. Pelopidas then recalled his cavalry, dismounted, and reorganised his infantry: Alexander's forces withdrew from the high ground to avoid being flanked, and subsequently broke under an allied attack in which Pelopidas was killed. In the aftermath of the battle, the Thessalians gave several honours to Pelopidas and his children, and Alexander was forced to give up his gains in Thessaly and to accept a position as a subordinate ally of the Thebans.