Abstract

In his stimulating article on this topic Mr. Christopher Ehrhardt sought to show that there is no good reason to believe in any intervention by Philip of Macedon in Thessaly earlier than his campaign of 353. The second half of his paper is devoted to the date of Philip's capture of Pagasae, which Diodorus appears to put in the Athenian archon year 354/3 after the fall of Methone, a date adopted by most modern interpreters accepting the emendation for the unidentifiable in the text of Diodorus. Ehrhardt shows well the difficulties of believing in any capture of Pagasae, the port of Pherae, earlier than the capture of Pherae itself, and concludes that the emendation is to be rejected. In this I think he is right, and I am joining him in dating the capture of Pagasae in 352 after Pherae itself had fallen. The first half of his paper, however, rejecting all the evidence suggesting other interventions by Philip in Thessaly earlier than 353, is much harder to accept, for two reasons