Author Description

This book is devoted to the Thessalian tyrant, the gifted military commander and successful politician, to a man whom Xenophon named the greatest of his contemporaries, a man who made Thessaly, for a short period, the leading power in northern Greece. It is not a biography, for such is not possible with the limited material at our disposal. It is mainly an analysis of the connections between Jason's foreign policy and his endeavours to gain the confidence and co-operation of Thessalians. I have also attempted to outline the political events in Thessaly from the beginning of the Peloponnesian War to the murder of Jason and to make some remarks on Thessalian society in this period. A new study of Jason of Pheare is warranted. The last major studies devoted to this period of Thessalian history are those by H.D. Westlake (Thessaly in the Four Century London 1935) and M. Sordi (La lega tessalafino ad Alessandro Magno. Roma 1958). The last monographs on Jason are the dissertation of K. Lemmermann (Jason van Pherai. Jena 1927) and an article by J. Mandel (Jason: The Tyrant of Pherae, Tagus of Thessaly, as Reflected in Ancient Sources and Modern Literature. The image of the 'New Tyrant'. RSA 10 (1980): 47-77.