Plutarch's life of the Athenian general and statesman Phocion, elected general forty-five times, whose incorruptible honesty and unpopular caution ended with his judicial execution by the very city he had served, in a death Plutarch expressly likens to Socrates'.
Plutarch's Phocion opens by pairing its subject with Cato the Younger, both men whose stern, old-fashioned virtue proved out of step with a corrupted age. Phocion, trained in Plato's Academy and later under Xenocrates, built his reputation on a Spartan austerity of manner and speech: he went barefoot and cloakless even on campaign, spoke so tersely that Demosthenes complained he 'lops off my speeches,' and was elected general forty-five times without ever standing for the post himself, always summoned in absentia because the Athenians trusted his judgment even while resenting his opposition to their impulses.
The narrative unfolds through Phocion's military commands (Tamynae in Euboea, the relief of Byzantium against Philip, the defense against Micion at Rhamnus) and, at greater length, through a long sequence of pointed sayings and political confrontations: his refusals of Alexander's gifts and Harpalus's bribes, his warnings against the reckless Lamian War, and his repeated, unheeded advice for peace with Macedon. After Alexander's death and Athens's defeat at Crannon, Phocion negotiated the settlement with Antipater that brought a Macedonian garrison into Munychia, a humiliation for which the city never forgave him. When power shifted to Polyperchon and the disenfranchised were restored to citizenship, Phocion's enemies, led by Hagnonides, engineered his arrest, a rigged hearing before the king's pavilion, and a mob trial in the theater at Athens where he was condemned by acclamation and forced to drink hemlock alongside his friends.
Plutarch closes by having the Greeks themselves draw the parallel: Phocion's judicial murder by his own city recalled the death of Socrates, another case of a state destroying, in a fit of passion, the very guardian of its own justice and self-control it would soon come to mourn. The life is one of Plutarch's starkest studies of how popular government treats the men who tell it the truth it does not want to hear, and of the price of political integrity under external domination.
“This eyebrow of mine has never caused you any grief; but the laughter of these men has made the city weep many times.”
— Phocion
“Neither can you make me bold, nor I make you cowardly. Still, we do know each other.”
— Phocion
“Then let him allow me both to seem and to be such a man always.”
— Phocion
“Is it your wish to kill us with justice, or without it?”
— Phocion
“I for my part confess that I have done wrong, and for the policies I have pursued I sentence myself to death. But these men here, men of Athens, why will you kill them, who have done no wrong?”
— Phocion
Phocion was an Athenian general and statesman of the fourth century BCE, educated in Plato's Academy and under Xenocrates, who was elected general forty-five times without ever campaigning for the office. He was known for austere personal habits, blunt speech, and a policy of caution and accommodation toward Macedon under Philip, Alexander, and Antipater.
After Alexander's death, when power shifted to Polyperchon and disenfranchised citizens were restored, Phocion's political enemies, led by the orator Hagnonides, accused him of treason for his earlier dealings with Antipater and Nicanor. Brought before a rigged hearing and then a mob assembly in the Athens theater, he was condemned by mass show-of-hands vote and made to drink hemlock, alongside several of his friends.
Plutarch closes the life by noting that Phocion's death reminded the Greeks of Socrates: both were put to death by their own city in a fit of popular passion, and both cases became, in retrospect, a mark of the city's error and misfortune rather than the condemned man's guilt.
No. Plutarch records that Phocion returned a gift of one hundred talents from Alexander, declined the offer of an Asian city, and refused Harpalus's offer of seven hundred talents, asking instead only that Harpalus release several imprisoned men. His incorruptibility was proverbial even among his enemies.
Plutarch opens by pairing Phocion with Cato the Younger as men of harsh, unyielding, old-fashioned virtue who won admiration but little practical success, comparing Cato's antiquated style to fruit that appears out of season: admired but useless to the age it appears in.
As part of the peace settlement Phocion negotiated with Antipater after Athens's defeat, a Macedonian garrison under Menyllus was installed at Munychia, entering on the day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, an event Plutarch describes as deeply ominous and humiliating for the city, and one that fed later resentment against Phocion.
The Athenians banned any Athenian from cremating Phocion's body; a hired man named Conopion carried the corpse beyond Eleusis and burned it with fire taken from Megarian territory. Phocion's wife secretly gathered his bones and buried them by her hearth, vowing to return them to the family tomb once the Athenians regained their senses, which they later did, restoring his honors.
Plutarch preserves many terse sayings, including his response to being told the Athenians would kill him if they went mad ('And you, if they come to their senses'), and his dying words to his son: to bear no grudge against the Athenians for his execution.
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