Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
The orator Demades, who held power in Athens by conducting his politics to please the Macedonians and Antipater, and who was compelled in his speeches and decrees to sink well below what the city's honor and reputation called for, remarked that he ought to be excused for taking charge of a city already in shipwreck; and this saying, though rather bold coming from such an orator, would seem to be true enough if applied instead to the statesmanship of Phocion.
For Demades himself was a shipwreck of the city, having lived and governed so shamelessly that Antipater said of him, now that Demades had become an old man, that, like a sacrificial victim once it has been used up, only his tongue and belly were left; but the virtue of Phocion, matched against a harsh and violent age as against a heavy adversary, the fortunes of Greece rendered dim and without lustre in reputation.
For we should not follow Sophocles, who makes virtue weak in the passage where he says: "But no, my lord, not even should it spring up does understanding remain with men who fare badly, but it departs"; we must grant fortune only this much power in opposing good men — that in place of the honor and gratitude they deserve, by bringing upon some wicked slanders and calumnies, it makes trust in them weaker than their virtue.
And yet peoples seem more apt to grow insolent toward good men when they prosper, being lifted up by great affairs and power; but the opposite happens, for misfortunes make their tempers bitter and quick to take offense and prone to anger, and their hearing difficult and harsh, vexed by every word and phrase that carries any force; and one who rebukes their errors seems to be reproaching them for their misfortunes, and the man who speaks freely seems to be showing contempt,
and just as honey stings sores and festering places on the flesh, so words that are true and sound often bite and vex men whose fortunes are bad, unless those words are gentle and pliant — just as the poet has called the pleasant thing "heart-warming," as being something that yields to the soul's pleasure and does not fight or resist it.
For indeed an inflamed eye takes the greatest delight in dwelling on shadowy and dim colors, but turns away from those that have brightness and light; and a city that has fallen upon unwanted fortunes is, through weakness, jumpy and too delicate to endure frankness of speech, precisely when it needs it most, since its circumstances allow no recovery from a mistake — for which reason such a form of government is dangerous in every way, for it destroys along with itself the man who speaks to please, and destroys beforehand the man who does not.
Just as, then, the astronomers say that the sun neither moves in the same course as the heavens nor directly opposite and counter to it, but by using an oblique and inclined path of motion makes a moist, pliant, and coiling spiral, by which everything is preserved and receives its best blending — so too, in statesmanship, the tension that is too upright and opposes the people in everything is harsh and hard, while, on the other hand, that which is dragged along and sinks together with the errors of the many is precarious and downhill,
whereas the oversight and governance that yields somewhat to those it persuades, granting what pleases them, and then demands what is beneficial from men who render much service gently and usefully — if they are not led entirely in a despotic and forceful manner — is salutary, though laborious and difficult, and has a dignity that mixes poorly with gentleness; but if the two are mixed, this is the most harmonious and musical blending of all rhythms and of all harmonies, by which god also is said to govern the universe — not by force, but by leading necessity through persuasion and reason.
This is what happened also to Cato the Younger; for he too had a character neither persuasive nor endearing to the crowd, nor did he flourish in public life by seeking favor; but Cicero says that he, conducting himself as though in Plato's republic and not among the dregs of Romulus, fell short of the consulship, while to me it seems that he suffered the same fate as fruits that appear out of season.
For just as men look upon those fruits with delight and wonder yet never actually make use of them, in the same way Cato's antiquated style, showing up after a long gap amid ruined lives and depraved customs, earned great fame and glory but proved ill-suited to what the age required, since the weight and magnitude of his virtue outstripped the circumstances of his own time.
For he too, when his country was not yet fallen, as Phocion's was, but was tossed by a great storm and swell, took part in politics only so far as to lay hold of the sails and ropes and stand by those with greater power, and though thrust away from the tiller and the steering, still he set up a great struggle against fortune. For others did indeed seize and overthrow the constitution, but only with difficulty, slowly, and after a long time, and it came within a hair of surviving, thanks to Cato and Cato's virtue —
to whom we compare Phocion, not according to general resemblances, as of good and political men — for indeed there is a difference between courage and courage, as that of Alcibiades compared with that of Epaminondas, and between prudence and prudence, as that of Themistocles compared with that of Aristides, and between justice and justice, as that of Numa compared with that of Agesilaus —
but the virtues of these men, down to their final and indivisible distinctions, display one stamp and shape and a common color of character blended in, as though mixed in equal measure of humaneness with sternness, and of steadfastness with caution, and of concern for others combined equally with fearlessness for themselves, and of scrupulousness toward what is shameful combined with vigor toward what is just; so that a very fine argument is needed, like an instrument, for distinguishing and discovering the differences.
Now it is agreed that Cato's family sprang from illustrious stock, as will be told; but as for Phocion, I conjecture that he was by no means of a wholly dishonored and fallen family. For if he had been, as Idomeneus says, the son of a pestle-maker, Glaucippus the son of Hyperides, who gathered countless charges and spoke many evils against him, would not have passed over his low birth in his speech, nor would Phocion have shared in so free a life and sound an education as to take part, while still a youth, in the school of Plato, and later that of Xenocrates, in the Academy, and to become from the first a zealous follower of the noblest pursuits.
For no Athenian ever easily saw Phocion laughing or weeping, nor bathing in the public baths, as Duris has recorded, nor keeping his hand outside his cloak whenever he happened to be wrapped in it, since in the countryside and on campaigns he always walked unshod and without a cloak, except when the frost grew too severe to bear, so that the soldiers on campaign used to joke that it was a sign of a great winter when Phocion was seen wearing clothes.
Though most gentle and humane in character, he appeared forbidding and grim of countenance, so that not easily would any stranger approach him alone; for which reason, when Chares once, in reference to his eyebrows, made the Athenians laugh, Phocion said, "This eyebrow of mine has never caused you any grief; but the laughter of these men has made the city weep many times."
In like manner, too, the speech of Phocion was, at times of good fortune and design, salutary, having a certain commanding, stern, and unadorned brevity. For just as Zeno used to say that the philosopher ought to dip his words in sense before uttering them, so Phocion's speech packed the greatest sense into the smallest number of words. And with this in view, it seems, Polyeuctus of Sphettus said that Demosthenes was the best orator,
but Phocion was the most powerful speaker; for just as the value of a coin has the greatest power in the smallest bulk, so the power of his speech seemed to signify much from little. And indeed they say that Phocion himself, once when the theater was filling up, was walking about behind the stage, absorbed in his own thoughts, and when one of his friends said, "Phocion, you look like a man deliberating," he replied, "Yes, by Zeus, I am considering whether I can cut anything out of the speech I am about to deliver to the Athenians."
And Demosthenes, who despised the other orators greatly, when Phocion rose to speak, would murmur to his companions, "There goes the man who lops off my speeches." But this perhaps should be attributed to Phocion's character, since a mere word and a nod from a good man carries a weight of credibility equal to countless arguments and periods.
While still young he attached himself to the general Chabrias and followed him closely, gaining much benefit toward experience in warfare, but in some respects correcting that man's nature, which was uneven and unrestrained. For Chabrias, though sluggish and slow to move otherwise, in the very midst of battles would grow heated and be inflamed with passion and rush along with the boldest men too recklessly — a trait which indeed also brought about the end of his life at Chios, when he was the first to drive his trireme ashore and force a landing.
Phocion, then, appearing at once cautious and energetic, both warmed up Chabrias' hesitation and again took away the ill-timed sharpness of his impulse. Hence Chabrias, being kindly and good-natured, loved him and advanced him to commands and leading positions, bringing him to the notice of the Greek world and putting him to work on affairs of the highest importance. And from the naval battle off Naxos he won for Phocion no small measure of name and reputation, since he placed him in charge of the left flank, on which side the fight was sharpest and brought about a swift decision.
This, then, being the first naval battle the city had fought by itself against the Greeks after her capture, and having won it, she loved Chabrias exceedingly and gained a high opinion of Phocion as a man fit to command. They won during the Great Mysteries; and Chabrias provided the Athenians a libation of wine each year on the sixteenth of Boedromion.
After this, it is said, when Chabrias sent him to collect the tribute from the islands and gave him a fleet of twenty ships, Phocion replied that were he sent to make war, he would need a greater force, but if to deal with allies, one ship was enough; and sailing with his own trireme and conversing with the cities and meeting with their magistrates in a fair and simple manner, he sailed back with many ships, which the allies had sent bringing money to the Athenians.
Nor did he only attend to and honor Chabrias while he lived, but once Chabrias had died he continued to look after his kinsfolk, and though he wished to make Chabrias' son Ctesippus a good man, seeing him rash and unruly, he nevertheless did not give up correcting him and concealing his disgraces. Except once, they say, when the young man was making a nuisance of himself on some campaign, pestering him with untimely questions and advice as though correcting and giving strategy alongside him, Phocion said: "O Chabrias, Chabrias, great indeed is the gratitude I pay for your friendship, in putting up with your son."
Seeing that those managing public affairs at that time were divided, as if by lot, between the general's post and the speaker's platform, and that some only spoke and moved motions in the assembly — among them Eubulus, Aristophon, Demosthenes, Lycurgus, and Hyperides — while Diopeithes, Menestheus, Leosthenes, and Chares aggrandized themselves through generalship and war, Phocion wished to take up and restore the statesmanship of Pericles, Aristides, and Solon, whole and harmonized in both respects. For indeed each of those men appeared, in the words of Archilochus, to be both alike: "a servant of the war-god Enyalius, and one who understood the lovely Muses' gift"; and he saw that the goddess was called and was in fact both warlike and political at once.
Having thus disposed himself, he always practiced politics in the direction of peace and quiet, yet he held more generalships than not only his contemporaries but even those before him, neither canvassing for them nor seeking them out, but also neither fleeing nor shrinking from them when the city called; for it is agreed that he received forty-five generalships, not once being present at the elections, but always being summoned and elected while absent,
so that those who do not think well of the people wonder that, though Phocion opposed them in most things and never said or did anything to please them, the people employed the more agreeable and cheerful men as popular leaders for the sake of amusement — just as kings, they say, use flatterers after the ritual hand-washing — but for their offices always called upon, when sober and in earnest, the sternest and most sensible of the citizens, and the one who alone, or more than any other, set himself against their wishes and impulses.
For when an oracle was read out from Delphi saying that, while the other Athenians thought alike, one man held opinions contrary to the city, Phocion came forward and told them not to trouble themselves, since he himself was the man being sought; for he alone was pleased by nothing that was being done. But once, when he was delivering an opinion to the people and won approval, and he saw everyone alike receiving his speech favorably, he turned to his friends and said, "Surely I have not unwittingly said something bad?"
When the Athenians were asking for contributions toward some sacrifice, and the others were giving, Phocion, though called upon repeatedly, said: "Ask these rich men here; as for me, I would be ashamed to give to you while I still owe money to this man," pointing to Callicles the moneylender. And when they did not stop shouting and clamoring at him, he told them this story:
"A cowardly man was going out to war, and when the crows cried out, he laid down his arms and stayed still; then he took them up again and went out, and when they cried out again he stopped once more, and at last he said: 'You may cry out as loudly as you can, but you will not taste of me.'" And again once, when the Athenians ordered him to lead them out against the enemy, and since he was unwilling, they called him cowardly and unmanly, he said: "Neither can you make me bold, nor I make you cowardly. Still, we do know each other."
At dangerous moments, when the people were harsh toward him and demanding an accounting of his generalship, he said, "May you be saved first, blessed men." And when, being at war, they were humbled and full of fear, but once peace came grew bold and shouted against Phocion for having robbed them of their victory, he said, "You are fortunate to have a general who knows you—otherwise you would have perished long ago."
When they did not wish to settle their dispute with the Boeotians over the territory but instead go to war, he urged them to wage the struggle with speech, where their strength lay, rather than with weapons, where they were the weaker side. And when, as he spoke, they would neither accept nor endure listening to him, he said, "You can force me to do what I do not wish, but you will not compel me to say what I ought not against my judgment."
Of the orators opposed to him in politics, when Demosthenes said, "The Athenians will kill you, Phocion, if they go mad," he replied, "And you, if they come to their senses." And seeing Polyeuctus of Sphettus, in the heat, advising the Athenians to go to war against Philip, and then, being extremely fat, gasping heavily and sweating, often gulping down water, he said, "It is fitting that you should trust this man and vote for war—what do you think he will do in breastplate and shield, with the enemy close by, when merely speaking to you about what he has thought out
risks being choked?" And when Lycurgus said many abusive things against him in the assembly, and on top of everything, when Alexander demanded the surrender of ten citizens, he had advised handing them over, he said, "I have given these people much good and advantageous advice, but they do not listen to me."
There was a certain man called Archibiades, nicknamed the Laconizer, who let his beard grow to extraordinary length, always wore a rough cloak, and put on a scowling look. When this man was making an uproar in the council, Phocion would call on him as both witness and helper in his argument; but when the man stood up and gave advice that was pleasing to the Athenians, Phocion took hold of his beard and said, "Well, Archibiades, why then didn't you shave it off?"
As for Aristogeiton the informer, who was warlike in the assemblies and spurred the people on to action, but who came to the muster leaning on a cane with both legs bandaged, when Phocion saw him from far off approaching from the speaker's platform he shouted out, "Write down Aristogeiton too—lame and worthless." So that people wondered how and from where so harsh and scowling a man had gotten the title of "the good."
It is difficult, I think, though not impossible, for the same man to be, like wine, both pleasant and dry at once—just as, on the other hand, others who appear sweet are most unpleasant and most harmful to those who deal with them. And indeed they say Hypereides once said to the people, "Men of Athens, do not consider merely whether my temper is harsh, but whether that harshness serves no gain of my own"—as if men are only burdensome and painful through greed, and not rather that the many should fear and be wary of those who use their power for insolence, envy, anger, or some rivalry.
Phocion, then, harmed none of the citizens out of enmity, nor did he consider anyone an enemy, but only so far as was necessary did he rise up harshly, unyielding, and inexorable against those who opposed what he did on behalf of his country; in the rest of his life he showed himself kindly, approachable, and humane to all, so that he even helped those who had stumbled and stood by those in danger among his opponents.
When his friends reproached him for speaking in defense of some wicked man on trial, he said that decent men have no need of help. And when Aristogeiton the informer, after his conviction, sent for him and begged him to come, Phocion agreed and went walking to the prison; and when his friends tried to stop him, he said, "Let it be, blessed men—where else could one meet Aristogeiton with more pleasure?"
Indeed, the allies and islanders, when some other general sailed out from Athens, took the expeditions for enemies and barred their walls, blocked up their harbors, and brought in from the countryside into the cities their livestock, slaves, women, and children; but if Phocion were in command, they met him far out with their own ships, crowned with garlands and rejoicing, and brought him in to themselves.
When Philip was creeping into Euboea, ferrying his forces over from Macedonia and winning the cities over through tyrants, and Plutarch of Eretria was calling on the Athenians and begging them to rescue the island, which the Macedonian was seizing, Phocion went out as commander, leading a force that was not large, since those there were expected to join him readily.
But finding everything full of traitors, diseased and undermined by bribery, he came into great danger. He seized a certain hill near the plains of Tamynae, hidden by a deep ravine, and there he held and kept together the most battle-worthy part of his force,
and when the disorderly, chattering, and worthless men were deserting the camp and slipping away, he ordered his officers to pay them no attention: for there, being useless through their lack of discipline, they would be harmful to those who fought; while there, being conscious of such conduct in themselves, they would be less likely to cry out against him and would not slander him overmuch.
When the enemy advanced, he ordered his men to stay quiet under arms until he himself had made sacrifice, and he spent more time than usual, either because the sacrifices proved unfavorable or because he intended to lure the enemy nearer. For this reason Plutarch, thinking that he was cowering and hanging back, charged out with the mercenaries; then the cavalry, seeing him do this, could not hold back, but rode at once against the enemy, disordered and scattered, streaming out from the camp.
When the first ranks were defeated, all were scattered and Plutarch fled; and some of the enemy, pressing on the palisade, tried to break it open and tear it apart as if they had already conquered everything. Meanwhile the sacrifices were completed, and the Athenians, falling on them straight from the camp, routed them and cut down most of them as they fled around the fortifications. Phocion ordered the phalanx to stand in reserve, both to rally and to receive those who had earlier been scattered in the flight, while he himself, with the picked troops, charged into the enemy.
A fierce battle followed, in which all fought eagerly and without sparing themselves, but Thallus son of Cineas and Glaucus son of Polymedes, stationed around the general himself, distinguished themselves most. Yet Cleophanes too proved himself worth a great deal in that battle: calling back the cavalry from their rout, shouting and urging them to help the general who was in danger, he made them turn around and strengthen the victory of the infantry.
As a result of this he drove Plutarch out of Eretria and captured the fortress of Zaretra, a most strategic point where the island narrows most sharply into a slender strip, being squeezed on both sides by the sea; and as many Greeks as he took prisoner he released, fearing the orators at Athens, lest they provoke the people in their anger to treat them unjustly.
When Phocion, having accomplished this, sailed away, the allies quickly missed his goodness and justice, and the Athenians quickly recognized the man's experience and strength: for the man who came after him to take charge of affairs, Molossus, fought so badly that he himself was taken alive into the enemy's hands.
When Philip, contemplating great things in his hopes, came to the Hellespont with his whole force, intending to take the Chersonese and Perinthus and Byzantium at the same time, and the Athenians were eager to bring help, the orators contended for Chares to be sent out as general; and he, sailing there, accomplished nothing worthy of the force he had, nor did the cities receive his fleet, but, suspect to everyone, he wandered about extorting money from the allies and was despised by the enemy,
and the people, being provoked by the orators, grew angry and regretted having sent aid to the Byzantines. Phocion rose and said that anger was misplaced against allies who mistrusted them, and should instead fall on the generals who had earned that mistrust: "for these are the ones who make you feared even by those who cannot be saved without you." So the people, moved by his speech and changing their minds, ordered that he himself, taking on another force, should go to help the allies at the Hellespont—which made the greatest difference toward
the saving of Byzantium. For Phocion's reputation was already great; but when Leon, a man first among the Byzantines in virtue and an old companion of Phocion's from the Academy, undertook to vouch for him before the city, they would not allow him to camp outside as he wished, but opened their gates and received the Athenians, mingling them with themselves—men who proved not only blameless and self-controlled in their conduct, but also most eager in the fighting because of this trust,
and so Philip was then driven out of the Hellespont and held in contempt, though he had seemed to be some invincible and unbeatable force; and Phocion both seized a number of his vessels and won back cities that had been held by garrisons, and making landings in many parts of the country he ravaged and overran it, until, having received wounds from those who came to help the defenders, he sailed away.
When the Megarians secretly called for help, Phocion, fearing that the Boeotians, learning of it beforehand, would forestall the assistance, gathered an assembly at dawn, and having announced to the Athenians the message from the Megarians, as soon as they voted, he had the trumpet sound and led them off straight from the assembly, having taken up their arms.
When the Megarians received them eagerly, he fortified Nisaea, and threw up two walls across the middle from the city to the port, joining the city to the sea, so that it came to depend on the Athenians, caring little now for its enemies on land.
When war with Philip had by now broken out completely, and while he himself was not present as general, others having been chosen for the war, as soon as he sailed back from the islands he first sought to win over the assembly to accept terms of settlement, since Philip, greatly fearing the danger, leaned toward peace;
and when one of those accustomed to hang about the Heliaea and act as informers opposed him, saying, "Do you dare, Phocion, to turn the Athenians away now that they already have weapons in hand?" he said, "Yes indeed—even though I am aware that during wartime I hold command over you, while once peace arrives, you will hold command over me." And when he could not persuade them, but Demosthenes prevailed, urging the Athenians to set the battle as far from Attica as possible, he said, "My good man, let us not consider where we shall fight, but how we shall win.
For in that way the war will be kept far off; but for those who are defeated, every terror is always close at hand." And when the defeat had come to pass, and the agitators and revolutionaries in the city were hauling Charidemus onto the platform and demanding his appointment as general, this frightened the most respectable citizens; and holding the Council of the Areopagus in the assembly, begging and weeping, they with difficulty persuaded the people to entrust the city to Phocion.
He thought it right to accept the rest of Philip's policy and goodwill; but when Demades proposed that the city should share in the common peace and in the council of the Greeks, he would not permit it before learning what Philip would demand for himself from the Greeks;
being outvoted on this opinion because of the circumstances, when he immediately saw the Athenians regretting it, because they had to furnish triremes and cavalry to Philip, he said, "It was this I feared, and this is why I opposed it; but since you have agreed to it, you must not take it hard nor lose heart, remembering that our ancestors too were sometimes rulers, sometimes ruled, and by doing both of these well they saved both the city and the Greeks."
When Philip died, he would not allow the people to offer sacrifices of good tidings: for it was ignoble, he said, to gloat, and besides, the force that had fought against them at Chaeronea was diminished by only one body's worth.
When Demosthenes was denouncing Alexander, who was now advancing on Thebes, Phocion said: "Wretched man, why do you wish to provoke a savage man who is reaching for great glory? Or do you want to fan into the city a conflagration already so vast nearby? We will not allow that, even to men willing to destroy themselves—we who endure the burden of command for just this reason."
After the destruction of Thebes, once Alexander demanded that Demosthenes, Lycurgus, Hyperides, and Charidemus be handed over to him, and the assembly turned its eyes toward him, being called by name again and again he stood up, and drawing forward one of his friends whom he had always trusted and loved and relied on most, he declared: "Such is the pass to which these men have brought our city that, even if someone demanded this man Nicocles of me, I would order him handed over."
"For myself, to die on behalf of all of you I would count good fortune. But I pity," he said, "men of Athens, even those who have fled here from Thebes. It is enough for the Greeks to mourn Thebes. It is therefore better, on behalf of both, to persuade and entreat those in power than to fight."
It is said that Alexander, on receiving the first decree, threw it down and turned away in flight from the envoys; but he accepted the second, brought to him by Phocion, having heard from his elders that even Philip had admired this man, and had not only endured his audience and his petition but had listened to his advice as well. And Phocion's advice was: if he desired peace, to end the war; if glory, to redirect it, turning from the Greeks against the barbarians.
And speaking at length, aptly hitting on Alexander's nature and intention, he so changed and softened him that he said the Athenians should look after their own concerns, because rule would pass to them should any mishap befall him; and privately, making Phocion his friend and guest-friend, he set him in such
honor as few of those constantly in his company held. Duris at any rate has said that when Alexander had become great and had conquered Darius, he dropped the word "greeting" from his letters except in those he wrote to Phocion: him alone, like Antipater, he addressed with "greeting" as well. Chares too has recorded this.
It is agreed, however, about the money, that Alexander sent him a gift of a hundred talents; once this sum arrived in Athens, Phocion put a question to the men who had carried it: why, with so many Athenians to choose from, did Alexander give so much to him alone? and when they said, "Because he judges you alone to be a good and honorable man," Phocion said, "Then let him allow me both to seem and to be such a man always."
When they followed him to his house and saw great simplicity there—his wife kneading bread, and Phocion himself drawing water from the well to wash his feet—they pressed him even more and grew indignant, saying it was shameful that, being a friend of the king, he should live so poorly. So Phocion, seeing a poor old man walking by in a filthy cloak, asked whether they thought him worse off than that man; and when they begged him to say nothing ill,
"And yet," he said, "this man lives on less than I do and is content with it. In short," he said, "either I will not use so much gold and will possess it in vain, or by using it I will discredit both myself and him before the city." So the money went back again out of Athens, having shown the Greeks that the one who needed nothing was richer than the one who gave so much.
When Alexander grew indignant and wrote again to Phocion that he did not consider friends those who wanted nothing from him, Phocion still did not accept money even then, but asked that the sophist Echecratides, Athenodorus of Imbros, and two Rhodians, Demaratus and Sparton, be released, men who had been arrested on certain charges and imprisoned at Sardis.
These men Alexander released at once; and sending Craterus to Macedonia, he ordered that Phocion be given his pick of one among four Asian cities—Cius, Gergithus, Mylasa, and Elaea—insisting all the more that he would be angry if the gift were refused. But Phocion did not accept, and Alexander soon died. Phocion's house is still shown today in Melite, adorned with bronze plates, but otherwise plain and unadorned.
Of the wives he married, nothing is recorded about the first, except that Cephisodotus the sculptor was her brother; but of the second there was no less a reputation for modesty and simplicity among the Athenians than there was for Phocion's own goodness.
Once when the Athenians were watching new tragedies, the actor who was about to come on stage playing a queen's role demanded that the choregus provide him with many attendants richly adorned, and when this was not provided he grew indignant and held up the theater, unwilling to come forward. The choregus Melanthius, pushing him into the middle, shouted: "Don't you see Phocion's wife always going about with a single maidservant, while you play the braggart and corrupt the women's quarters?"
When the remark was heard clearly, the theater received it with much applause and uproar. And the woman herself, when a certain Ionian foreign woman displayed gold and bejeweled ornaments in her hairbands and necklaces, said, "For me, my ornament is Phocion, now in his twentieth year as general of the Athenians."
To his son Phocus, who wished to compete at the Panathenaea as an apobates, he permitted it, not because he desired the victory, but so that, taking care of himself and training his body, he might become better—for the young man was otherwise given to drink and disorderly. When he won and many asked to give the victory feast, Phocion declined the others and granted this honor to one man alone.
But when he came to the dinner and saw both other lavish preparation and foot-basins of wine mixed with spices being offered to those entering, he called his son and said, "Won't you stop your comrade, Phocus, from corrupting your victory?" And wishing to remove the young man altogether from that way of life, he took him off to Lacedaemon and mixed him in with the young men undergoing the so-called upbringing.
This grieved the Athenians, as though Phocion despised and looked down on his own customs; and when Demades said to him, "Why don't we persuade the Athenians, Phocion, to adopt the Laconian constitution? If you give the word, I am ready to write and speak for it," he said, "It would indeed be fitting for you, reeking of so much perfume and wearing such a fine cloak, to advise the Athenians about common messes and to praise Lycurgus."
When Alexander wrote about triremes, that they should send them to him, and the orators were opposing it, and the council bade Phocion speak, he said, "I tell you then: either be masters by arms, or be friends to those who are masters." And to Pytheas, who was then beginning for the first time to address the Athenians, already talkative and bold, he said, "Won't you be silent, seeing you were only just bought by the people?"
When Harpalus, having fled from Alexander with much money, arrived in Attica, and those accustomed to make profit from the platform were racing and competing with one another to be corrupted by him, he offered them small baits from his great store and scattered them about; but to Phocion he sent, offering seven hundred talents, and everything else besides, entrusting himself, along with everything, to him alone.
When Phocion answered harshly, warning Harpalus he would regret it unless he ceased corrupting the city, Harpalus shrank back and withdrew for a time; but shortly after, as the Athenians deliberated, he noticed that the men who had accepted his bribes were now shifting position and turning accusers, so as to avoid exposure themselves, while Phocion, who had taken nothing, kept watch over both the public interest and, at the same time, Harpalus's own safety.
So Harpalus, turning again to courting him, saw that the man himself was on every side unassailable, a fortress proof against gold; but he made Charicles, Phocion's son-in-law, his intimate and friend, and filled him with an evil reputation, trusting him with everything and using him for everything.
And indeed, when the courtesan Pythonice died—whom Harpalus had loved and by whom he had become father of a little daughter—wishing to build a monument at great expense, he assigned the charge of it to Charicles.
This service, base enough in itself, the finished tomb disgraced still further. For it still stands today at Hermes, on the road we take from the city to Eleusis, worth nothing like the thirty talents said to have been charged to Harpalus for the work by Charicles. And indeed, when Harpalus died, the little girl was taken up by Charicles and by Phocion and received every care.
When Charicles stood trial in the Harpalus affair and pleaded with Phocion to stand by him and appear alongside him in court, Phocion refused, saying: "I made you my son-in-law, Charicles, only for purposes that are just." When Asclepiades son of Hipparchus was the first to report to the Athenians that Alexander had died, Demades urged that no attention be paid to it—for if it were true, he said, the whole inhabited world would long since have reeked of the corpse—but Phocion, seeing the people roused to revolution, tried to calm and restrain them.
When many leaped up to the platform, shouting that Asclepiades was reporting the truth and that Alexander was dead, he said, "Well then, if he is dead today, he will be dead tomorrow too, and the day after, so that we may deliberate in quiet, or rather with safety."
When Leosthenes, by his headlong action, plunged the city into the Lamian War, and Phocion, displeased, was asked mockingly by him what good he had done the city in all his years of generalship, he said, "No small thing—that the citizens are buried in their own family tombs."
When Leosthenes was speaking boldly and boasting much before the people, Phocion said, "Your words, young man, are like cypress trees: tall and lofty, but they bear no fruit." And when Hyperides rose up and asked, "When then, Phocion, will you advise the Athenians to make war?" he said, "When I see the young willing to keep their post in the line, the rich to contribute money, and the orators to keep their hands off the public funds."
When many marveled at the force Leosthenes had assembled and put to Phocion the question of his opinion on the preparations, he said, "Good, for the sprint; but I fear the long-distance race of the war, since the city has no more money, no more ships, no more hoplites in reserve."
And events bore him out. For at first Leosthenes rose brilliant in his achievements, defeating the Boeotians in battle and driving Antipater back into Lamia; at which time they say the city, filled with great hope, celebrated good news continually and sacrificed to the gods, while Phocion, to those who thought to catch him out and asked whether he would not have wished these things done by himself, said, "Very much so—but I would still have given the advice I gave." And again, as one piece of good news after another was written up and brought from the camp, he said, "When, I wonder, shall we stop winning?"
When Leosthenes had died, those who feared Phocion, lest, sent out as general, he should put an end to the war, arranged for some undistinguished man to rise before the assembly and declare that, as a friend of Phocion's who had studied alongside him, he urged that the man be spared and preserved, since they had no one else of his caliber, and that Antiphilus be sent out to the army instead—and the Athenians resolved to follow this advice. Phocion came forward and said he had never gone to school with the man nor otherwise been acquainted or familiar with him,
"But now," he said, "from this day forward I make you both a friend and a kinsman, for what you advised was to my advantage." When the Athenians were eager to march against the Boeotians, he at first resisted; and when his friends said he would be put to death for opposing the Athenians, he said, "I would be doing wrong if I acted against your advantage, but if I go against my own judgment, I would be doing right."
But when he saw that they would not relent but kept shouting, he ordered the herald to proclaim that all Athenians up to sixty years of age, counting from their youth, should take five days' rations and follow at once from the assembly. When a great uproar arose and the older men shouted and leapt up in protest, he said, "There is nothing terrible in this — for I, your general, being eighty years old, will be with you." And so for that time he checked them and made them change their minds.
When the coastal region was being ravaged by Micion, who had put ashore at Rhamnus a sizable body of Macedonian troops together with hired soldiers and was pillaging the land, Phocion led the Athenians out against him. When men running up from various quarters played the general and advised him to seize this hill, to send the cavalry around there, to encamp here, he said, "O Heracles, what a crowd of generals I behold, and so few actual soldiers!"
When he had drawn up his hoplites in battle order, one man advanced far ahead of the rest, then, taking fright when an enemy soldier stood against him, retreated back into the ranks. Phocion said, "Young man, are you not ashamed to have abandoned two positions — the one in which you were posted by your general, and again the one in which you posted yourself?" Then, charging the enemy and routing them decisively, he killed Micion himself along with many others.
The Greek army in Thessaly, when Leonnatus joined Antipater with the Macedonians from Asia, was victorious in battle, and Leonnatus fell, while Antiphilus commanded the phalanx and Menon the Thessalian commanded the cavalry.
A little while later, when Craterus crossed over from Asia with a large force and another battle was fought at Crannon, the Greeks were defeated — not a great defeat, nor with many falling — but through disobedience toward their commanders, who were reasonable but young men, and at the same time, since Antipater was making trial of their cities, they scattered in the most shameful way and gave up their freedom.
At once, as Antipater led his force against Athens, Demosthenes and Hypereides and their circle departed from the city. But Demades, who had not paid any part of the money he owed on the judgments against him — for he was able to pay, having been convicted seven times of proposing illegal measures and, being disenfranchised, was barred from public speaking — having then obtained immunity, wrote a decree to send plenipotentiary ambassadors to Antipater to negotiate peace,
and when the people, in fear, called upon Phocion and said they trusted him alone, he said, "But if you had trusted me when I was advising you, we would not now be deliberating about matters of this sort." When the decree had thus been ratified, he was sent to Antipater, who was encamped at the Cadmea and preparing to march at once into Attica. And this was the first thing he asked — that Antipater remain where he was and conduct the settlement there,
and when Craterus said that Phocion was persuading them unjustly, that they, sitting in the country of their allies and friends when they could be doing them harm, should instead derive benefit from the country of their enemies, Antipater, taking him by the right hand, said, "This favor must be granted
to Phocion." As for the rest, he ordered the Athenians to leave it in their hands, just as Leosthenes had once done to him at Lamia.
When Phocion returned to the city and the Athenians agreed to these terms out of necessity, he set out again for Thebes with the other ambassadors, the Athenians having chosen in addition the philosopher Xenocrates. So great was the reputation of Xenocrates' virtue, his fame and the report of him among all, that it was thought neither insolence nor cruelty nor anger could grow in a human soul which, at the mere sight of Xenocrates, would not be moved to some feeling of reverence and honor toward him,
but the reverse came about, owing to a kind of carelessness and dislike of virtue on Antipater's part. To begin with, he failed to greet Xenocrates while welcoming everyone else in turn; at which, they say, Xenocrates remarked that Antipater did well to be ashamed only before him of the wrongs he intended to do the city. Then, when Xenocrates began to speak, Antipater would not tolerate it, but interrupted and grew impatient, and made him fall silent.
When Phocion's party had spoken, Antipater replied that he would grant the Athenians friendship and alliance on condition that they hand over Demosthenes and Hypereides and their circle, that they govern themselves by their ancestral constitution based on a property qualification, that they receive a garrison into Munychia, and further that they pay the costs of the war and an additional penalty.
The other ambassadors were content with the settlement as humane, except Xenocrates, who said that Antipater had dealt with them moderately as with slaves, but harshly as with free men. When Phocion pleaded and begged to be spared the garrison, Antipater is said to have replied, "O Phocion, we wish to grant you everything except the things that would destroy both you and us."
But others say it did not happen this way, but rather that Antipater asked whether, if he removed the garrison for the Athenians, Phocion would guarantee that the city would abide by the peace and cause no trouble; and when he remained silent and hesitated, Callimedon called the Crab, a bold man and a hater of the democracy, leapt up and said, "And if this man talks nonsense, Antipater, will you trust him and not do what you have already resolved?"
In this way the Athenians received a Macedonian garrison and Menyllus as commander, a reasonable man and a friend of Phocion's, but the order appeared arrogant, and more a display of power abused with insolence than a seizure made for practical reasons. And the timing added no small measure to the suffering, since the garrison entered on Boedromion's twentieth, in the midst of the Mysteries, the very day the procession leads Iacchus out from the city toward Eleusis, with the result that the sacred rite was disrupted, and the people reckoned up together the ancient signs of the gods and the recent ones,
for long ago, in their greatest strokes of fortune, mystic visions and voices had appeared, with terror and awe striking their enemies, but now, at these same rites, the gods were witnessing the harshest sufferings of Greece, and the holiest and most beloved of their times was being outraged, becoming the very name attached to the greatest evils. And indeed, a few years before, the priestesses of Dodona had given the city an oracle to "guard the headlands of Artemis," so that others might not seize them;
and at that time, around those very days, the ribbons with which they wind the mystic beds, being dyed, came out a dull yellowish, corpse-like color instead of crimson; and what was worse, everything dyed alongside private garments took on the color proper to itself. And a sea-monster seized an initiate's piglet as he was washing it in the harbor of Cantharus, and swallowed the lower parts of its body up to the belly, the god plainly showing them beforehand that, deprived of the lower parts and what lay by the sea, they would keep safe only the upper city.
The garrison, on account of Menyllus, caused the people no distress; but of those disfranchised from citizenship on account of poverty there were more than twelve thousand, and those who remained seemed to suffer harsh and dishonorable treatment, while those who for this reason left the city and moved to Thrace, where Antipater provided them land and a city, looked like people driven out under siege.
The death of Demosthenes at Calauria and of Hypereides near Cleonae, about which I have written elsewhere, all but instilled in the Athenians a longing and yearning for Alexander and Philip. And this was the very thing that happened later, when Antigonus had been killed and those who killed him began to use violence and to oppress people: a rustic man in Phrygia, digging in a field, when someone asked him "What are you doing?", sighed and said, "I am looking for Antigonus."
This came to many people's lips as they recalled the temper of those kings, how their greatness and nobility of spirit were easily appeased, unlike Antipater, who, hiding his power under the guise of a private citizen and the plainness of a cheap cloak and a frugal way of life, was, to those who suffered under him, a more oppressive master and tyrant,
yet even so Phocion secured many from exile by pleading with Antipater, and for those who did go into exile he arranged that, unlike the rest of those displaced, they should not be cast out of Greece beyond the Ceraunian mountains and Taenarum, but should settle in the Peloponnese — among whom was also Hagnonides the sycophant,
and in managing the city's affairs gently and lawfully, he always kept the decent and gracious men in office, while the meddlesome and revolution-seeking types, wasting away simply because they held no office and could cause no disturbance, he taught to love their land and take pleasure in farming. Seeing that Xenocrates was paying the metic's tax, he wished to have him registered as a citizen; but Xenocrates refused, saying he would not wish to share in the very citizenship he had gone as ambassador to prevent from coming into being.
When Menyllus offered him a gift of money, he replied that Menyllus was no better a man than Alexander, nor was the reason for which he would now accept it any stronger than the reason for which he had earlier refused. But when Menyllus asked that his son Phocus be allowed to take it, he said, "If Phocus reforms his conduct and grows sensible, what his father leaves him will suffice; but given the way he is at present, no amount would suffice." To Antipater, who wished something improper done through him, he replied more harshly still: "Antipater cannot have me both as a friend and as a flatterer."
Antipater is said to have observed that of his two friends in Athens, Phocion and Demades, he was unable to induce the former to take anything from him, and the other he could never satisfy however much he gave. And indeed Phocion made a display of his poverty as a virtue, growing old in it though he had so often served Athens as general and enjoyed the friendship of kings, while Demades prided himself on his wealth and on breaking the laws.
For there was a law at Athens at that time that no foreigner should perform in the chorus, or else the producer must pay a fine of a thousand drachmas; but Demades brought in a hundred foreigners as chorus members all at once, and paid the penalty of a thousand drachmas apiece straight into the theater treasury. And when he was leading home a bride for his son Demeas, he said, "My boy, when I married your mother, not even the neighbor noticed, but at your wedding even kings and rulers join in providing the chorus."
When the Athenians pressed Phocion to persuade Antipater to remove the garrison, whether because he did not expect to succeed in persuading him, or rather because he saw that the people, out of fear, were behaving prudently and governing themselves in good order, he kept putting off that embassy, but he did persuade Antipater not to press for the money owed, but to delay and postpone it. So they turned instead and appealed to Demades.
He took up the task gladly, and, bringing his son along, departed for Macedonia, guided by some divine agency, it would seem, to arrive at precisely the moment when Antipater was already gripped by illness, and Cassander, having gained control of affairs, found a letter written by Demades to Antigonus in Asia, urging him to appear before the Greeks and Macedonians, who were hanging, as Antipater had mockingly put it, by an old and rotten thread.
So when Cassander saw that he had arrived, he seized him, and first, bringing his son up close, he slaughtered him, so that the father received the blood in his own lap and was drenched in the murder; and afterward, heaping many reproaches and insults upon him for ingratitude and betrayal, he killed him.
When Antipater, having appointed Polyperchon general and Cassander chiliarch, passed away, Cassander at once rose up and, moving to seize control of affairs beforehand, sent Nicanor in haste to succeed Menyllus as commander of the garrison, having ordered him to take over Munychia before Antipater's death should become publicly known.
When this had happened, and a few days later the Athenians learned that Antipater had died, Phocion came under suspicion and was spoken of ill, as though he had foreseen it and kept silent as a favor to Nicanor. But Phocion paid no attention to this; instead, meeting with Nicanor and conversing with him, he made him gentle and agreeable toward the Athenians in other respects as well, and persuaded him to undertake certain outlays of generosity and expense by serving as director of games.
Meanwhile Polyperchon, who held the guardianship of the king under his own control and was maneuvering politically against Cassander, sent a letter written to the people in the city, saying that the king was restoring democracy to them and ordering all Athenians to conduct their government according to their ancestral customs.
This was in fact a plot against Phocion. For Polyperchon, contriving to bring the city over to himself, as he shortly afterward showed by his actions, had no hope of accomplishing anything unless Phocion were driven out; and he expected that Phocion would fall the moment those who had been disenfranchised were poured back into the citizen body and once again took hold of the speaker's platform, playing the demagogue and bringing false accusations.
When the Athenians began to be stirred up over these matters, Nicanor, wishing to meet with them, came forward when a council was held at the Piraeus, entrusting his person to Phocion. When Dercyllus, the general in command of the countryside, attempted to seize him, Nicanor, sensing it beforehand, leapt away and at once made it plain that he would defend himself against the city. Phocion, when accused of letting the man slip away instead of holding him under guard, replied that he had confidence in Nicanor and looked for no harm from him; but even if that were not so, he would rather appear to be wronged than to be seen doing wrong,
and this, to anyone examining it on Phocion's own behalf, might seem to have been spoken nobly and like a gentleman; but a man risking the safety of his fatherland, and a general and magistrate at that, I do not know but that he transgresses something greater and more venerable — namely, what is just toward his fellow citizens. Nor can one even say that Phocion held back from Nicanor out of fear of plunging the city into war, but rather that he put forward good faith and justice merely as pretexts, so that Nicanor, out of shame, might keep quiet and do the Athenians no wrong;
but it truly appears that some strong trust in Nicanor had genuinely grown in him, since, though many accused him beforehand and charged that he was going to attack the Piraeus, ferry foreign troops across to Salamis, and corrupt some of those living in the Piraeus, Phocion would not accept the report nor believe it, but even when Philomelus of Lamptrae proposed a decree that all Athenians should be under arms and heed the general Phocion, he paid no heed to it, until Nicanor, bringing up his forces from Munychia, dug a trench around the Piraeus.
While these things were happening, Phocion was harassed and held in contempt, wishing to lead the Athenians out against Nicanor; but Alexander, the son of Polyperchon, arrived with a force, ostensibly to help those in the city against Nicanor, but in fact to seize the city itself, if he could, now that it had fallen into confusion of its own accord.
For the exiles who had come in with him were at once inside the city, and when foreigners and disfranchised men alike rushed to join them, a mixed and disorderly assembly gathered, in which they removed Phocion from his command and chose other generals. And if Alexander had not been seen coming together in private conference with Nicanor, alone by the wall, and had not done this many times, thereby giving the Athenians cause for suspicion, the city would not have escaped danger.
But when Hagnonides the orator immediately fastened upon Phocion's party and accused them of treason, Callimedon and Charicles, out of fear, left the city; Phocion, together with those of his friends who had stayed with him, went off to Polyperchon. And Solon of Plataea and Deinarchus of Corinth went out with them, as a favor to Phocion, being thought to be intimates and friends of Polyperchon,
and since Deinarchus fell ill, they spent many days at Elateia; during which time, Hagnonides having persuaded the people and Archestratus having proposed the decree, the people sent an embassy accusing Phocion, and both parties met with Polyperchon, who was traveling with the king near a certain village of Phocis called Pharygae, lying beneath Mount Acrourium, which is now called Galate.
There Polyperchon had the gilded pavilion erected and placed the king together with his friends beneath it. He ordered Deinarchus to be seized straightaway as he came forward, tortured, and put to death, but granted the Athenians a hearing. When they made an uproar and outcry, accusing one another in the council, and Hagnonides came forward and said, "Put all of us together into a single cage and send us back to the Athenians to answer for ourselves," the king laughed,
but the Macedonians and foreigners standing about the council, having leisure, were eager to listen, and urged the envoys, by a nod, to make their accusation there. But there was no equal footing at all: whenever Phocion spoke, Polyperchon often cut him off, until finally he struck the ground with his staff and fell silent.
When Hegemon said that Polyperchon himself was witness to his goodwill toward the people, and Polyperchon answered him angrily, "Stop lying about me to the king," the king leapt up and rushed at Hegemon with his spear to strike him. Polyperchon quickly threw his arms around him, and thus the council was dissolved.
As guards surrounded Phocion and those with him, those of his companions who happened not to be standing nearby, when they saw this, covered their faces and slipped away and escaped. But Cleitus led the men off to Athens — ostensibly to be tried, but in fact condemned to die.
And the very manner of their conveyance made it grievous to see: they were carried on wagons through the Kerameikos to the theater. For there Cleitus brought them and held them, until the archons had filled the assembly, admitting neither slave nor foreigner nor disfranchised man, but throwing open the platform and the theater to all men and all women.
When the king's letter was read out, saying that he himself had determined that the men had been traitors, but leaving the judgment to them, since they were free and self-governing, and Cleitus brought the men in, the best of the citizens, on seeing Phocion, covered their faces and wept, bowing their heads; but one man stood up and dared to say that, since the king had entrusted so weighty a judgment to the people, it would be well for slaves and foreigners to withdraw from the assembly,
but the crowd would not put up with this, crying out instead that these oligarchs, these enemies of the common people, ought to be stoned, so that no one else ventured to speak up for Phocion. Phocion himself, though barely able to make himself heard, managed to say, "Is it your wish to kill us with justice, or without it?" And when some replied, "With justice," he answered, "Yet how can you decide that without first hearing our case?"
Since they would not listen any the more, he came forward closer and said, "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?" When many answered, "Because they are your friends," Phocion withdrew and kept silent, and Hagnonides, holding a decree he had already drafted, read it aloud: by its terms the citizens would cast a hand-vote on each man's guilt, and whichever of them the vote condemned would be put to death.
When the decree had been read, some demanded that it be amended so that Phocion should die under torture as well, and they gave orders for the rack to be fetched and the torturers called in. But Hagnonides, noting that Cleitus himself was unhappy with this and thought it savage and shameful, declared, "Athenians, once we lay hands on Callimedon the scourge, let him be racked; but as for Phocion, I move nothing of the sort."
At this one of the more decent men murmured, "You do well — for if we torture Phocion, what will we do to you?" When the decree had been ratified and the vote by show of hands taken, no one remained seated, but all stood up, and most even crowned themselves with garlands, and voted death upon them. With Phocion were Nicocles, Thoudippus, Hegemon, and Pythocles; and since Demetrius of Phalerum, Callimedon, Charicles, and certain others were absent, death was voted against them as well.
So then, when they had dissolved the assembly and were leading the men to the prison, the others, embraced by their friends and family, walked along wailing and lamenting, but seeing Phocion's face, just as it looked when he was being escorted from the assembly after holding command, they marveled at the man's freedom from suffering and greatness of soul,
while his enemies ran alongside reviling him, and one man went so far as to approach and spit into his face. At this, so the story goes, Phocion turned to the archons and remarked, "Will no one stop this man's disgraceful behavior?" And when Thoudippus, once in the prison and seeing the hemlock being ground, grew indignant and wept over his misfortune, at being destroyed together with Phocion though it was not fitting, Phocion said, "Then are you not content to die together with Phocion?"
When one of his friends asked whether he had anything to say to his son Phocus, he said, "Indeed I do: I tell him not to bear a grudge against the Athenians." And when Nicocles, who was his most trusted friend, begged him to let him drink the poison first, Phocion said, "This request is a heavy and painful one for me, Nicocles; but since I have never in my whole life refused you anything,
I grant you this too." When all had already drunk the poison, it ran short, and the public executioner said he would not grind more unless he received twelve drachmas, the price at which he purchased the measure. Since time was being wasted in delay, Phocion called one of his friends and, saying that it seemed a man could not even die for free at Athens, told him to give the man the small sum.
The date was the nineteenth of Munychion, and the cavalry, escorting the procession in honor of Zeus, happened to be passing at that very moment; some of them took off their garlands, others, in tears, turned their gaze toward the doors of the prison. It seemed to those who were not entirely hardened and corrupted in soul by anger and envy that it was a most unholy thing that they had not even held off that day, nor kept the city free of public bloodshed while it was celebrating a festival.
Nonetheless, as though they had fought too weak a contest against their enemies, they resolved also to banish Phocion's body and to allow no Athenian to kindle fire for its burial. And so no friend dared to touch the body, but a certain Conopion, who was accustomed to render such services for pay, carried the corpse beyond Eleusis, took fire from the territory of Megara, and burned it.
His wife, being present with her handmaids, heaped up an empty mound there and poured libations upon it; then, placing the bones in her bosom, she carried them by night to her house and buried them beside the hearth, saying, "To your keeping, beloved hearth, I give what remains of a good man. Give them back to the tomb of his fathers, once the Athenians regain their reason."
And indeed, once a little while had gone by, and the events themselves had shown the people what sort of guardian and protector of self-control and justice they had destroyed, they set up a bronze statue of him, and buried his bones at public expense. Of his accusers, they themselves condemned Hagnonides to death by vote and put him to death; and as for Epicurus and Demophilus, who had fled the city, Phocion's son tracked them down and took vengeance on them.
They say this son proved otherwise unremarkable, and that, being in love with a young slave girl kept at a brothel-keeper's, he happened to be present when Theodorus the atheist was discoursing in the Lyceum, arguing something like this: "If it is not shameful to ransom a male friend, neither is it shameful to ransom a female one in like manner; and if it is not shameful in the case of a male companion, neither is it in the case of a female companion." Taking this argument for his own desire, as though it were a good one, he ransomed the courtesan. But what happened concerning Phocion again reminded the Greeks of what happened concerning Socrates, since the city's error and misfortune in this case proved most similar to that one.