Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
had not so much as the least familiarity with him; "Yet now, sir,"
says he, "give me leave to put you down among the number of my
friends and well-wishers, as you have given a piece of advice so
much to my advantage."
And when the people were eager to make an expedition against the
Boeotians, he at first opposed it; and on his friends telling him
the people would kill him, for always running counter to them,
"That will be unjust of them," he said, "if I give them honest
advice, if not, it will be just of them.'' But when he found them
persisting and shouting to him to lead them out, he commanded the
crier to make proclamation, that all the Athenians under sixty
should instantly provide themselves with five days' provision, and
follow him from the assembly. This caused a great tumult. Those
in years were startled, and clamored against the order; he
demanded wherein he injured them, "For I," says he, "am now
fourscore, and am ready to lead you." This succeeded in pacifying
them for the present.
But when Micion, with a large force of Macedonians and
mercenaries, began to pillage the sea-coast, having made a descent
upon Rhamnus, and overrun the neighboring country, Phocion led out
the Athenians to attack him. And when sundry private persons
came, intermeddling with his dispositions, and telling him that he
ought to occupy such or such a hill, detach the cavalry in this or
that direction, engage the enemy on this point or that, "O
Hercules," said he, "how many generals have we here, and how few
soldiers!" Afterwards, having formed the battle, one who wished
to show his bravery, advanced out of his post before the rest, but
on the enemy's approaching, lost heart, and retired back into his
rank. "Young man," said Phocion, "are you not ashamed twice in
one day to desert your station, first that on which I had placed
you, and secondly, that on which you had placed yourself?"
However, he entirely routed the enemy, killing Micion and many
more on the spot. The Grecian army, also, in Thessaly, after
Leonnatus and the Macedonians who came with him out of Asia, had
arrived and joined Antipater, fought and beat them in a battle.
Leonnatus was killed in the fight, Antiphilus commanding the foot,
and Menon, the Thessalian, the horse.
But not long after, Craterus crossed from Asia with numerous
forces; a pitched battle was fought at Cranon; the Greeks were
beaten; though not, indeed, in a signal defeat, nor with any great
loss of men. But what with their want of obedience to their
commanders, who were young and over-indulgent with them, and what
with Antipater's tampering and treating with their separate
cities, one by one, the end of it was that the army was dissolved,
and the Greeks shamefully surrendered the liberty of their
country.
Upon the news of Antipater's now advancing at once against Athens
with all his force, Demosthenes and Hyperides deserted the city,
and Demades, who was altogether insolvent for any part of the
fines that had been laid upon him by the city, for he had been
condemned no less than seven times for introducing bills contrary
to the laws, and who had been disfranchised, and was no longer
competent to vote in the assembly, laid hold of this season of
impunity, to bring in a bill for sending ambassadors with
plenipotentiary power to Antipater, to treat about a peace. But
the people distrusted him, and called upon Phocion to give his
opinion, as the person they only and entirely confided in. He
told them, "If my former counsels had been prevalent with you, we
had not been reduced to deliberate on the question at all."
However, the vote passed; and a decree was made, and he with
others deputed to go to Antipater, who lay now encamped in the
Theban territories, but intended to dislodge immediately, and pass
into Attica. Phocion's first request was, that he would make the
treaty without moving his camp. And when Craterus declared that
it was not fair to ask them to be burdensome to the country of
their friends and allies by their stay, when they might rather use
that of their enemies for provisions and the support of their
army, Antipater taking him by the hand, said, "We must grant this
favor to Phocion." For the rest, he bade them return to their
principals, and acquaint them that he could only offer them the
same terms, namely, to surrender at discretion, which Leosthenes
had offered to him when he was shut up in Lamia.
When Phocion had returned to the city, and acquainted them with
this answer, they made a virtue of necessity, and complied, since
it would be no better. So Phocion returned to Thebes with the
other ambassadors, and among the rest, Xenocrates, the
philosopher, the reputation of whose virtue and wisdom was so
great and famous everywhere, that they conceived there could not
be any pride, cruelty, or anger arising in the heart of man, which
would not at the mere sight of him be subdued into something of
reverence and admiration. But the result, as it happened, was the
very opposite, Antipater showed such a want of feeling, and such a
dislike of goodness. He saluted everyone else, but would not so
much as notice Xenocrates. Xenocrates, they tell us, observed
upon it, that Antipater when meditating such cruelty to Athens,
did well to be ashamed of seeing him. When he began to speak, he
would not hear him, but broke in and rudely interrupted him, until
at last he was obliged to he silent. But when Phocion had
declared the purport of their embassy, he replied shortly, that he
would make peace with the Athenians on these conditions, and no
others; that Demosthenes and Hyperides should be delivered up to
him; that they should retain their ancient form of government, the
franchise being determined by a property qualification; that they
should receive a garrison into Munychia, and pay a certain sum for
the cost of the war. As things stood, these terms were judged
tolerable by the rest of the ambassadors; Xenocrates only said,
that if Antipater considered the Athenians slaves, he was treating
them fairly, but if free, severely. Phocion pressed him only to
spare them the garrison, and used many arguments and entreaties.
Antipater replied, "Phocion, we are ready to do you any favor,
which will not bring ruin both on ourselves and on you." Others
report it differently; that Antipater asked Phocion, supposing he
remitted the garrison to the Athenians, would he, Phocion, stand
surety for the city's observing the terms and attempting no
revolution? And when he hesitated, and did not at once reply,
Callimedon, the Carabus, a hot partisan and professed enemy of
free states, cried out, "And if he should talk so idly, Antipater,
will you be so much abused as to believe him and not carry out
your own purpose?" So the Athenians received the garrison, and
Menyllus for the governor, a fair-dealing man, and one of
Phocion's acquaintance.
But the proceeding seemed sufficiently imperious and arbitrary,
indeed rather a spiteful and insulting ostentation of power, than
that the possession of the fortress would be of any great
importance. The resentment felt upon it was heightened by the
time it happened in, for the garrison was brought in on the
twentieth of the month of Boedromion, just at the time of the
great festival, when they carry forth Iacchus with solemn pomp
from the city to Eleusis; so that the solemnity being disturbed,
many began to call to mind instances, both ancient and modern, of
divine interventions and intimations. For in old time, upon the
occasions of their happiest successes, the presence of the shapes
and voices of the mystic ceremonies had been vouchsafed to them,
striking terror and amazement into their enemies; but now, at the
very season of their celebration, the gods themselves stood
witnesses of the saddest oppressions of Greece, the most holy time
being profaned, and their greatest jubilee made the unlucky date
of their most extreme calamity. Not many years before, they had a
warning from the oracle at Dodona, that they should carefully
guard the summits of Diana, lest haply strangers should seize
them. And about this very time, when they dyed the ribbons and
garlands with which they adorn the couches and cars of the
procession, instead of a purple they received only a faint yellow
color; and to make the omen yet greater, all the things that were
dyed for common use, took the natural color. While a candidate
for initiation was washing a young pig in the haven of Cantharus,
a shark seized him, bit off all his lower parts up to the belly,
and devoured them, by which the god gave them manifestly to
understand, that having lost the lower town and the sea-coast,
they should keep only the upper city.
Menyllus was sufficient security that the garrison should behave
itself inoffensively. But those who were now excluded from the
franchise by poverty, amounted to more than twelve thousand; so
that both those that remained in the city thought themselves
oppressed and shamefully used, and those who on this account left
their homes and went away into Thrace, where Antipater offered
them a town and some territory to inhabit, regarded themselves
only as a colony of slaves and exiles. And when to this was added
the deaths of Demosthenes at Calauria, and of Hyperides at
Cleonae, as we have elsewhere related, the citizens began to think
with regret of Philip and Alexander, and almost to wish the return
of those times. And as, after Antigonus was slain, when those
that had taken him off were afflicting and oppressing the people,
a countryman in Phrygia, digging in the fields, was asked what he
was doing, "I am," said he, fetching a deep sigh, "searching for
Antigonus;" so said many that remembered those days, and the
contests they had with those kings, whose anger, however great,
was yet generous and placable; whereas Antipater, with the
counterfeit humility of appearing like a private man, in the
meanness of his dress and his homely fare, merely belied his
real love of that arbitrary power, which he exercised, as a cruel
master and despot, to distress those under his command. Yet
Phocion had interest with him to recall many from banishment by
his intercession, and prevailed also for those who were driven
out, that they might not, like others, be hurried beyond Taenarus,
and the mountains of Ceraunia, but remain in Greece, and plant
themselves in Peloponnesus, of which number was Agnonides, the
sycophant. He was no less studious to manage the affairs within
the city with equity and moderation, preferring constantly those
that were men of worth and good education to the magistracies, and
recommending the busy and turbulent talkers, to whom it was a
mortal blow to be excluded from office and public debating, to
learn to stay at home, and be content to till their land. And
observing that Xenocrates paid his alien-tax as a foreigner, he
offered him the freedom of the city, which he refused, saying he
could not accept a franchise which he had been sent, as an
ambassador, to deprecate.
Menyllus wished to give Phocion a considerable present of money,
who, thanking him, said, neither was Menyllus greater than
Alexander, nor his own occasions more urgent to receive it now,
than when he refused it from him.. And on his pressing him to
permit his son Phocus to receive it, he replied, "If my son
returns to a right mind, his patrimony is sufficient; if not, all
supplies will be insufficient." But to Antipater he answered more
sharply, who would have him engaged in something dishonorable.
"Antipater," said he, "cannot have me both as his friend and his
flatterer." And, indeed, Antipater was wont to say, he had two
friends at Athens, Phocion and Demades; the one would never suffer
him to gratify him at all, the other would never be satisfied.