Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
bill was approved of, and the show of hands called for; upon
which, not one man retaining his seat, but all rising up, and some
with garlands on their heads, they condemned them all to death.
There were present with Phocion, Nicocles, Thudippus, Hegemon, and
Pythocles. Demetrius the Phalerian, Callimedon, Charicles, and
some others, were included in the condemnation, being absent.
After the assembly was dismissed, they were carried to the prison;
the rest with cries and lamentations, their friends and relatives
following; and clinging about them, but Phocion looking (as men
observed with astonishment at his calmness and magnanimity) just
the same as when he had been used to return to his home attended,
as general, from the assembly. His enemies ran along by his side,
reviling and abusing him. And one of them coming up to him, spat
in his face; at which Phocion, turning to the officers, only said,
"You should stop this indecency." Thudippus, on their reaching
the prison, when he observed the executioner tempering the poison
and preparing it for them, gave way to his passion, and began to
bemoan his condition and the hard measure he received, thus
unjustly to suffer with Phocion. "You cannot be contented," said
he, "to die with Phocion?" One of his friends that stood by,
asked him if he wished to have anything said to his son. "Yes, by
all means," said he, "bid him bear no grudge against the
Athenians." Then Nicocles, the dearest and most faithful of his
friends, begged to be allowed to drink the poison first. "My
friend," said he, "you ask what I am loath and sorrowful to give,
but as I never yet in all my life was so thankless as to refuse
you, I must gratify you in this also." After they had all drunk
of it, the poison ran short; and the executioner refused to
prepare more, except they would pay him twelve drachmas, to defray
the cost of the quantity required. Some delay was made, and time
spent, when Phocion called one of his friends, and observing that
a man could not even die at Athens without paying for it,
requested him to give the sum.
It was the nineteenth day of the month Munychion, on which it was
the usage to have a solemn procession in the city, in honor of
Jupiter. The horsemen, as they passed by, some of them threw away
their garlands, others stopped, weeping, and casting sorrowful
looks towards the prison doors, and all the citizens whose minds
were not absolutely debauched by spite and passion, or who had any
humanity left, acknowledged it to have been most impiously done,
not, at least, to let that day pass, and the city so be kept pure
from death and a public execution at the solemn festival. But as
if this triumph had been insufficient, the malice of Phocion's
enemies went yet further; his dead body was excluded from burial
within the boundaries of the country, and none of the Athenians
could light a funeral pile to burn the corpse; neither durst any
of his friends venture to concern themselves about it. A certain
Conopion, a man who used to do these offices for hire, took the
body and carried it beyond Eleusis, and procuring fire from over
the frontier of Megara, burned it. Phocion's wife, with her
servant-maids, being present and assisting at the solemnity,
raised there an empty tomb, and performed the customary libations,
and gathering up the bones in her lap, and bringing them home by
night, dug a place for them by the fireside in her house, saying,
"Blessed hearth, to your custody I commit the remains of a good
and brave man; and, I beseech you, protect and restore them to the
sepulcher of his fathers, when the Athenians return to their right
minds."
And, indeed, a very little time and their own sad experience soon
informed them what an excellent governor, and how great an example
and guardian of justice and of temperance they had bereft
themselves of. And now they decreed him a statue of brass, and
his bones to be buried honorably at the public charge; and for his
accusers, Agnonides they took themselves, and caused him to be put
to death. Epicurus and Demophilus, who fled from the city for
fear, his son met with, and took his revenge upon them. This son
of his, we are told, was in general of an indifferent character,
and once, when enamored of a slave girl kept by a common harlot
merchant, happened to hear Theodorus, the atheist, arguing in the
Lyceum, that if it were a good and honorable thing to buy the
freedom of a friend in the masculine, why not also of a friend in
the feminine, if, for example, a master, why not also a mistress?
So putting the good argument and his passion together, he went off
and purchased the girl's freedom. The death which was thus
suffered by Phocion, revived among the Greeks the memory of that
of Socrates, the two cases being so similar, and both equally the
sad fault and misfortune of the city.
CATO THE YOUNGER
The family of Cato derived its first luster from his
great-grandfather Cato, whose virtue gained him such great
reputation and authority among the Romans, as we have written in
his life.
This Cato was, by the loss of both his parents, left an orphan,
together with his brother Caepio, and his sister Porcia. He had
also a half-sister, Servilia, by the mother's side. All these
lived together, and were bred up in the house of Livius Drusus,
their uncle by the mother who, at that time, had a great share in
the government, being a very eloquent speaker, a man of the
greatest temperance, and yielding in dignity to none of the
Romans.
It is said of Cato, that even from his infancy, in his speech,
his countenance, and all his childish pastimes, he discovered an
inflexible temper, unmoved by any passion, and firm in
everything. He was resolute in his purposes, much beyond the
strength of his age, to go through with whatever he undertook.
He was rough and ungentle toward those that flattered him, and
still more unyielding to those who threatened him. It was
difficult to excite him to laughter; his countenance seldom
relaxed even into a smile; he was not quickly or easily provoked
to anger, but if once incensed, he was no less difficult to
pacify.
When he began to learn, he proved dull, and slow to apprehend,
but of what he once received, his memory was remarkably
tenacious. And such, in fact, we find generally to be the course
of nature; men of fine genius are readily reminded of things, but
those who receive with most pains and difficulty, remember best;
every new thing they learn, being, as it were, burnt and branded
in on their minds. Cato's natural stubbornness and slowness to
be persuaded, may also have made it more difficult for him to be
taught. For to learn, is to submit to have something done to
one; and persuasion comes soonest to those who have least
strength to resist it. Hence young men are sooner persuaded than
those that are more in years, and sick men, than those that are
well in health In fine, where there is least previous doubt and
difficulty the new impression is most easily accepted. Yet Cato,
they say, was very obedient to his preceptor, and would do
whatever he was commanded; but he would also ask the reason, and
inquire the cause of everything. And, indeed, his teacher was a
very well-bred man, more ready to instruct, than to beat his
scholars. His name was Sarpedon.
When Cato was a child, the allies of the Romans sued to be made
free citizens of Rome. Pompaedius Silo, one of their deputies, a
brave soldier, and a man of great repute, who had contracted a
friendship with Drusus, lodged at his house for several days, in
which time being grown familiar with the children, "Well," said
he to them, "will you entreat your uncle to befriend us in our
business?" Caepio, smiling, assented, but Cato made no answer,
only he looked steadfastly and fiercely on the strangers. Then
said Pompaedius, "And you, young sir, what say you to us? will
not you, as well as your brother, intercede with your uncle in
our behalf?" And when Cato continued to give no answer, by his
silence and his countenance seeming to deny their petition,
Pompaedius snatched him up to the window as if he would throw him
out, and told him to consent, or he would fling him down, and,
speaking in a harsher tone, held his body out of the window, and
shook him several times. When Cato had suffered this a good
while, unmoved and unalarmed, Pompaedius setting him down, said
in an under-voice to his friend, "What a blessing for Italy,
that he is but a child! If he were a man, I believe we should
not gain one voice among the people." Another time, one of his
relations, on his birthday, invited Cato and some other children
to supper, and some of the company diverted themselves in a
separate part of the house, and were at play, the elder and the
younger together, their sport being to act the pleadings before
the judges, accusing one another, and carrying away the condemned
to prison. Among these a very beautiful young child, being bound
and carried by a bigger into prison, cried out to Cato, who
seeing what was going on, presently ran to the door, and
thrusting away those who stood there as guard, took out the
child, and went home in anger, followed by some of his
companions.
Cato at length grew so famous among them, that when Sylla
designed to exhibit the sacred game of young men riding courses
on horseback, which they called Troy, having gotten together the
youth of good birth, he appointed two for their leaders. One of
them they accepted for his mother's sake, being the son of
Metella, the wife of Sylla; but as for the other, Sextus, the
nephew of Pompey, they would not be led by him, nor exercise
under him. Then Sylla asking, whom they would have, they all
cried out, Cato; and Sextus willingly yielded the honor to him,
as the more worthy.
Sylla, who was a friend of their family, sent at times for Cato
and his brother to see them and talk with them; a favor which he
showed to very few, after gaining his great power and authority.
Sarpedon, full of the advantage it would be, as well for the
honor as the safety of his scholars, would often bring Cato to
wait upon Sylla at his house, which, for the multitude of those
that were being carried off in custody, and tormented there,
looked like a place of execution. Cato was then in his
fourteenth year, and seeing the heads of men said to be of great
distinction brought thither, and observing the secret sighs of
those that were present, he asked his preceptor, "Why does nobody
kill this man?'' "Because," said he, "they fear him, child, more
than they hate him." "Why, then," replied Cato, "did you not
give me a sword, that I might stab him, and free my country from
this slavery?" Sarpedon hearing this, and at the same time
seeing his countenance swelling with anger and determination,
took care thenceforward to watch him strictly, lest he should
hazard any desperate attempt.
While he was yet very young, to some that asked him, whom he
loved best, he answered, his brother. And being asked, whom
next, he replied, his brother, again. So likewise the third
time, and still the same, till they left off to ask any further.
As he grew in age, this love to his brother grew yet the
stronger. When he was about twenty years old, he never supped,
never went out of town, nor into the forum, without Caepio. But
when his brother made use of precious ointments and perfumes,
Cato declined them; and he was, in all his habits, very strict
and austere, so that when Caepio was admired for his moderation
and temperance, he would acknowledge that indeed he might be
accounted such, in comparison with some other men, "but," said
he, "when I compare myself with Cato, I find myself scarcely
different from Sippius," one at that time notorious for his