Phocion

Phocion the Athenian, although he often commanded armies and held the highest magistracies, yet is far more notable for the integrity of his life than for his labours in war. And so of the latter there is no memory, but of the former great renown, from which he was given the surname of the Good. For he was perpetually poor, although he might have been very rich on account of the frequent honours conferred upon him and the highest powers which were given him by the people. When he refused gifts of great sums of money from King Philip, and the envoys urged him to accept them and at the same time reminded him that, though he himself could easily do without them, yet he ought to provide for his children, to whom it would be difficult, amid the deepest poverty, to maintain so great a fame as their father's, he said to them: 'If they shall be like me, this same little field will support them, which has led me to this dignity; but if they are going to be unlike me, I would not have their luxury fed and increased at my expense.'

The same man, although nearly to his eightieth year he had enjoyed prosperous fortune, at the very end of his life came into great hatred of his fellow-citizens; first because, with Demades, he had agreed to deliver the city to Antipater, and by his counsel Demosthenes, with the others who were thought to have deserved well of the state, had been driven into exile by decree of the people. Nor had he given offence in this alone, that he had counselled ill for his country, but also because he had not kept faith with friendship. For, raised and aided by Demosthenes, he had mounted to the rank which he held, when Demosthenes had set him up against Chares; by the same man, in his trials, when he pleaded a capital case, he had several times been defended, and had come off acquitted. This man he not only did not defend in his perils, but even betrayed. But he fell chiefly by one charge: that, when the supreme command was in his hands by the people's order, and he was warned by Dercylus that Nicanor, the prefect of Cassander, was plotting against the Piraeus of the Athenians, and was likewise asked to see to it that the state be not deprived of its supplies, Phocion, in the hearing of the people, denied that there was any peril and promised to be a guarantor of the matter. And not so long after, Nicanor gained possession of the Piraeus. When the people had run together in arms to recover it, he not only called no one to arms, but was not even willing to take command of the armed men. Without which Athens cannot exist at all.

There were at that time at Athens two factions, of which the one pleaded the cause of the people, the other that of the aristocrats. In the latter were Phocion and Demetrius of Phalerum. Each of these used the patronage of the Macedonians: for the popular party favoured Polyperchon, the aristocrats sided with Cassander. Meanwhile Cassander was driven out of Macedonia by Polyperchon. By this deed the people, become the stronger, at once condemned to death the leaders of the opposing faction and drove them from their country, among them Phocion and Demetrius of Phalerum, and sent envoys on the matter to Polyperchon, to ask of him that he confirm their decrees. Thither too Phocion set out. When he came, he was ordered to plead his cause in word before King Philip, but in reality before Polyperchon: for he then had charge of the king's affairs. There, accused by Agnon of having betrayed the Piraeus to Nicanor, he was, by sentence of the council, cast into custody and conducted to Athens, that there judgement might be passed upon him by the laws.

When they had come thither, since on account of his age he could no longer walk and was being carried in a vehicle, great crowds gathered, some, remembering his old renown, pitying his age, but very many sharpened with anger on account of the suspicion of treason concerning the Piraeus, and especially because in his old age he had stood against the interests of the people. Wherefore not even the chance of fully pleading his cause was given him as he spoke in the trial: certain formalities being completed, he was condemned and handed over to the Eleven, to whom those publicly condemned to execution are wont, by Athenian custom, to be delivered. As he was being led to death, there met him Euphiletus, with whom he had been on familiar terms. When he, weeping, had said, 'O how undeserved are the things you suffer, Phocion!' he said to him: 'But not unforeseen: for this end most renowned Athenians have had.' So great was the hatred of the multitude toward him, that no free man dared to bury him. And so he was buried by slaves.