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Updated: June 17, 2025
As he wished to remove his son altogether from the influence of Athenian life he took him to Lacedæmon, and placed him with the young men who were undergoing the Spartan training there. The Athenians were vexed at this, because Phokion appeared to despise and undervalue the institutions of his own country.
This was merely a trick to ruin Phokion, for Polysperchon, whose design, as his acts shortly afterwards proved, was to gain over the city of Athens to his side, had no hopes of succeeding in this unless Phokion were driven out of Athens; while he expected that Phokion would be driven out when all the exiled citizens returned, and when the informers and mob orators again occupied the bema.
XXVII. When Phokion returned to Athens, as the people had no choice but to submit to these terms, he went back again to Thebes with the other ambassadors; for the Athenians had appointed the philosopher Xenokrates as an additional ambassador, because his virtue, wisdom, and intellectual power was so renowned that they imagined that no man's heart could be so arrogant, cruel, and savage as not to be touched by some feeling of reverence and awe at the sight of Xenokrates.
We are told that when the decree refusing to give up the persons demanded was presented to Alexander, he flung it from him and refused to listen to the envoys; but he received a second embassy headed by Phokion, because he was told by the older Macedonians that his father had always treated him with great respect.
Fanny, true to the ingenuous principle of her years, put a direct question: 'Do you approve of real democracy, Mr. Peak? He answered with another question: 'Have you read the "Life of Phokion" in Plutarch? 'No, I'm sorry to say. 'There's a story about him which I have enjoyed since I was your age.
As Phokion did not succeed, but Demosthenes carried his point, and counselled the Athenians to fight as far as possible from Attica, he said to him: "My good sir, let us not consider where we are to fight, but how we can win the victory. If we are victorious, the war will be kept at a distance, but all the horrors of war always press closely upon the vanquished."
As the smallest coins are those which have the greatest intrinsic value, so Phokion in his speeches seemed to say much with few words. We are told that once while the people were flocking into the theatre Phokion was walking up and down near the stage, plunged in thought. "You seem meditative, Phokion," said one of his friends.
XXVIII. Thus it came to pass that the Athenians received into their city a Macedonian garrison, whose commander was Menyllus, an amiable man and a friend of Phokion himself. It was thought that the sending of the garrison was a mere piece of arrogance on Antipater's part, and to be more due to an insolent desire to show the extent of his power than to any real necessity.
When Phokion earnestly begged Antipater not to send a garrison to Athens, he is said to have said in reply, "Phokion, I am willing to grant you any request you please, unless it be one which would be fatal both to you and to myself."
VI. While yet a youth Phokion especially attached himself to the general Chabrias, and followed him in his campaigns, in which he gained considerable military experience, and in some instances was able to correct the strange inequalities of his commander's temperament.
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