Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
After this, Phokion banished Plutarchus from Eretria, and captured a fort named Zaretra, which commanded the narrowest part of the island. He set free all the Greek captives, because he feared that the Athenian orators might urge the people in their anger to treat them with undue severity.
When all his friends had drunk, the poison ran short, and the executioner refused to prepare any more unless he were paid twelve drachmas, the price of that weight of hemlock. After a long delay, Phokion called one of his friends to him, and, saying that it was hard if a man could not even die gratis at Athens, bade him give the man the money he wanted.
Thus was Philip this time driven from the Hellespont, and regarded with contempt as a coward and a runaway, while Phokion took several of his ships, recovered some towns which had received Macedonian garrisons, and landed at various points on the coast to ravage and overrun the country, until at last he was wounded by the enemy and forced to return home.
IV. Cato is admitted by all writers to have been a man of noble descent, as will be explained in his life: and I imagine that the family of Phokion was not altogether mean and contemptible.
In like manner also the oratory of Phokion was most valuable, as it incited his countrymen to win brilliant successes, and to form lofty aspirations. He spoke in a brief, harsh, commanding style, without any attempt to flatter or please his audience.
Phokion now ordered his main body to remain in reserve, in order to give those who had been scattered in the former skirmish a point to rally on, while he himself, with some picked men, charged the enemy. A severe battle now took place, in which all exerted themselves with the most reckless bravery.
When this money arrived at Athens Phokion enquired of those who brought it why Alexander should give all this money to him alone, when there were so many other citizens in Athens? They answered, "Because he thinks that you alone are a good and honourable man." "Then," said Phokion, "let him allow me still to be thought so, and to remain so."
XXI. When Alexander wrote to the Athenians ordering them to send ships of war to him, some of the orators were against doing so, and the senate asked Phokion to speak. "I say," remarked he, "that we ought either to conquer, or else to keep on good terms with our conqueror."
XII. When Philip stealthily seized Eubœa, landed a Macedonian army there, and began to win over the cities by means of their despots, Plutarchus of Eretria sent to Athens and begged the Athenians to rescue the island from the Macedonians. Phokion was now sent thither in command of a small force, as it was expected that the people of the country would rally round him.
Phokion, however, managed to save many from exile, by supplicating Antipater on their behalf, and in the case of the exiles he obtained this much favour, that they were not transported quite out of Greece, beyond the Keraunian mountains and Cape Tænarus, as were the exiles from the other Greek cities, but were settled in Peloponnesus. Among these was Hagnonides, the informer.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking