Phocion

But though it is difficult, it is not impossible, I think, for the same man, like the same wine, to be at once pleasant and austere; just as others, on the contrary, appear to be sweet, but are most unpleasant to those who use them, and most injurious. And yet we are told that Hypereides once said to the people: Do not ask, men of Athens, merely whether I am bitter, but whether I am paid for being bitter, as if the multitude were led by their avarice to fear and attack those only who are troublesome and vexatious, and not rather all who use their power to gratify their insolence or envy or wrath or contentiousness.

Phocion, then, wrought no injury to any one of his fellow citizens out of enmity, nor did he regard any one of them as his enemy; but he was harsh, obstinate, and inexorable only so far as was necessary to struggle successfully against those who opposed his efforts in behalf of the country, and in other relations of life showed himself well-disposed to all, accessible, and humane, so that he even gave aid to his adversaries when they were in trouble or in danger of being brought to account.

When his friends chided him for pleading the cause of some worthless man, he said that good men needed no aid. Again, when Aristogeiton the public informer, who was under condemnation, sent and asked him to come to him, he obeyed the summons and set out for the prison; and when his friends sought to prevent him, he said: Let me go, my good men; for where could one take greater pleasure in meeting Aristogeiton?

And certainly the allies and the islanders regarded envoys from Athens under the conduct of any other general as enemies, barricading their gates, obstructing their harbours, and bringing into their cities from the country their herds, slaves, women and children; but whenever Phocion was the leader, they went far out to meet him in their own ships, wearing garlands and rejoicing, and conducted him to their homes themselves.

When Philip was stealing into Euboea and bringing a force across from Macedonia and making the cities his own by means of tyrants and when Plutarch the Eretrian called upon the Athenians and begged them to rescue the island from its occupation by the Macedonian, Phocion was sent out as general with a small force,[*](In 350 B.C.) in the belief that the people of the island would rally readily to his aid.

But he found the whole island full of traitors, disaffected, and honeycombed with bribery, and was therefore in a position of great peril. So he took possession of a crest of ground which was separated by a deep ravine from the plains about Tamynae, and on this assembled and held together the best fighting men of his force.