Phocion

As for his wives, nothing is told us about the first, except that she was a sister of Cephisodotus the sculptor; but the reputation which the second had among the Athenians for sobriety and simplicity was not less than that of Phocion for probity.

And once when the Athenians were witnessing an exhibition of new tragedies, the actor who was to take the part of a queen asked the choregus to furnish him with a great number of attendant women in expensive array; and when he could not get them, he was indignant, and kept the audience waiting by his refusal to come out. But the choregus, Melanthius, pushed him before the spectators, crying: Dost thou not see that Phocion’s wife always goes out with one maid-servant? Thy vanity will be the undoing of our women-folk.

His words were plainly heard by the audience, and were received with tumultuous applause. And this very wife, when an Ionian woman who was her guest displayed ornaments of gold and precious stones worked into collars and necklaces, said: My ornament is Phocion, who is now for the twentieth year a general of Athens.

When Phocus his son wished to compete at the Panathenaic festival as a vaulting rider of horses, Phocion permitted it, not because he was ambitious for the victory, but in order that care and training of the body might make his son a better man; for in general the youth was fond of wine and irregular in his habits. The youth was victorious, and many asked him to their houses for the victor’s banquet; but Phocion declined the other invitations and granted the coveted honour to one host only.

And when he went to the banquet and saw the general magnificence of the preparations, and particularly the foot-basins of spiced wine that were brought to the guests as they entered, he called his son and said: Phocus, do not let thy companion ruin thy victory. Moreover, wishing to remove the young man entirely from that style of living, he took him off to Sparta and put him among the youths who were following the course of discipline called agoge.[*](See the Agesilaüs, i. 1.)