Ghost on the Throne - James S. Romm [105]
The new restrictions on citizenship did not offend Phocion, for he had no love of democracy. His childhood teacher, Plato, had taught him to see the follies of that bizarre system, and he had often witnessed them himself in his sixty years of public life. The Athenians had elected him general for forty-five one-year terms yet hardly ever took his advice. Instead, they ruined themselves in reckless battles against Macedon, losing every time. The silencing of the poor, who had most of all agitated for the Hellenic War, suited Phocion perfectly well; in his eyes the poor had listened to fools like Hyperides and hence had brought their troubles on themselves. His own class, the staid and sturdy aristocracy, preferred to soothe the Macedonian lion rather than provoke its fury. Theirs had always been the sensible, moderate path.
Like Demades, Phocion had countless opportunities to profit under Macedonian power, but unlike his gluttonous junior colleague he refrained. Antipater liked to say he had two close friends in Athens, one to whom he could never give enough and one to whom he could never give anything. Despite his wealthy background, Phocion disdained luxury—or at least feigned disdain, for it was good politics in Athens to appear impervious to bribes. Once Phocion had even refused cash sent by Alexander the Great himself. When the king’s messengers approached bearing chests of silver, Phocion asked why Alexander so favored him. “It’s because Alexander judges that you alone are a good and true man,” he was told. “Then tell him to let me be as I am, and be regarded so,” he replied, turning the money aside. (That last phrase, “be regarded so,” showed that Phocion was less a philosopher than a career politician tending his image.)
More recently, Menyllus, the Macedonian garrison commander, had also tried to give Phocion money, insisting he take it for the sake of his son. Phocion, it was well known, was father to a wild and free-spending youth, Phocus, who indulged in upscale drinking parties and in the posh athletic event called apobatēs. Phocus became good enough at this event, which involved jumping on and off a moving chariot clad in full armor, to win first place at an Athenian sports festival, and Phocion reluctantly went to the victory party for his son. At the door he saw that the hosts had provided footbaths of spiced wine for arriving guests. That was the last straw for Phocion. He packed Phocus off to Sparta and enrolled him in that city’s famously ascetic military training. “If my son changes his ways and learns self-restraint, then his inheritance from me will suffice,” Phocion explained to Menyllus as he turned down the proffered funds. “As he is now, nothing will be enough.”
Phocion had navigated three decades of his city’s conflict with Macedon—years that had seen the exile or execution of many politicians—without a fall from grace. The Athenians had awarded him the epithet chrēstos, “Do-good,” for his devotion to public service. The Macedonian generals, and Antipater especially, admired him as a warrior, a tough old bird like themselves who did not yield to the rigors of the march or the ills of old age. But even for this most expert of political survivors, the middle path between Athens and Macedon was becoming harder to steer. Events were about to spiral out of Phocion’s control, and the moderation that had been the glory of his career was about to be trampled by extremism and rage.
The city