PHOCION [4]
contribution by the example of others, and the people pressing him much, he bade them apply themselves to the wealthy; for his part he should blush to make a present here, rather than a repayment there, turning and pointing to Callicles, the money-lender. Being still clamoured upon and importuned, he told them this tale. A certain cowardly fellow setting out for the wars, hearing the ravens croak in his passage, threw down his arms, resolving to wait. Presently he took them and ventured out again, but hearing the same music, once more made a stop. "For," said he "you may croak until you are tired, but you shall make no dinner upon me." The Athenians urging him at an unseasonable time to lead them out against the enemy, he peremptorily refused, and being upbraided by them with cowardice and pusillanimity, he told them, "Just now, do what you will, I shall not be brave; and do what I will, you will not be cowards. Nevertheless, we know well enough what we are." And when again, in a time of great danger, the people were very harsh upon him, demanding a strict account how the public money had been employed, and the like, he bade them, "First, good friends, make sure you are safe." After a war, during which they had been very tractable and timorous, when, upon peace being made, they began again to be confident and overbearing, and to cry out upon Phocion, as having lost them the honour of victory, to all their clamour he made only this answer, "My friends, you are fortunate in having a leader who knows you; otherwise, you had long since been undone." Having a controversy with the Boeotians about boundaries, which he counselled them to decide by negotiation, they inclined to blows. "You had better," said he, "carry on the contest with the weapons in which you excel (your tongues), and not by war, in which you are inferior." Once when he was addressing them, and they would not hear him or let him go on, said he, "You may compel me to act against my wishes, but you shall never force me to speak against my judgment." Among the many public speakers who opposed him, Demosthenes, for example, once told him, "The Athenians, Phocion, will kill you some day when they once are in a rage." "And you," said he, "if they once are in their senses." Polyeuctus, the Sphettian, once on a hot day was urging war with Philip, and being a corpulent man, and out of breath and in a great heat with speaking, took numerous draughts of water as he went on. "Here, indeed," said Phocion, "is a fit man to lead us into a war! What think you he will do when he is carrying his corselet and his shield to meet the enemy, if even here, delivering a prepared speech to you, has almost killed him with exhaustion?" When Lycurgus in the assembly made many reflections on his past conduct, upbraiding him above all for having advised them to deliver up the ten citizens whom Alexander had demanded, he replied that he had been the author of much safe and wholesome counsel, which had not been followed. There was a man called Archibiades, nicknamed the Lacedaemonian, who used to go about with a huge, over-grown beard, wearing an old threadbare cloak, and affecting a very stern countenance. Phocion once, when attacked in council by the rest, appealed to this man for his support and testimony. And when he got up and began to speak on the popular side, putting his hand to his beard, "O Archibiades," said he, "it is time you should shave." Aristogiton, a common accuser, was a terrible man of war within the assembly, always inflaming the people to battle, but when the muster-roll came to be produced, he appeared limping on a crutch, with a bandage on his leg; Phocion descried him afar off, coming in, and cried out to the clerk, "Put down Aristogiton, too, as lame and worthless." So that it is a little wonderful, how a man so severe and harsh upon all occasions should, notwithstanding, obtain the name of the Good. Yet, though difficult, it is not, I suppose, impossible for men's tempers, any more than for wines, to be at the same time harsh and agreeable to the taste; just