Life of Phocion, Plutarch

In Plutarch’s Life of Phocion, the author points out that Demades the orator excused his own behavior because “he was in command of a shipwrecked state.” While Plutarch thought that too much for Demades, he had no problem saying it was true for Phocion. “[M]uch power must be granted to Fortune in her conflicts with good men: instead of the honour and gratitude which are their due, she brings base censure and calumny upon some, and so weakens the world’s confidence in their virtue.” (see link to Plutarch below)

Plutarch, paragraph 2: “so often words of truth and soberness sting and exasperate those who are in an evil plight, unless uttered with kindness and complaisance”…” and so a city that has fallen on unfavourable fortunes is made by its weakness too sensitive and delicate to endure frank speaking, and that at a time when it needs it most of all, since the situation allows no chance of retrieving the mistakes that have been made. Therefore the conduct of affairs in such a city is altogether dangerous; for she brings to ruin with herself the man who speaks but to win her favour, and she brings to ruin before herself the man who will not court her favour.”

Plutarch compared Phocion to Cato the Younger, a man that “fared just as fruits do which make their appearance out of season,” a man whose virtue was “out of all proportion to the immediate times.” “[B]oth were good men and devoted to the state,” although their states were at slightly different points in their decline.

Part of Plutarch’s approach was to hone in on the differences between Cato the Younger and Phocion: “But the virtues of these men [Cato and Phocion], even down to their ultimate and minute differences, show that their natures had one and the same stamp, shape, and general hand; they were an equal blend, so to speak, of severity and kindness, of caution and bravery, of solicitude for others and fearlessness for themselves, of the careful avoidance of baseness and, in like degree, the eager pursuit of justice. Therefore we shall need a very subtle instrument of reasoning, as it were, for the discovery and determination of their differences.”

Paragraph 5: not an excellent orator like Demosthenes but “a most powerful speaker.”

Phocion “saw that the goddess Athena was a goddess of war as well as of statecraft, and was so addressed.” (an modeled his behavior on)

Phocion “arrayed himself against their [the Athenians’] desires and impulses.” Which is why they chose him as general 45 times. He thought he made a bad argument when the people accepted what he had to say. He scolded the Athenians when they thought he had been too timid, robbing them of a military victory: “Ye are fortunate,” said he, “in having a general who knows you; since otherwise ye had long ago perished.”

“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 his 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.”

Phocion was generally for acceptance of Philip’s demands on Athens when they were ‘kindly,’ but always wanted to know terms before accepting them (guidance the Athenians rarely took).

After Philip’s death, Alexander sought a private council with Phocion because of Philips’ admiration for the Athenian. Phocion supposedly got Alexander to “turn his arms away from Greece against Barbarians.” (after the razing of Thebes). Note: I didn’t see anything on Phocion in Arrian’s Campaigns of Alexander.

Phocion rejected a present of one hundred talents of silver from Alexander. Alexander’s messengers, seeing how meagerly Phocion lived, pressed the gift on him more. Phocion rejected it again, saying “it will do me no good to have it; or, if I use it, I shall bring myself, and the king as well, under the calumnies of the citizens.” Alexander was “vexed,” thinking the rejection was of him and not just the gift. Later, Alexander granted certain wishes from Phocion, in particular regarding certain men freed.

Mixed messages on adopting Spartan lifestyle: appropriate for some men, not for others (?).

Phocion’s message to the Athenians: “[B]e superior in arms or…be friends with those who are superior.” If you can’t defeat Alexander, then be on friendly terms with him.

Phocion’s ability to keep those with level heads in office during Antipater’s overseeing: “But nevertheless Phocion success­fully pleaded with Antipater for the exemption of many from exile, and for those who went into exile he obtained the privilege of residing in Peloponnesus, instead of being driven out of Hellas beyond the Ceraunian mountains and the promontory of Taenarum like other men in banishment. Of this number was Hagnonides the public informer. Furthermore, by managing the affairs of the city with mildness and according to the laws, he kept the men of education and culture always in office, while the busybodies and innovators, who withered into insignificance from the very fact that they held no office and raised no uproars, were taught by him to be fond of home and to delight in tilling the soil.”

“[H]e would rather be found suffering wrong than doing wrong” To which Plutarch chastises Phocion: “Now, such an utterance as this might seem honourable and noble in one who had regard to his own interests alone; but he who endangers his country's safety, and that, too, when he is her commanding general, transgresses, I suspect, a larger and more venerable obligation of justice towards his fellow citizens.”

Phocion’s sentence of death viewed akin to that of Socrates: “But Phocion's fate reminded the Greeks anew of that of Socrates; they felt that the sin and misfortune of Athens were alike in both cases.”

Source: Plutarch’s Lives, “Phocion” From the Loeb Classical Library, Lives, Volume VIII, Translated by Bernadotte Perrin, 1919.