Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/299

 PHOKION. 273 ruin them. How much truth there ma} be iiv such imputations, we cannot tell. But JEschines was not unwarranted in applying to his rival the obnoxious appellations of logographer and sophist, appellations all the more disparaging, because Demosthenes be- longed to a trierarchic family, of the highest class in point of wealth. 1 It will be proper here to notice another contemporary adviser, who stands in marked antithesis and rivalry to Demosthenes. Phokion was a citizen of small means, son of a pestle-maker. Born about the year 402 u. c., he was about twenty years older than Demosthenes. At what precise time his political importance commenced, we do not know ; but he lived to the great age of eighty-four, and was a conspicuous man throughout the last half- century of his life. He becomes known first as a military officer, having served in subordinate command under Chabrias, to whom he was greatly attached, at the battle of Naxos in 376 B. c. He was a man of thorough personal bravery, and considerable talents for command ; of hardy and enduring temperament, insensible to cold or fatigue ; strictly simple in his habits, and above all, supe- rior to every kind of personal corruption. His abstinence from plunder and peculation, when ou naval expeditions, formed an hon- orable contrast with other Athenian admirals, and procured for him much esteem on the part of the maritime allies. Hence, probably, his surname of Phokion the Good. 9 I have already remarked how deep and strong was the hold ac- quired on the Athenian people, by any public man who once established for himself a character above suspicion on the scow of personal corruption. Among Athenian politicians, but too many were not innocent on this point ; moreover, even when a 1 iEschines cont. Timarchum, p. 13. 17, 25, cont. Ktesiphont. p. 78. Hep? <5e irjv Kcrfr' jjUEpav diairav rif i-artv; 'E/c rpujpup^ov Aoyoypa^of uveduvq, TU Trarpua Karays/laurwf irpoi/jEvoe, etc. See also Demosthenes, De Fals. Legat. p. 417-420. Compare the shame of the rich youth Hippokrates, in the Platonic dialogue called Protagoras, when the idea is broached that he is about to visit Protagoras for the purpose of becoming himself a sophist (Plato, Pro- iigor. p. 154 F, 163 A, cap. 8-19). kion c. 1.
 * ./Elian, V. II. iii. 47; Plutarch, Phokion. c. 10; Cornelius Nepos. Pho