Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/389

 CIlAnACTER OF PHOKION. 357 severity towards him, celebrated his funeral obsequies at the pubUc expense, erected a statue in his honor, and put to death Agnonides by public judicial sentence ; while Epikurus and Demophilus fled from the city and were slain by Phokion's son.J These facts are ostensibly coiTCCt ; but Plutarch omits to no- tice the real explanation of them. Within two or three month;* after the death of Phokion, Kassander, already in possession of Peirseus and Munychia, became also master of Athens ; the oli- garchical or Phokionic party again acquired predominance ; De- metrius the Phalerean was recalled from exile, and placed to ad- minister the city under Kassander, as Phokion had administered it under Antipater. No wonder, that under such circumstances, the memory of Phokion should be honored. But this is a very different thing from spontaneous change of popular opinion respecting him. I see no reason why such change of opinion should have occurred, nor do I believe that it did occur. The Demos of Athens, ban- ished and deported in mass, had the best ground for hating Pho- kion, and were not likely to become ashamed of the feeling. Though he was personally mild and incorruptible, they derived no benefit from these virtues. To them it was of little moment that he should steadily refuse all presents from Antipater, when he did Antipater's work gratuitously. Considered as a judicial trial, the last scene of Phokion before the people in the theatre is nothing better tlian a cruel imposture ; considered as a mani- festation of public opinion already settled, it is one for which the facts of the past supplied ample warrant. We cannot indeed read without painful sympathy the narra- tive of an old man above eighty, — personally brave, mild, and superior to all pecuniary temptation, so far as his positive admin- istration was concerned, — perishing under an intense and crush- ing storm of popular execration. But when we look at the whole case — when we survey, not merely the details of Phokion's ad- ministration, but the grand public objects which those details subserved, and towards which he conducted his fellow-citizens — we shall see that this judgment is fully merited. In Phokion's patriotism — for so doubtless he himself sincerely conceived it — 1 Plutarch, Phokion, 38