Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/348

 340 PHOCION. Avar 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, ob- tain 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 agreea- ble to the taste ; just as on the other hand many that are sweet at the first taste, are found, on further use, ex- tremely disagreeable and very unwholesome. Hyperides, we are told, once said to the j)eople, " Do not ask your- selves, men of Athens, whether or not I am bitter, but whether or not I am paid for being so," as though a cov- etous purpose were the only thing that should make a harsh temper insupportable, and as if men might not even more justly render themselves obnoxious to popular dislike and censure, by using their power and influence in the indulgence of their own private passions of pride and jealousy, anger and animosity. Phocion never allowed himself from any feeling of personal hostility to do hurt to any fellow-citizen, nor, indeed, reputed any man his enemy, except so far as he could not but contend sharply with such as opposed the measures he urged for the public good ; in which argument he was, indeed, a rude, obstinate, and uncompromising adversary. For his general conversation, it was easy, courteous, and obliging to all, to that point that he would befriend his very opponents in their distress, and espouse the cause of those who differed most from him, when they needed his patronage. His friends reproaching him for pleading in behalf of a man of indifferent character, he told them the