Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/349

 PHOCION. 341 innocent had no need of an advocate. Aristogiton, the sycophant, whom we mentioned before, having after sen- tence passed upon him, sent earnestly to Pbocion to speak with him in the prison, his friends dissuaded him from going ; " Nay, by your favor," said he, " where should I rather choose to pay Aristogiton a visit ? " As for the allies of the Athenians, and the islanders, whenever any admiral besides Pbocion was sent, they treated him as an enemy suspect, barricaded their gates, blocked up their havens, brought in from the country their cattle, slaves, wives, and children, and put them in garri- son ; but upon Phocion's arrival, they went out to wel- come him in their private boats and barges, with stream- ers and garlands, and received him at landing with every demonstration of joy and pleasure. When king Philip was effecting his entry into Euboea, and was bringing over troops from Macedonia, and mak- ing himself master of the cities, by means of the tyrants who ruled in them, Plutarch of Eretria sent to request aid of the Athenians for the relief of the island, which was in imminent danger of falling wholly into the hands of the Macedonians. Phocion was sent thither with a hand- fid of men in comparison, in expectation that the Euboe- ans themselves would flock in and join him. But when he came, he found all things in confusion, the country all betrayed, the whole ground, as it were, undermined un- der his feet, by the secret pensioners of king Philip, so that he was in the greatest risk imaginable. To secure himself as far as he could, he seized a small rising ground, which was divided from the level plains about Tamynte by a deep watercourse, and here he inclosed and fortified the choicest of his army. As for the idle talkers and dis- orderly bad citizens who ran off from his camp and made their way back, he bade his officers not regard them, since here they would have been not only useless and