Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/465

 PHOCION PHOCIS 451 fears of its neighbors, and after some conflict the Phocaeans again migrated to Khegium in Italy, and finally to Lucania. Under the Per- sian government Phocaea quickly lost its impor- tance, little being recorded of it for some cen- turies, until it was twice besieged and taken by the Romans. Its ruins are now called Karidja (Old) Fotcha, and near them is Yenidje (New) Fotcha or Foggia Nova, a place built by the Genoese about 1421 near the site of the ancient town. Massilia (Marseilles) was founded by Phocaeans, as were many other important ports on the Mediterranean and its connected seas. PHOCHWT, an Athenian general, born about 402 B. 0., put to death in 317. He studied under Plato and Xenocrates, and first distin- guished himself in the naval victory gained at Naxos in 376 by the Athenians. Sent into Euboea about 350 at the head of a small force to assist Plutarch, tyrant of Eretria, he was betrayed by the latter ; but he finally gained a complete victory at Tamynae over the party of Philip of Macedon. In 340 he was sent with a fleet to the relief of Byzantium, then close- ly besieged by the Macedonians, and forced Philip to retire from the Chersonese. Phocion was, however, an advocate of the temporizing policy of the peace party, and thus stood in opposition to Demosthenes. When Thebes, on the reported death of Alexander, declared itself independent of Macedon, the Athenians were prevented by his influence from giving them assistance and occupying the pass of Thermopylae. A little later he advised com- pliance with the demand of Alexander that the ten leaders of the anti-Macedonian party should be given up, which proposition was in- dignantly rejected ; but he nevertheless head- ed the second embassy, by the agency of which the demand was waived. After the death of Alexander, he was one of the envoys sent to Antipater, and only succeeded in concluding a treaty most unfavorable to the Athenians. He was now at the head of the Macedonian party in Athens. On the return of the Athenian exiles, and the restoration of the democratic government, he fled to Polysperchon in Pho- cis, by whom he was sent back to Athens for trial. "With four others he was condemned to drink the hemlock. He charged his son not to hold evil memory of the Athenians, and it is said was called upon to pay for his own exe- cution, the poison having been exhausted and the jailer refusing to procure any more with- out compensation. Shortly after Cassander obtained possession of the city the oligarchi- cal party regained power, and celebrated Pho- cion's funeral obsequies at the public expense, erected a statue in his honor, and punished censers. Phocion was a man of great courage, a good general, and above all free from the least suspicion of personal corrup- tion. He was elected the unparalleled number of 45 times to the office of general. Although he was not a professed orator, his brief and powerful speeches and his sarcastic manner exerted so great an influence, that Demosthe- nes, on seeing him rise, once said: "Here comes the cleaver of my harangues." PHOCIS, a country of central Greece, bound- ed N. by the territories of the Locri Epicne- midii and the Locri Opuntii, E. by Breotia, S. by the Corinthian gulf, and "W. by Doris and Ozolian Locris. At one time it also compre- hended a port on the Euboean channel, called Daphnus. The principal city of Phocis was Delphi. The next in importance was Elatea, on the left bank of the Cephissus, commanding the road leading from the north of Greece to Boeotia and Attica. Other important cities were Cirrha, the port of Delphi, Anticyra or Anticirrha, and Abse. The surface is exceed- ingly mountainous. The Parnassus range ex- tends over the greater portion of it, the south- ern branch of the chain called Cirphis touch- ing the Corinthian gulf between Cirrha and Anticyra. Below this range are several fertile valleys, of which the largest was the celebra- ted Crisssean plain. Between Parnassus and the Locrian mountains on the north is the val- ley of the Cephissus, the largest river, which embraces a few fertile though narrow plains. The chief importance of Phocis is due to the fact that the oracle of Delphi was within its boundaries. The Phocians proper, who in- habited both banks of the Cephissus, formed a confederation, which assembled at Daulis in a building called Phocicum. This confeder- ation maintained its freedom, although fre- quently attacked by the Thessalians ; and the latter, at the time of the invasion of Xerxes, led the Persian troops into Phocis, and de- stroyed 12 cities. Originally the temple of Delphi had been in their power, but they were early deprived of it by the Delphians, who held it till about 450 B. C. It now came again into the hands of the Phocians, and both Lacedaemonian and Athenian forces marched into their territory, the former to attack, and the latter to defend. They held possession of the temple until the peace of Nicias (421), having been during the preceding ten years of the Peloponnesian war firm allies of the Athenians. But by the terms of that peace the Delphians resumed their sovereignty over the temple, which remained in their hands until the sacred war. After the battle of Leuctra in 371, the Phocians came under the dominion of the Thebans, and remained in that condition until the death of Epaminondas, when they asserted their independence. For this the Thebans persuaded the amphictyons to enforce an old edict ordering the Phocians to pay a fine for having occupied a tract of land near Cirrha belonging to the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Their refusal gave rise to the sa- cred war, which lasted from 357 to 346, in which the Phocians maintained themselves by despoiling the temple, and were only reduced by the strategy of Philip of Macedon. A de- cree was hereupon issued by the amphictyons that the towns of Phocis, numbering 22, should