The Historians' History of the World 04

[43] Plutarch, Phocion, 36, 37. Two other anecdotes are recounted by Plutarch, which seem to be of doubtful authenticity. Nicocles entreated that he might be allowed to swallow his potion before Phocion; upon which the latter replied: “Your request, Nicocles, is sad and mournful; but as I have never yet refused you anything throughout my life, I grant this also.”

After the first four had drunk, all except Phocion, no more hemlock was left; upon which the jailer said that he would not prepare any more, unless twelve drachmæ of money were given to him to buy the material. Some hesitation took place, until Phocion asked one of his friends to supply the money, sarcastically remarking that it was hard if a man could not even die gratis at Athens.c

CHAPTER LXI. THE FAILURE OF GRECIAN FREEDOM

[318-309 B.C.]

We have already mentioned that Polysperchon with his army was in Phocis when Phocion was brought before him, on his march towards Peloponnesus. Before he reached Attica, Cassander arrived at Piræus to join Nicanor with a fleet of thirty-five ships and four thousand soldiers obtained from Antigonus. On learning this fact, Polysperchon hastened his march also, and presented himself under the walls of Athens and Piræus with a large force of twenty thousand Macedonians, four thousand Greek allies, one thousand cavalry, and sixty-five elephants; animals which were now seen for the first time in Greece. He at first besieged Cassander in Piræus, but finding it difficult to procure subsistence in Attica for so numerous an army, he marched with the larger portion into Peloponnesus, leaving his son Alexander with a division to make head against Cassander. Either approaching in person the various Peloponnesian towns, or addressing them by means of envoys, he enjoined the subversion of the Antipatrian oligarchies, and the restoration of liberty and free speech to the mass of the citizens. In most of the towns, this revolution was accomplished; but in Megalopolis, the oligarchy held out, not only forcing Polysperchon to besiege the city, but even defending it against him successfully. His admiral Clitus was soon afterwards defeated in the Propontis, with the loss of his whole fleet, by Nicanor (whom Cassander had sent from Piræus) and Antigonus.

After these two defeats, Polysperchon seems to have evacuated Peloponnesus, and to have carried his forces across the Corinthian Gulf into Epirus, to join Olympias. His party was greatly weakened all over Greece, and that of Cassander proportionally strengthened. The first effect of this was the surrender of Athens. The Athenians in the city, including all or many of the restored exiles, could no longer endure that complete severance from the sea, to which the occupation of Piræus and Munychia by Cassander had reduced them. Athens without a port was hardly tenable; in fact, Piræus was considered by its great constructor, Themistocles, as more indispensable to the Athenians than Athens itself. It was agreed that they should become friends and allies of Cassander; that they should have full enjoyment of their city, with the port Piræus, their ships and revenues; that the exiles and deported citizens should be readmitted; that the political franchise should for the future be enjoyed by all citizens who possessed one thousand drachmæ of property and upwards; that Cassander should hold Munychia with a governor and garrison, until the war against Polysperchon was brought to a close; and that he should also name some one Athenian citizen, in whose hands the supreme government of the city should be vested. Cassander named Demetrius the Phalerean (i.e., an Athenian of the deme Phalerum), one of the colleagues of Phocion.

This convention restored substantially at Athens the Antipatrian government; yet without the severities which had marked its original establishment, and with some modifications in various ways. It made Cassander virtually master of the city (as Antipater had been before him), by means of his governing nominee, upheld by the garrison, and by the fortification of Munychia; which had now been greatly enlarged and strengthened, holding a practical command over Piræus, though that port was nominally relinquished to the Athenians. But there was no slaughter of orators, no expulsion of citizens; moreover, even the minimum of one thousand drachmæ, fixed for the political franchise, though excluding the multitude, must have been felt as an improvement compared with the higher limit of two thousand drachmæ prescribed by Antipater. Cassander was not, like his father, at the head of an overwhelming force, master of Greece. He had Polysperchon in the field against him with a rival army and an established ascendency in many of the Grecian cities; it was therefore his interest to abstain from measures of obvious harshness towards the Athenian people.b

HELLAS AT PEACE