Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/365

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PHOCION.
357

purport of their embassy, he replied shortly, that he would make peace with the Athenians on these conditions, and no others; that Demosthenes and Hyperides should be delivered up to him; that they should retain their ancient form of government, the franchise being determined by a property qualification; that they should receive a garrison into Munychia, and pay a certain sum for the cost of the war. As things stood, these terms were judged tolerable by the rest of the ambassadors; Xenocrates only said, that if Antipater considered the Athenians slaves, he was treating them fairly, but if free, severely. Phocion pressed him only to spare them the garrison, and used many arguments and entreaties. An- tipater replied, " Phocion, we are ready to do you any favor, which will not bring ruin both on ourselves and on you." Others report it differently ; that Antipater asked Phocion, supposing he remitted the garrison to the Athe- nians, would he, Phocion, stand surety for the city's ob- serving the terms and attempting no revolution ? And when he hesitated, and did not at once reply, Callimedon, the Carabus,[1] a hot partisan and professed enemy of free states, cried out, " And if he should talk so idly, Antipa- ter, will you be so much abused as to believe him and not carry out your own purpose ? " So the Athenians received the garrison, and Menyllus for the governor, a fair-dealing man, and one of Phocion's accpiaintance. But the proceeding seemed sufficiently imperious and arbitrary, indeed rather a spiteful and insulting ostenta- tion of power, than that the possession of the fortress would be of any great importance. The resentment felt upon it was heightened by the time it happened in, for

  1. So called from the carabus, a sort of crab which he was fond of. "The fishmongers," says the comic poet Alexis, "have passed a resolution for erecting a brazen statue of Callimedon in the fish-market, holding a roasted crab in the right hand, in consideration of the benefit he has been to their trade."