Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/352

344 PHOCION. among the Byzantines, having vouched for Phocion to the city, they opened their gates to receive him, not per- mitting him, though he desired it, to encamp without the walls, but entertained him and all the Athenians with perfect reliance, while they, to requite their confidence, behaved among their new hosts soberly and inoffensively, and exerted themselves on all occasions with the greatest zeal and resolution for their defence. Thus king Philip was driven out of the Hellespont, and was despised to boot, whom till now, it had been thought impossible to match, or even to oppose. Phocion also took some of his ships, and recaptured some of the places he had garri- soned, making besides several inroads into the country, which he plundered and overran, until he received a wound from some of the enemy who came to the de- fence, and, thereupon, sailed away home. The Megarians at this time privately praying aid of the Athenians, Phocion, fearing lest the Boeotians should hear of it, and anticipate them, called an assembly at sunrise, and brought forward the petition of the Megarians, and immediately after the vote had been put, and carried in their favor, he sounded the trumpet, and led the Athen- ians straight from the assembly, to arm and put them- selves in posture. The Megarians received them joyfully, and he proceeded to fortify Nistea, and built two new long walls from the city to the arsenal, and so joined it to the sea, so that having now little reason to regard the ene- mies on the land side, it placed its dependence entirely on the Athenians. When final hostilities with Philip were now certain, and in Phocion's absence other generals had been nomi- nated, he on his arrival from the islands, dealt earnestly with the Athenians, that since Philip showed peaceable inclinations towards them, and greatly apprehended the danger, they would consent to a treaty. Being contra-