Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/375

PHOCION. 367 to the rack, but I shall make no motion of the kind in Phocion's case." Upon which one of the better citizens remarked, he was quite right; "If we should torture Phocion, what could we do to you ? " So the form of the bill was approved of, and the show of hands called for ; upon which, not one man retaining his seat, but all rising up, and some with garlands on their heads, they con- demned them all to death. There' were present with Phocion, Nicocles, Thudippus, Hegemon, and Pythocles. Demetrius the Phalerian, Callimedon, Charicles, and some others, were included in the condemnation, being absent. After the assembly was dismissed, they were carried to the prison ; the rest with cries and lamentations, their friends and relatives following and clinging about them, but Phocion looking (as men observed with astonishment at his calmness and magnanimity) just the same as when he had been used to return to his home attended, as general, from the assembly. His enemies ran along by his side, reviling and abusing him. And one of them coming up to him, spat in his face ; at which Phocion, turning to the officers, only said, " You should stojD this indecency," Thudippus, on their reaching the prison, when he observed the executioner tempering the poison and preparing it for them, gave way to his passion, and began to bemoan his condition and the hard measure he received, thus unjustly to suffer with Phocion. "You cannot be contented," said he, " to die with Phocion ? " One of his friends that stood by, asked him if he wished to have any thing said to his son. " Yes, by all means," said he, " bid him bear no grudge against the Athenians." Then Nicocles, the dearest and most faithful of his friends, begged to be allowed to drink the poison first. " My friend," said he, " you ask what I am loath and sorrowful to give, but as I never yet in all my life was so thank-