t they will kill you, if
they regain them." When he saw Polyeuktus of Sphettus in a great heat
urging the Athenians to go to war with Philip, panting and sweating
profusely, as he was a very fat man, and drinking great draughts of
water, he said, "Ought you to believe what this man says, and vote for
war? What sort of a figure will he make in a suit of armour and with a
shield to carry, when the enemy are at hand, if he cannot explain his
thoughts to you without nearly choking himself?" When Lykurgus abused
him freely in the public assembly and above all, reproached him with
having advised the people to deliver up ten citizens to Alexander when
he demanded them, he said, "I have often given the people good advice,
but they will not obey me."

X. There was one Archibiades, who was surnamed the Laconizer, who grew
a great beard, wore a Spartan cloak, and affected a stern demeanour
like a Spartan. Once when Phokion was being violently attacked in the
assembly he called upon this man to bear witness to the truth of what
he said, and to assist him. Archibiades now rose and said what he
thought would please the Athenians, upon which Phokion, seizing him by
the beard, exclaimed, "Why then, Archibiades, do you not shave?"[625]
When Aristogeiton, the informer, who made warlike speeches in the
public assembly, and urged the people to action, came to be enrolled
on the list for active service leaning on a stick, with his legs
bandaged, Phokion, catching sight of him from the tribune where he
stood, called out "Write down Aristogeiton, a cripple and a villain."
From this it appears strange that so harsh and ungenial a man should
have been named "The Good."

It is difficult, I imagine, but not impossible, for the same man to
be like wine, both sweet and harsh: just as other men and other wines
seem at first to be pleasant, but prove in the end both disagreeable
and injurious to those who use them. We are told that Hypereides once
said to the Athenians, "Men of Athens, do not think whether I am harsh
or not, but whether I am harsh for nothing;" as if it was only
covetousness that made men hated, and as if those persons were not
much more generally disliked who used their power to gratify their
insolence, their private grudges, their anger, or their ambition.
Phokion never harmed any Athenian because he disliked him, and never
accounted any man his enemy, but merely showed himself stern and
inexorable to those who opposed his effort