The
"great daemon" of Caesar avenged him on his enemies; and in this point
of view the play has a unity. Brutus dies like a Roman, and that
murder to which he was led by the instigation of others, only renders
the Monarchy inevitable and necessary. But if the play is faulty in
construction, as I venture to think it is, it has other merits of the
highest order, which place it in some respects among the best works of
the great master of dramatic art.]
LIFE OF PHOKION.
I. The orator Demades, who became one of the chief men in Athens by
his subservience to the Macedonians and Antipater, and who was forced
to say and to write much that was derogatory to the glory and contrary
to the traditional policy of Athens, used to excuse himself by
pleading that he did not come to the helm before the vessel of the
State was an utter wreck. This expression, which seems a bold one when
used by Demades, might with great truth have been applied to the
policy of Phokion. Indeed Demades himself wrecked Athens by his
licentious life and policy, and when he was an old man Antipater said
of him that he was like a victim which has been cut up for sacrifice,
for there was nothing left of him but his tongue and his paunch; while
the true virtue of Phokion was obscured by the evil days for Greece
during which he lived, which prevented his obtaining the distinction
which he deserved. We must not believe Sophokles, when he says that
virtue is feeble and dies out in men:
"Why, not the very mind that's born with man,
When he's unfortunate, remains the same.
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