Phokion now
considered it necessary to submit with a good grace to the pleasure of
Philip, and when Demades moved that Athens should share the general
peace and take part in the congress of the Greek states, Phokion
objected to the motion before it was known what Philip wished the
Greeks to do. His opposition was fruitless, because of the critical
state of affairs; but when afterwards he saw the Athenians bitterly
repenting of what they had done, because they were obliged to furnish
Philip with ships of war and cavalry, he said: "It was because I
feared this that I opposed the motion of Demades: but now that you
have passed that motion you must not be grieved and downcast, but
remember that your ancestors were sometimes independent and sometimes
subject to others, but that they acted honourably in either case, and
saved both their city and the whole of Greece." On the death of Philip
he opposed the wish of the Athenians to hold a festival[630] because
of the good news: for he said that it was an unworthy thing for them
to rejoice, because the army which had defeated them at Chaeronea had
been weakened by the loss of only one man.
XVII. When Demosthenes spoke abusively of Alexander, who was even then
at the gates of Thebes, Phokion said to him, in the words of Homer,
"'Rash man, forbear to rouse the angry chief,'
who is also a man of unbounded ambition. When he has kindled such a
terrible conflagration close by, why do you wish our city to fan the
flame? I, however, will not permit these men to ruin us, even though
they wish it, for that is why I have undertaken the office of
general.
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