DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.69035#0099
PHOCION.
The birth of Phocion may be placed about 400 years
before the Christian sera, and contemporaneous with the
death of Socrates : he appeared to be born to exemplify
the doctrine of that great philosopher. His family was
humble and obscure^ his future greatness therefore was
to depend upon his own exertions. He became the dis-
ciple of Plato and Xenocrates, and, amid the groves of
the academy, he acquired, with the talents necessary to
form a public man, those virtues which so eminently dis-
tinsfuished him; a love for virtue, the utmost devotion to
his country, extreme austerity of manners, and that
strength of mind which rendered him superior to the
smiles, as well as to the frowns, of fortune. From these
scenes of academic repose, be passed abruptly into the
army of Chabrias. From that general he received the
first instructions in the art of war, and, in return, our
young philosopher taught him the more difficult task of
commanding his passions, and of subduing his weaknesses.
At the battle of Naxos, Chabrias confided to his pupil
the command of the leftwing, to the conduct of which
this victory was principally owing.
Athens, at that time, no longer presented among her
sons those useful citizens, who were at once statesmen
at home, and generals in the field of battle; war and po-
litics then constituted two distinct professions. Phocion
conceived, that, by this union of talents in public men,
the strength of the state was augmented, and revived the
The birth of Phocion may be placed about 400 years
before the Christian sera, and contemporaneous with the
death of Socrates : he appeared to be born to exemplify
the doctrine of that great philosopher. His family was
humble and obscure^ his future greatness therefore was
to depend upon his own exertions. He became the dis-
ciple of Plato and Xenocrates, and, amid the groves of
the academy, he acquired, with the talents necessary to
form a public man, those virtues which so eminently dis-
tinsfuished him; a love for virtue, the utmost devotion to
his country, extreme austerity of manners, and that
strength of mind which rendered him superior to the
smiles, as well as to the frowns, of fortune. From these
scenes of academic repose, be passed abruptly into the
army of Chabrias. From that general he received the
first instructions in the art of war, and, in return, our
young philosopher taught him the more difficult task of
commanding his passions, and of subduing his weaknesses.
At the battle of Naxos, Chabrias confided to his pupil
the command of the leftwing, to the conduct of which
this victory was principally owing.
Athens, at that time, no longer presented among her
sons those useful citizens, who were at once statesmen
at home, and generals in the field of battle; war and po-
litics then constituted two distinct professions. Phocion
conceived, that, by this union of talents in public men,
the strength of the state was augmented, and revived the