Phocion

But Phocion answered sharply that Harpalus would rue it if he did not cease trying to corrupt the city, and for the time being the traitor was abashed and desisted from his efforts. After a little, however, when the Athenians were deliberating upon his case, he found that those who had taken money from him were changing sides and denouncing him, that they might not be discovered; while Phocion, who would take nothing, was now giving some consideration to the safety of Harpalus as well as to the public interests.

Again, therefore, he was led to pay court to Phocion, but after all his efforts to bribe him found that he was impregnable on all sides like a fortress. Of Charicles, however, Phocion’s son-in-law, Harpalus made an intimate associate and friend, trusting him in everything and using him in everything, and thus covered him with infamy.

For instance, on the death of Pythonicé the courtesan, who was the passionately loved mistress of Harpalus and had borne him a daughter, Harpalus resolved to build her a very expensive monument, and committed the care of the work to Charicles.

This service was an ignoble one in itself, but it acquired additional disgrace from the completed tomb. For this is still to be seen in Hermus, on the road from Athens to Eleusis, and it has nothing worthy of the large sum of thirty talents which Charicles is said to have charged Harpalus for the work.[*](See Pausanias, i. 37, 5, with Frazer’s notes. Pausanias speaks of it as the best worth seeing of all ancient Greek tombs. )And yet after the death of Harpalus himself,[*](Antipater demanded his surrender by the Athenians, and Harpalus fled to Crete, where he was assassinated.) his daughter was taken up by Charicles and Phocion and educated with every care.

However, when Charicles was brought to trial for his dealings with Harpalus, and begged Phocion to help him and go with him into the court-room, Phocion refused, saying: I made thee my son-in-law, Charicles, for none but just purposes. Asclepiades the son of Hipparchus was the first one to bring to the Athenians the tidings that Alexander was dead. Thereupon Demades urged them to pay no heed to the report, since, had it been true, the whole earth would long ago have been filled with the stench of the body. But Phocion, who saw that the people were bent on revolution, tried to dissuade them and restrain them.