XXV.  As the seaboard of Attica was being plundered by Mikion, who had landed at Rhamnus[638] with a large force of Macedonians and mercenary soldiers, and was overrunning the country, Phokion led out the Athenians to attack him.  As men kept running up to him and pestering him with advice, to seize this hill, to despatch his cavalry in that direction, to make his attack in this other place, he said “Herakles, how many generals I see, and how few soldiers.”  While he was arraying his hoplites in line, one of them advanced a long way in front, and then, fearing one of the enemy, retired.  “Young man,” said Phokion, “are you not ashamed of having deserted two posts, that in which you were placed by your general and that in which you placed yourself?” He now charged the enemy and overthrew them, slaying Mikion himself and many others.  Meanwhile the Greek army in Thessaly fought a battle with Leonnatus, who was coming[639] to join Antipater with a Macedonian army from Asia.  Antiphilus led the infantry and Menon, a Thessalian, the cavalry.  In the battle Leonnatus himself was slain, and his troops defeated.

XXVI.  Shortly afterwards Kraterus crossed over from Asia with a large force, and a second battle took place at Krannon.[640] The Greeks were defeated, but not in a crushing manner or with much loss.  Yet, as the Greek commanders were young men, unable to maintain discipline, and, as at the same time, Antipater was tampering with the loyalty of the cities from which the army came, the whole force broke up, and most disgracefully betrayed the cause of Grecian liberty.  Antipater at once marched upon Athens with his army.  Demosthenes and Hypereides at once fled from Athens, but Demades, who had not been able to pay any part of the money which he had been condemned to pay to the state (for he had been convicted of making illegal proposals[641] on seven separate occasions, and had become disfranchised and disqualified from addressing the people), now set the laws at defiance, and proposed that ambassadors, with full powers, should be sent to Antipater to sue for peace.  The people were greatly alarmed, and called upon Phokion, saying that they could trust no one else.  “If I had always been trusted,” said he, “we should not now be discussing such matters as these.”  The motion was carried, and Phokion was sent to Antipater, who was encamped in the Kadmeia of Thebes, and preparing to invade Attica.  Phokion’s first request was that he would stay where he was and arrange terms.  Upon hearing this Kraterus said, “Phokion advises us to do what is unjust, when he bids us remain here, doing evil to the country of our friends and allies, while we might do ourselves good in that of our enemies.”  Antipater, however, seized him by the hand and said, “We must yield to Phokion in this.”  With regard to terms, he said that he required the same terms from the Athenians which Leosthenes had demanded from himself at Lamia.

XXVII.  When Phokion returned to Athens, as the people had no choice but to submit to these terms, he went back again to Thebes with the other ambassadors;[642] for the Athenians had appointed the philosopher Xenokrates[643] as an additional ambassador, because his virtue, wisdom, and intellectual power was so renowned that they imagined that no man’s heart could be so arrogant, cruel, and savage as not to be touched by some feeling of reverence and awe at the sight of Xenokrates.