817 



PHOCION. 



PHOTIUS. 



818 



taken, was put to death, together with his five sons, and some time 

 after the rest of his family shared the same fate. Phocaa sent ambas- 

 sadors to Khosru II. to announce his accession to the throne, but the 

 Persian monarch having learned the circumstances, took up arms to 

 avenge the cause of Mauritius, and carried on a destructive war in the 

 Asiatic provinces. Phocas found more favour with Rome. Gregory I. 

 wrote him some complimentary letters in which he extols the condition 

 of the Italian subjects of the empire as being free men in comparison 

 with those who were subject to the Longobard and other kings, who 

 treated them aa little better than slaves. Phocas remained on good 

 terms with Boniface III. and Boniface IV., the successors of Gregory. 

 He is said by Anastasius, the Papal chronicler, to have acknowledged 

 Boniface III. as the head of all the Christian churches ; but that which 

 is better authenticated is his act of donation of the Pantheon at Rome 

 to Boniface IV., to be transformed into a Christian church, in 607. 



In the meantime insurrections broke out in several parts of the 

 Eastern empire, which the suspicions and cruelties of Phocas only 

 served to exasperate. Heraclius, exarch of Africa, sent two expedi- 

 tions, one by sea and the other by land, under his son Heraclius and 

 his nephew Nicetas, who joining before Constantinople, took possession 

 of the city, after some resistance. Phocas was taken and put to a cruel 

 death by order of the younger Heraclius, who succeeded him in the 

 empire, in 610. 



PHO'CION (*oW), an Athenian general and statesman, was a 

 contemporary of Demosthenes. His first appearance in history is at 

 the battle of Naxos, B c. 376, when Demosthenes was seven years old, 

 being himself twenty-seven. He survived Demosthenes four years, 

 and may be regarded aa the representative of that party in Athens to 

 which Demosthenes was the constant antagonist. 



Plutarch relates that Phocion was the son of a turner, but he dis- 

 believes the story on account of the goodness of his education and 

 the liberal turn of his mind. Whatever was his rank, Phocion found 

 admittance into the school of Plato, and afterwards studied under 

 Xenocrates, whose lessons had perhaps greater influence on his 

 character than even those of Plato. To a stern and forbidding aspect, 

 a stoical demeanour, and habits of rigid simplicity, Phocion united a 

 kind and generous heart. These qualities secured for him so great a 

 measure of popularity that he was forty-four times elected general, 

 and that in an age when public offices were generally obtained by 

 bribery. He waa also heard with so much attention in public 

 that even Demosthenes dreaded the effect of his terse and pithy 

 harangues. 



Plutarch records many of his sayings. There is much wit and 

 point in moat of them; indeed they go quite beyond the style of 

 antique jokes, usually so dull to modern ears, and there is much 

 political wisdom in them ; but still they have an air of intended wit 

 and a striving after effect which make them look different from the 

 strong and genuine thoughts of an earnest and true-hearted patriot. 

 But after all, when biographer, and subject each lived in an age more 

 distinguished for smartness than solidity, we need not hold these 

 speeches inconsistent with that high character for wisdom which 

 Phocion bears. 



The public incidents recorded of Phocion's life are, as is natural for 

 the head of the peace party, not numerous. He commanded many 

 times and often successfully, but be seems to have acted the part of 

 an ambassador better than of a general. His death (B.C. 317) took 

 place under circumstances much like those which accompanied that 

 of Socrates. During the confusion which ensued after the death of 

 Alexander a revolution occurred at Athens, and the democratic party, 

 drunk with success, condemned their chief opponents to death. 

 Among these wag Phocion : he died with the greatest composure, and 

 left an injunction to his son to preserve no remembrance of the 

 wrongs which Athena had done to his father. As in the case of 

 Socrates, the people soon saw their error ; repentance however does 

 not usually atone for political crimes, and the parallel between Phocion 

 and Socrates holds good with regard to the evil times which followed 

 their respective executions, showing public ingratitude to be the parent 

 as well as the child of civil corruption. 



PHOCY'LIDES, of Miletus, waa a philosopher and poet, and 

 flourished about B.C. 535. An admonitory poem is attributed to this 

 Phucylides ; but it is uncertain whether it was written by him or by 

 another of the same name in later times. The reader is referred for a 

 discussion of this question to the first volume of the ' Bibliotheca 

 Gncca' of Fabriciu?. 



There are several editions of Phocylides, both separate and along 

 with Theognis and others. A convenient and correct edition of these 

 Greek gnomic or sententious poets is that printed by Tauchnitz, Leip., 

 1819, which includes seven fragments of Phocylidts, besides the 

 above-mentioned poem. 



PHO'TIUS was born in the early part of the 9th century, of a 

 patrician family of Constantinople. He studied in that city, and 

 attained great proficiency in all kinds of learning, which was enhanced 

 by an irreproachable morality. He wns noticed by the Emperor 

 Michael III., who employed him in various important cffices. The 

 emperor sent him on a mission to Assyria (probably Persia is meant), 

 and on his return made him proto-spathariug, or commander of the 

 guard.-*, and proto-secretarius and member of the emperor's privy 

 council. JIardas, the uncle and colleague of Michael, was very partial 



BIOO. DIV. VOL. IV. 



to Photius ; and having, on account of some dispute as to jurisdiction, 

 removed and banished the patriarch Ignatius, he determined to put 

 Photius in his place. Photius, being a layman, took all the various 

 clerical orders one after the other in six consecutive days ; and after 

 being ordained priest, he was installed in the patriarchal chair in 853. 

 But the informality of his appointment was too glaring, especially as 

 Ignatius, although threatened and imprisoned in order to enforce him 

 to abdicate, refused to do so. A subservient council was assembled at 

 Constantinople in 858, which deposed Ignatius and confirmed the 

 appointment of Photiug. Photius sent two bishops to Rome with 

 letters for Pope Nicholas I., in which he gave a specious account of 

 his election, and invited the pope to send legates to Constantinople, in 

 order to co-operate with him in putting down the remains of the 

 Iconoclastic heresy. The legates came; and a new council being 

 assembled in 859, which the legates attended, Ignatius was brought 

 before it, and was again deposed on the score of incapacity and other 

 charges, and obliged to sign his own abdication, with the concurrence 

 of the papal legates. 



The see of Rome had for more than a century past been disputing 

 with that of Constantinople on a question of jurisdiction. During 

 the period of the superiority of the Iconoclasts at the court of Con- 

 stantinople, the patriarchs of that city, supported by the emperors, 

 had appropriated to themselves the spirtual jurisdiction over the 

 extensive provinces of Illyricum, Macedonia, Achaia, and Sicily, which 

 had formerly been subject to the Roman see. A fresh subject of con- 

 tention afterwards served to embitter the quarrel. The heathen 

 inhabitants of Bulgaria being converted to Christianity by both Latin 

 and Greek missionaries, Photius placed the new churches of Bulgaria 

 under his own jurisdiction a measure which seemed justified by the 

 proximity of Bulgaria to Constantinople. But the pope alleged that 

 his own missionaries had been first in the field, and that the king or 

 chief of Bulgaria had sent his own son to Rome, which was a sort of 

 acknowledgment of spiritual obedience. In short Nicholas demanded 

 the restitution of the provinces of Illyricum, Macedonia, Achaia, 

 Sicily, and Bulgaria, which Photius stoutly refusing, the pope assem- 

 bled a council at Rome in 862, in which he pronounced the election 

 of Photius to be illegal, and excommunicated him with all his abettors. 

 Photius however remained quietly in his see ; and in the year 866, 

 having assembled a council at Constantinople, he produced five 

 charges, some relating to doctrine and others to discipline, against 

 the Roman or Western Church. The charges were held to be proved ; 

 and Photius, at the head of his council, excommunicated the pope, 

 and declared him and his abettors to be removed from the communion 

 of orthodox Christians. 



In the year 867, after the murder of the Emperor Michael, Basilius 

 the Macedonian ascended the throne. It is said by some that Photius 

 refused him the sacrament, and reproached him with the murder of 

 his benefactor. However this may be, Basilius soon after deposed 

 Photius, exiled him to Cyprus, and restored Ignatius to his see ; and 

 this act was confirmed by a general council assembled at Constanti- 

 nople in 869, which was attended by legates of Pope Adrian II., and 

 in which Photius was condemned. This is called the eighth (Ecu- 

 menical council, having been acknowledged by both the Eastern and. 

 Western churches. 



Photius in hh exile found means to deprecate the hostility of the 

 emperor, and after some years he was allowed to return to Constanti- 

 nople. He is said to have composed a genealogy of Basilius, in which 

 he made him descend from Tiiidates, king of Armenia. At the eud 

 of the year 877, the patriarch Ignatius died; and the cauonical 

 impediment to the exaltation of Photius no longer existing, he was 

 replaced on the patriarchal see ; and Pope John VIII. was induced to 

 approve his nomination, with the view of restoring peace to the 

 church. In 879 Photius assembled a new council at Constantinople, 

 in which the word ' filioque ' which Photius charged the western 

 church with having inserted in the Nicene creed in the 5th or 6th 

 centuries, was erased from the creed. The separation however between 

 the two churches was not finally consummated till nearly two cen- 

 turies later, when the patriarch Michael Cerularius, after a long and 

 angry correspondence with Leo IX., was excommunicated, with all 

 his adherents, by the pope's legates, who solemnly deposited the 

 written excommunication on the grand altar of Sancta Sophia, and 

 having skaken off the dust from their feet, departed from Constantinople, 

 A.D. 1054. 



In the year 886, Leo, the sou and successor of Basilius, exiled 

 Photius, for reasons not clearly ascertained, into Armenia, where the 

 patriarch died some years after ; but the epoch of his death ia not 

 exactly known. Photius was of an ambitious and turbulent disposi- 

 tion, and this was his chief failing. Much has been written for and 

 against him ; the Greek and Protestant writers being mostly in his 

 favour, and the Roman Catholics against him. AH however agree in 

 admitting his very extensive learning, which was truly wonderful for 

 his age, as well as his exquisite critical judgment. 



The following are his principal works : 1, ' Myriobiblon, sive Biblio- 

 theca librorum quos legit et consult Photius,' with a Latin translation, 

 fol. 1653. Imm. Bekker published the Greek text, corrected after a 

 Venetian and three Paris manuscripts, with an index, Berlin, 1824, 2 

 vols. 4to. The Bibliotheca is a kind of review of the works which ho 

 had read, many of which have been since lost. Photius gives a brief 



3d 



