multitudes were eaten by the crocodiles. The few
who were left rose against him and murdered him in his tent, then offered
the command and guardianship of the kings to Ptolemy; but he would not
take it, and chose rather to stay and make himself king of Egypt, where
his family reigned at Alexandria for three hundred years, all the kings
being called Ptolemy.

Antipater was by this time an old man, and he died a little after; and
his son Cassander expected to take the government of Macedon, but, to his
surprise, found that his father had appointed the old general
Polysperchon in his stead. This he would not endure, and a war arose
between the two. One of Cassander's friends took possession of the
Piraeus, to hold it for him; and Phocion was accused of having advised
it, and was obliged to flee with his friends into a village in Phocis,
where they were made prisoners by Polysperchon, who thought to please the
Athenians by sending them in waggons to Athens to be tried. A mob of the
worst sort came together, and would not hear their defence, but sentenced
them to die by taking hemlock. When Phocion was asked whether he had any
message for his son, he said, "Only that he bear no grudge against the
Athenians." There was not enough hemlock to poison all, and more was
sent for. The jailer desired to be paid, and Phocion said, "Give the man
his money. One cannot even die for nothing in Athens."

Phocion is sometimes called the last of the Athenians, but it was a sad
kind of greatness, for he could not give them freedom, and only tried to
keep them from the misery of war by submission to Macedon. The Spartans
would give no help; and though the little city of Megalopolis held
bravely out against Cassander, it was taken and horribly punished; and it
was plain that the old spirit of the Greeks was gone, and that they could
no longer band together to keep out the enemy; so they all remained in
subjection to Macedon, most of them with a garrison of Macedonian
soldiers in their citadel. But Athens was as full of philosophers as
ever, and became a sort of college, where people sent their sons to study
learning, oratory, and poetry, and hear the disputes of the Stoic and
Epicurean philosophers.

In the meantime Alexander's embalmed body had been buried at Alexandria,
and the two young kings, his son Alexander AEgos and his half-brother
Arridaeus, had been brought to Macedon. His mother Olympias put poor
Arridaeus to death as