he showed to few even of his own companions. The historian Douris
tells us in confirmation of this that after Alexander had conquered
Darius, and had become a great man, he omitted the usual words of
greeting from all his letters, except from those which he wrote to
Phokion, addressing him alone as he addressed Antipater (his viceroy),
with the word 'Hail.' This is also recorded by the historian Chares.

XVIII. With regard to money matters, all writers agree in saying that
Alexander sent Phokion a hundred talents as a present. When this money
arrived at Athens Phokion enquired of those who brought it why
Alexander should give all this money to him alone, when there were so
many other citizens in Athens? They answered, "Because he thinks that
you alone are a good and honourable man." "Then," said Phokion, "let
him allow me still to be thought so, and to remain so." When the men
who brought the treasure followed him into his house, and saw its
frugal arrangements, and his wife making bread, while Phokion with his
own hands drew water from the well and washed their feet, they pressed
the money upon him yet more earnestly, and expressed their
disappointment at his refusal, saying that it was a shameful thing for
a friend of King Alexander to live so poorly. Phokion, seeing a poor
old man walk by clad in a ragged cloak, asked them whether they
thought him to be a worse man than that. They begged him not to say
such things, but he answered. "And yet that man lives on slenderer
means than mine, and finds that they suffice him. Moreover," he
continued, "if I received such a mass of gold and did not use it, I
should reap no advantage from it, while, if I did use it, I should
destroy both my own character and that of the giver." So the treasure
was sent back from Athens, and proved that the man who did not need
such a sum was richer than he who offered it. As Alexander was
displeased, and wrote to Phokion saying that he did not regard as his
friends those who asked him for nothing, Phokion did not even then ask
for money, but begged for the release of Echekrates the sophist,
Athenodorus of Imbros, and of two Rhodians, Demaratus and Sparton, who
had been arrested, and were imprisoned at Sardis. Alexander
immediately set these men at liberty, and sending Kraterus to
Macedonia bade him hand over to Phokion whichever he might choose of
the Asiatic cities of Kius, Gergithus, Mylassa, and Elaea; showing all
the more eagerness to make h