b.c.), he managed to secure lenient terms from Philip of
Macedon, now ruling most of Greece.
Realizing the strength of Macedonia, Phocion con-
tinually urged the Athenians to avoid going to war, but
they ignored his advice repeatedly. Philip’s son, alexan-
der the great, held him in great esteem and therefore
did not attack Athens directly. Nevertheless, the Athe-
nians elected Phocion as a war leader to fight Macedo-
nian incursions into the Athenian colonies.
Phocion’s defense of Attica in the Lamian War
(322–321 b.c.) against the Macedonian regent once
again led the Athenians to make him their leader. How-
ever, in 318 he was deposed for preaching peace and
forced to flee to Polyperchon. Captured, he was sent
back, tried as a criminal, found guilty, and sentenced to
death. Plutarch, one of his biographers, writes: “Truly
it was not long after [he was executed] that the Athe-
nians found by the untowardnesse of their affaires, that
they had him put to death, who onely maintained jus-
tice, and honestie at Athens. Whereupon they made his
image be set up in brasse, and gave honourable burial to
his bones, at the charges of the citie. And for his accus-
ers, they condemned Agnonides of treason, and put him
to death themselves. The other two, Epicurus and De-
mophilus being fled out of the citie, were afterwards met
with by his sonne Phocus, who was revenged of them.”
Phocion was a faithful servant of Athens, and the
Athenians who had sentenced him to death soon came
to realize what they had done and the greatness of the
man they had so cruelly killed.
References: Tritle, Lawrence A., Phocion the Good (Lon-
don: Croom Helm, 1988); Plutarch, “The Life of Pho-
cion,” in The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romaines,
Compared together by that grave learned philosopher and
historiographer, Plutarke of Chaeronea, translated by James
Amiot (London: Richard Field, 1603), 751–67; “Pho-
cion,” The Hutchinson Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval
Warfare (Oxford, U.K.: Helicon Publishing, Ltd., 1998),
252.
Plumer of Messines, Herbert Charles Onslow
Plumer, first viscount (1857–1932) British field
marshal
Herbert Plumer was born on 13 March 1857 at his
family’s estate of Malpas Lodge, Torquay, in Devon, En-
gland, the second son of Hall Plumer and his wife
Louisa Alice Hudson. According to General Charles
Harington, Plumer’s primary biographer, his fam-
ily originally came from Yorkshire, the earliest rela-
tion there being Thomas of Bedale in 1638. Plumer
received his education at Eton, the prestigious British
private school, although he left in 1876 when he re-
ceived a commission in the 65th Foot (later the York
and Lancaster Regiment) with the rank of second lieu-
tenant. When the regiment was sent to Lucknow, India,
Plumer went with them. In 1882, he was promoted to
the rank of captain, but instead of being sent to fight
in Afghanistan, he went to Africa, and it was there that
he saw his first fighting. His unit was attached to the
various British forces assembled under Sir Gerald Gra-
ham to relieve the Egyptian army hemmed in at Tokar.
The English were at war against the Muslim extremist
leader Muhammad Ahmad ibn Sayyid Abdullah, also
known as the Mahdi, the spiritual and military leader
of the Sudanese Muslims in a war against the British
and Egyptians in 1884. Plumer took part in the battle
against the Mahdi’s forces at El Teb. On 13 March, he
was again in the engagement against the Mahdi’s troops,
this time at Tamai, where the British lost 91 dead and
only 100 wounded against more than 8,000 dead Mah-
dists. With the Mahdi army all but destroyed, Plumer’s
unit was rotated back to England.
Plumer entered the Army Staff College at Camber-
ley, where he graduated in 1887. He was sent to Ireland
but in 1890 was appointed to the senior staff in Jersey,
where he served until 1893. He was then reassigned
to his old unit, now the 2nd Battalion, the York and
Lancaster Regiment, and sent to Natal in southern Af-
rica. He was eventually appointed as military secretary
to Lieutenant General W. H. Goodenough and aided
in the raising of a military force to aid white settlers
threatened by the Matabele (Zulu warriors). Plumer
later wrote An Irregular Corporations in Matabeleland
(1897), which outlined his experiences. He returned to
England for a short vacation with his family but was
sent back to southern Africa in 1899, just before the
conflict known as the Boer War broke out. There he
was named as commander of the Rhodesia Field Force,
which saw heavy action during the siege of Mafeking
(13 October 1899–17 May 1900) on the Bechuanaland
border of the Transvaal.
In August 1900, Plumer was named as the succes-
sor to Sir Robert Baden-Powell (later the founder of the
Boy Scouts), made a Commander of the Order of the plumeR oF meSSineS, heRbeRt chARleS onSlow plumeR, FiRSt viScount