Phalaecus
（
*Fa/laikos), son of Onomarchus, the leader of the Phocians in the Sacred War.
He was still very young at the death of his uncle Phayllus (B. C. 351), so that the latter, though he designated him for his successor in the chief command, placed him for a time under the guardianship of his friend Mnaseas.
But very shortly afterwards Mnaseas having fallen in battle against the Boeotians, Phalaecus, notwithstanding his youth, assumed the command in person, and carried on hostilities with various success.
The war had now resolved itself into a series of petty invasions, or rather predatory incursions by the Phocians and Boeotians into each other's territory, and continued without any striking incident until B. C. 347.
But it seems that scems that Phalaecus had failed or neglected to establish his power at home as firmly as his predecessors had done : and a charge was brought against him by the opposite party of having appropriated part of tle sacred treasure's to his own private purposes, in consequence of which he was deprived of his power. No punishment, however, appears to have been inflicted on him ; and the follwmving year (B. C. 346) we find hliim again appointed general, switllouit ally explanation of this revolution : but it seems to have been in some manner connected with the proceedings of Philip of Macedon, who was now preparing to interpose in the war.
It is not easy to understand the condultct of Phalaecus in the stlubsequelnt tratsactionis; but whether he was deceived by tihe plrofessions of l'hilip, or hlad been secretly gained over by the king, his measures were precisely those best adapted to facilitate the projects of the Macedonlian monarch. Instead of strengthesllsin his alliance with the Athenians and Spartans, he treated the former as if they had been his open enemies, and by his behaviour towards Archidamus, led that monarch to withdraw the forces which he had brought to the succour of the Phocians. cians, All this time Phalaecus took no measure to oppose the progress of Philip, until the latter had actually passed the straits of Thermopylae, and all hope of resistance was vain.
He then hastened to conclude a treaty with the Macedomian donian king, by which he provided for his own safety, and was allowed to withdraw into the Peloponnese with a body of 8000 mercenaries, leaving the nhaippy Phocians to their fate. (
Diod. 16.38-
40,
5(6, 59;
Paus. 10.2.7 ; Aesch.
de F. Leg. p. 45-47; Dem.
de F. Leg. pp. 359, 314; Thirlwall's
Greece, vol. v. chap. 44.)
Phalaecus now assumed the part of a mere leader of mercenary troops, in which character we find him engaging in various enterprises.
At one time he determined to enter the service of the Tarentines, then at war with the Lncanians; but a mutiny among his own troops having compelled him to abandon this project and return to the Peloponnese, he subsequently passed over to Crete, and assisted the Cnossiaus against their neighbours of Lyttus.
He was at first successful, and took the city of Lyttus; but was afterwards expelled from thence by Archidamus king of Sparta : and having next laid siege to Cydonia, lost many of his troops, and was himself killed in the attack. We are told that his besieging engines were set on fire by iightning, and that he, with many of his followers, perished in the con flagration ; but this story was probably invented to give a colour to his fate of that divine vengeance which was believed to wait upon the whole of his sacrilegious race. His death appears to have been after that of Archidamus in inB. C. 338. (
Diod. 16.61-
63;
Paus. 10.2.7.)
[
E.H.B]
