Cleon of Athens

“ Besides, Cleon shall not be able to accuse me of attacking Athens before strangers; (1) we are by ourselves at the festival of the Lenaea; the period when our allies send us their tribute and their soldiers is not yet. Here is only the pure wheat without chaff; as to the resident strangers settled among us, they and the citizens are one, like the straw and the ear. I detest the Lacedaemonians with all my heart, and may Posidon, the god of Taenarus, (2) cause an earthquake and overturn their dwellings! ”

“ The prompt equipment, however, of another Athenian fleet chilled the naval enthusiasm of Sparta.
During this winter the Platæans began to feel in straits from shortage of supplies, and it was resolved that a party of them should break through the siege lines, and escape to Athens, a feat of arms which was brilliantly and successfully accomplished.
In the next--the fifth--summer, Mitylene capitulated; the fate of the inhabitants was to be referred to Athens. Here Cleon had now become the popular leader, and he persuaded the Athenians to order the whole of the adult males to be put to death. ”

“ Athens. But the Athenians were too triumphant to listen, and the unexpected success of Cleon, who had, as he promised, taken the Spartans in Sphacteria within twenty clays, had given him great influence in the assembly, and induced the people to follow his policy, which was to continue the war at all hazards, rather than that of the cautious and respectable Nicias, who was for making peace. They won a victory over the Corinthians in the autumn of B.C. 425; in the next year they occupied the island of Cythera, off the southern shore of Lacedaemonia, as well as other places on the mainland ”

“ We need no Pericles who commissions statues and builds temples to Fame and Glory; Athens has enough of such gewgaws. But now we must have a man who understands the art of war, who has a heart in his breast and a head on his shoulders. Whom do you wish for, men of Athens?”
Alcibiades sprang up like a young lion, and went straight to the point. “Men of Athens, I propose Cleon the tanner, not because he is a tanner, for that is something different. At any rate the army may be compared to an ox-skin, and Cleon to a knife; but Cleon has other qualities, especially those of a commander. ”

“ It is now the eighth year of the Peloponnesian War, in which all Greece is ranged on the side of the two great contending powers, Athens and Sparta. The great Pericles—to whose fatal policy, as Aristophanes held, its long continuance has been due—has been six years dead. His place in the commonwealth has been taken by men of inferior mark. And the man who is now most in popular favour, the head of the democratic interest, now completely in the ascendant, is the poet's great enemy, Cleon: an able but unscrupulous man, of low origin, loud and violent, an able speaker and energetic politician. ”

“ In the year 428 Mityle'ne, the capital of the Island of Lesbos, revolted against the supremacy of Athens, but was speedily reduced to subjection, and one thousand or more Mityleneans were sent as prisoners to Athens, to be disposed of as the Athenian assembly should direct. Cleon first prominently appears in public in connection with the disposal of these prisoners. With the capacity to transact business in a popular manner, and possessing a stentorian voice and unbounded audacity, he had become "by far the most persuasive speaker in the eyes of the people;" ”

“ Athens must never again seek “empire” in the sense which became odious under the influence of Cleon and Hyperbolus,—when, to use the image of Aristophanes, the allies were as Babylonian slaves grinding in the Athenian mill. Athens must never permit, if she could help it, the re-establishment of such a domination as Sparta exercised in Greece from the battle of Aegospotami to the battle of Leuctra. Athens must aim at leading a free confederacy, of which the members should be bound to her by their own truest interests. Athens must seek to deserve the confidence of all Greeks alike. ”

“ Led by the demagogue Cleon, the Athenians at first passed the monstrous resolution that the whole of the Mitylenaeans, not merely the prisoners at Athens, but every adult male in the city, should be put to death, and their wives and families sold as slaves. It is some explanation but no excuse for this horrible decree that Lesbos had been an especially favoured ally, and that its revolt had for a moment put Athens in deadly fear of a general rising of Ionia and Aeolis. ”

“ The army already suffered, and this fact became known at Athens. Cleon, who had rejected the overtures of the Lacedæmonians, laid the blame on the generals. It was because [578] of their lack of resolution, he said, that hostilities were so prolonged. In this he was right, the Athenians at Pylos numbering ten thousand men as against four hundred and twenty Spartans. Nicias, in a constant state of alarm, believed success even with their superior force impossible, and to silence the demagogue proposed to him to go himself to Sphacteria. ”

“ Finding that he must make good his words, Cleon at last plucked up a spirit, and accepted the honour thus contemptuously forced upon him. "I am not afraid of the Spartans," he declared valiantly. "Give me the contingent of soldiers from Lemnos and Imbros, the Thracian peltasts, [Footnote: Light-armed soldiers.] and four hundred archers, and without taking a single Athenian from the city, within three weeks I will either bring those Spartans as prisoners to Athens, or kill them where they are."
There was some laughter among the Athenians at Cleon's vain-glorious promise ”

“ After the death of Pericles, Cleon became the most prominent leader of the aggressive and democratic party, Nicias, of the anti-democratic peace party. Over most of Greece in each state the oligarchic faction favoured the Peloponnesian league, the democratic, Athens. The general Demosthenes at Pylos effected the surrender of a Lacedæmonian force, which temporarily shattered Sparta's military prestige, a blow in some degree counteracted by the brilliant operations of Brasidas in the north, where, however, both he and Cleon were killed. ”

“ Foremost to encourage them in this policy was Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, a popular leader of the time and very powerful with the multitude, who persuaded them to answer as follows: First, the men in the island must surrender themselves and their arms and be brought to Athens. Next, the Lacedaemonians must restore Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and Achaia, all places acquired not by arms, but by the previous convention, under which they had been ceded by Athens herself at a moment of disaster, when a truce was more necessary to her than at present. ”

“ On the day after the victory he and Demosthenes started with the prisoners for Athens, where they arrived within 20 days from the time of Cleon's departure. Altogether, this affair was one of the most favourable for the Athenians that had occurred during the war. The prisoners would serve not only for a guarantee against future invasions, which might be averted by threatening to put them to death, but also as a means for extorting advantageous conditions whenever a peace should be concluded. ”

“ The Mytilenaean envoys, who had been sent to Athens on the surrender of the city, perceived that there was a change in the public temper, and acting in concert with influential Athenians who were in their interest, they induced the magistrates to summon a second assembly, and re-open the debate.
It is on this occasion that we first catch sight [Footnote: That is, in the narrative of Thucydides.] of the notorious demagogue Cleon, who for the next six years will be the most prominent figure in Athenian public life. ”

“ Why can’t the man leave Euripides alone, especially now he is dead, and won’t bother us with any more of his [Pg 12] plays? There are plenty of scoundrel politicians who might to much more purpose come in for a few strokes of the lash. But he daren’t touch the fellows. Ah! it was not always so. I remember the play he brought out eighteen years ago. The ‘Knights’ he called it. That was something like a Comedy! Cleon was at the very height of his power, for he had just made that lucky stroke at Pylos [6] . But Aristophanes did not spare him one bit for that. ”

“ I shall not be at leisure to–day, because I have sacrificed, and do feast also certain strangers, my friends, that are [125] come to see me. So the people burst out in a laughing, and brake up the assembly.... But herein Nicias did great harm to the commonwealth, suffering Cleon in that sort to grow to credit and estimation. For after that victory Cleon grew to so haughty a mind and pride of himself, that he was not to be dealt withal; whereupon fell out the occasion of the great miseries that happened to the city of Athens, by which Nicias himself was not the smallest sufferer. ”

“ The aim of the Knights was the punishment and ruin of Cleon, whom we already know as one of the most conceited and insolent of the demagogues of Athens.
[Illustration: EURIPIDES.]
The play of the Birds is "the everlasting allegory of foolish sham and flimsy ambition." It was aimed particularly at the ambitious Sicilian schemes of Alcibiades; for at the time the play appeared, the Athenian army was before Syracuse, and elated by good news daily arriving, the Athenians were building the most gorgeous air-castles, and indulging in the most extravagant day-dreams of universal dominion. ”

“ Cleon is a poet from the isles of Greece who has received a letter from his royal patron and many costly gifts, which crowd his court and portico. He writes to thank his king for his munificence, and in his reply says it is true that he has written that epic on the hundred plates of gold; true that he composed the chant which the mariners will learn to sing as they haul [Pg 113] their nets; true that the image of the sun-god on the lighthouse is his also; that the Pœcile—the portico at Athens painted with battle pictures by Polygnotus the Thasian, has been adorned, too, with his own works. ”

“ Many of his friends besought him to attack, many of his enemies threatened him and abused him, and many songs and offensive jests were written about him, speaking of him as a coward, and one who was betraying the city to its enemies. Cleon too attacked him, using the anger which the citizens felt against him to advance his own personal popularity. ”

“ Cleon was prudent enough to leave the direction of the assault in his hands. After an obstinate resistance, the Lacedæmonian force at last surrendered, being reduced in number to 292, of whom 120 were Spartans; and within the time prescribed Cleon returned in triumph to Athens with his prisoners. Thucydides says, that no event throughout the war created so much astonishment in Greece as this; it being the general opinion that the Lacedæmonians would not yield up their arms for famine, or for any other extremity, but rather die with them, fighting as they best could. ”

“ Meanwhile Cleon, after placing a garrison in Torone, weighed anchor and sailed around Athos on his way to Amphipolis.
About the same time Phaeax, son of Erasistratus, set sail with two colleagues as ambassador from Athens to Italy and Sicily. The Leontines, upon the departure of the Athenians from Sicily after the pacification, had placed a number of new citizens upon the roll, and the commons had a design for redividing the land; but the upper classes, aware of their intention, called in the Syracusans and expelled the commons. ”

“ To us it seems that the very idea of the expedition implied a gigantic miscalculation of the resources of Athens and of the difficulty of the task. His judgments of men and of measures have been criticized by writers of different schools and from different points of view. Grote criticized his verdict upon Cleon, while he accepted his estimate of the policy of Pericles. More recent writers, on the other hand, have accepted his view of Cleon, while they have selected for attack his appreciation alike of the policy and the strategy of Pericles. ”

“ The Delians had Atramyttium in Asia given them by Pharnaces, and settled there as they removed from Delos.
2Meanwhile Cleon prevailed on the Athenians to let him set sail at the expiration of the armistice for the towns in the direction of Thrace with twelve hundred heavy infantry and three hundred horse from Athens, a large force of the allies, and thirty ships. First touching at the still besieged Scione, and taking some heavy infantry from the army there, he next sailed into Cophos, a harbour in the territory of Torone, which is not far from the town. ”

“ When you chose that enemy of heaven, the Paphlagonian tanner, [54] for a general, we knitted our brow, we caused our wrath to break out; the lightning shot forth, the thunder pealed, the moon deserted her course and the sun at once veiled his beam threatening no longer to give you light, if Cleon became general. Nevertheless you elected him; 'tis said, Athens never resolves upon some fatal step but the gods turn these errors into her greatest gain. Do you wish that this election should even now be a success for you? 'Tis a very simple thing to do ”

“ One little point in this play is worth notice, as a trait of generous temper on the part of the dramatist. Cleon, his great personal enemy, was now dead. He has not been able to restrain himself from aiming a blow at him even now, as one of those whom he looks upon, justly or unjustly, as the authors of the miseries of Greece. But he holds his hand half-way. When Mercury is descanting upon some of these evils which went near to the ruin of Athens, he is made to say that “the Tanner”—i.e., Cleon—was the cause of them. Trygæus interrupts him,—
Hold—say not so, good master Mercury ”