Kleon

“ The fact of Kleon’s great power of speech, and his capacity [p. 248] of handling public business in a popular manner, is better attested than anything else respecting him, because it depends upon two witnesses both hostile to him,—Thucydidês and Aristophanês. The assembly and the dikastery were Kleon’s theatre and holding-ground: for the Athenian people taken collectively in their place of meeting, and the Athenian people taken individually, were not always the same person and had not the same mode of judgment: Demos sitting in the Pnyx, was a different man from Demos at home. ”

“ In the prose of Thucydidês, we find Kleon described as a dishonest politician, a wrongful accuser of others, the most violent of all the citizens: [755] throughout the verse of Aristophanês, these same charges are set forth with his characteristic emphasis, but others are also superadded; Kleon practises the basest artifices and deceptions to gain favor with the people, steals the public money, receives bribes, and extorts compositions from private persons by wholesale, and thus enriches himself under pretence of zeal for the public treasury. ”

“ Kleon's opposition was due to his personal dislike to Nikias; and when he saw him enthusiastically exerting himself on behalf of the Lacedæmonians, he at once took the other side, and persuaded the people to reject the proffered peace. Now as the blockade dragged on for a long time, and the Athenians learned to what straits their army was reduced, they became angry with Kleon. He threw the blame upon Nikias, asserting that it was through his remissness and want of enterprise that the Spartans still held out, and declaring that, were he himself in chief command they would soon be captured. ”

“ Kleon was confused by this unexpected turn of the debate, and declined the command; but as the Athenians insisted upon it, and Nikias urged him to do so, he plucked up spirit, accepted the office of general, and even went so far as to pledge himself within twenty days either to kill the Spartans on the island or to bring them prisoners to Athens. The Athenians were more inclined to laugh at this boast than to believe it; for they were well acquainted with the vainglorious character of the man, and had often amused themselves at his expense. ”

“ So ready are most writers to find Kleon guilty, that they are satisfied with Aristophanês as a witness against him: though no other public man, of any age or nation, has ever been condemned upon such evidence. ”

“ It is easy to see, however, that an expedition proposed under these circumstances by Kleon, though it might command a majority in the public assembly, would have a large proportion of the citizens unfavorable to it, and even wishing that it might fail. Moreover, Kleon had neither talents nor experience for commanding an army, and the being engaged under his command in fighting against the ablest officer of the time, could inspire no confidence to any man in putting on his armor. ”

“ The general attributes set forth by Thucydidês (apart from Aristophanês, who does not profess to write history) , we may well accept; the powerful and violent invective of Kleon, often dishonest, together with his self-confidence and audacity in the public assembly. Men of the middling class, like Kleon and [p. 247] Hyperbolus, who persevered in addressing the public assembly and trying to take a leading part in it, against persons of greater family pretension than themselves, were pretty sure to be men of more than usual audacity. ”

“ But the absence of military knowledge and precaution is not the worst of Kleon’s faults on this occasion. His want of courage at the moment of conflict is yet more lamentable, and divests his end of that personal sympathy which would otherwise have accompanied it. A commander who has been out-generalled is under a double force of obligation to exert and expose himself, to the uttermost, in order to retrieve the consequences of his own mistakes. He will thus at least preserve his own personal honor, whatever censure he may deserve on the score of deficient knowledge and judgment. ”

“ In the comedy of the Acharnians, represented one year earlier than the Knights, the poet alludes with great delight to a sum of five talents, which Kleon had been compelled “to disgorge”: a present tendered to him by the insular subjects of Athens, if we may believe Theopompus, for the purpose of procuring a remission of their tribute, and which the Knights, whose evasions of military service he had exposed, compelled him to relinquish. ”

“ It seems to be conceived by most historians as a mere piece of levity or folly in the Athenian people, who are supposed to have enjoyed the excellent joke of putting an incompetent man against his own will at the head of this enterprise, in order that they might amuse themselves with his blunders: Kleon is thus contemptible, and the Athenian people ridiculous. Certainly, if that people had been disposed to conduct their public business upon such childish fancies as are here implied, they would have made a very different figure from that which history actually presents to us. ”

“ This passage shows us, if inferences on comic evidence are to be held as admissible, that Kleon and Hyperbolus became involved in accusations partly by helping poor persons who had been wronged to obtain justice before the dikastery. A rich man who had suffered injury might apply [p. 486] to Antipho or some other rhetor for paid advice and aid as to the conduct of his complaint; but a poor man or woman would think themselves happy to obtain the gratuitous suggestion, and sometimes the auxiliary speech, of Kleon or Hyperbolus ”

“ To lose what we have once got is more disgraceful than to fail in attempts at acquisition.” [728] The very same language was probably held by Kleon when exhorting his countrymen to an expedition for the reconquest of Amphipolis. But when uttered by him, it would have a very different effect from that which it had formerly produced when held by Periklês, and different also from that which it would now have produced if held by Nikias. ”

“ But in what proportion of cases his accusations were just or calumnious, the real question upon which a candid judgment turns, we have no means of deciding, either in his case or that of Cato. “To lash the wicked (observes Aristophanês himself [762] ) is not only no blame, but is even a matter of honor to the good.” It has not been common to allow to Kleon the benefit of this observation, though he is much more entitled to it than Aristophanês. For the attacks of a poetical libeller admit neither of defence nor retaliation ”

“ Klearidas here found a considerable resistance, in spite of the desertion of Kleon; who, more astonished than any man in his army by a catastrophe so unlooked for, lost his presence of mind and fled at once; but was overtaken by a Thracian peltast from Myrkinus and slain. His soldiers on the right wing, however, repelled two or three attacks in front from Klearidas, and maintained their ground, until at length the Chalkidian cavalry and the peltasts from Myrkinus, having come forth out of the gates, assailed them with missiles in flank and rear so as to throw them into disorder. ”

“ But Nikias, reserving himself to play the general at the expense of the village of Minoa, the island of Kythera, and the miserable inhabitants of Melos, [100] when it came to fighting the Lacedæmonians eagerly stripped off his general's cloak, and entrusted to an inexperienced and reckless man like Kleon, the conduct of an enterprise involving the safety of a large Athenian fleet and army, showing himself no less neglectful of his own honour than he was of the interests of his country. ”

“ But this story (attested by Ephorus [566] ) looks more like an anecdote of the rhetorical schools than like a reality. Agesilaus was not the man to set much value on sophists or their compositions; nor is it easy to believe that he remained so long ignorant of those projects which Lysander had once entertained but subsequently dropped. Moreover the probability is, that Kleon himself would make the discourse public as a sample of his own talents, even in the lifetime of Lysander ”

“ Kleonymus, now an elderly man, had married a beautiful wife of the royal blood, Chilonis, the daughter of Leotychides. She fell madly in love with Akrotatus, the son of Areus, a youth in the flower of his age, and the dishonour of Kleonymus became notorious all over Sparta. ”

“ My gentle babe, Marina here, I must charge your charity with her. I leave her the infant of your care, beseeching you to give her princely training.' And then turning to Cleon's wife, Dionysia, he said: 'Good madam, make me blessed in your care in bringing up my child': and she answered: 'I have a child myself who shall not be more dear to my respect than yours, my lord'; and Cleon made the like promise, saying: 'Your noble services, prince Pericles, in feeding my whole people with your corn (for which in their prayers they daily remember you) must in your child be thought on. ”

“ Away! Hassan will guide thee past the guards. Then fly,—and Heaven guide thee, O my father! [Ion again shrouds Cleon in the mantle, concealing his chains in the thick folds.] Thus muffle thy tell-tale fetters, that no sound may whisper to the Turks there walks a Greek under the free heavens forth to freedom.
Cleon. My Ion, one last embrace! God grant 'tis not our last on earth! ”

“ As this poem indicates the manner in which Christianity in the early days spread from man to man, while many are amazed and many doubt, so Cleon gives us the picture of the Gospel as carried over the world by Paul, Cleon in his own distinguished person sums up the last word of Greek culture, in its intellectual prowess, its serene beauty, its many-sided charm, and its total inability to save the world. Cleon is an absolute pessimist. He is sincere; such cant as the "choir invisible" means nothing to him, for death will turn his splendid mind into a pinch of dust. ”

“ Diagoras succeeds in calling the soul of Cleon back from the downward path that it is following. At last Cleon exclaims that it has been only a curse to him to have had so much wealth; he has striven desperately to satisfy himself with the things that satisfy the common crowd, but he has not succeeded.
As the play goes on Cleon passes through a spiritual crisis and becomes a Christian. Now this, we must remember, is the time of the most extreme persecutions of the Christians. Cleon is brought to the supreme test that the followers of Christ were subjected to under the persecuting monarch Nero. ”

“ When the army was convened in assembly, several of them went so far as to treat the menace of Kleander with contempt. But Xenophon took pains to set them right upon this point. "Soldiers (said he) it will be no slight misfortune if Kleander shall depart as he threatens to do, in his present temper toward us. We are here close upon the cities of Greece: now [Pg 113] the Lacedæmonians are the imperial power in Greece, and not merely their authorized officers, but even each one of their individual citizens, can accomplish what he pleases in the various cities. ”

“ Of M. Platzoff I have very little to tell you. Even in his own house and among his own people he is a recluse. He has his own special rooms, and three-fourths of his time is spent in them. Above all things he dislikes to see strange faces about him, and I have been instructed by Cleon to keep out of his way as much as possible. Even the old servants, people who have been under his roof for years, let themselves be seen by him as seldom as need be. In person he is a little withered-up yellow-skinned man, as dry as a last year's pippin, but very keen, bright, and vivacious. ”

“ Cleon cries out that he thinks that Diagoras must have lost his eyes, and points out that there is in the room a fair choice among some thirty different kinds of couches—couches of the Phrygian and of the Grecian pattern, and many other kinds. Diagoras is astonished when told that these beds adorned with pearls and gold are made to sit on; he is, he says, a simple man, used to plain things, and begs the pardon of Cleon if he has been unappreciative. Cleon thinks that behind this excuse his old teacher is displeased with him ”

“ Pericles was reinstated, and Cleon now for a time fell into the background. The death of Pericles (429) left the field clear for him. Hitherto he had only been a vigorous opposition speaker, a trenchant critic and accuser of state officials. He now came forward as the professed champion and leader of the democracy, and, owing to the moderate abilities of his rivals and opponents, he was for some years undoubtedly the foremost man in Athens. Although rough and unpolished, he was gifted with natural eloquence and a powerful voice, and knew exactly how to work upon the feelings of the people. ”

“ No recollection of his dream, or of that still more singular vision in which Cleon had acted so prominent a part, had touched his memory since waking. But now, by one of those peculiar mental processes with which all of us are familiar, although we may not be able to explain them, the faint perfume that still pervaded the ash he had taken up between his fingers brought vividly back to his recollection every scene, real and imaginary, in which he had acted a part during his sleeping hours. ”

“ I swear by all the company of heaven I would not choose the great king's empire in exchange for what I am—the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. (22) And at this instant I feast my eyes on Cleinias (23) gladlier than on all other sights which men deem fair. Joyfully will I welcome blindness to all else, if but these eyes may still behold him and him only. With sleep and night I am sore vexed, which rob me of his sight; but to daylight and the sun I owe eternal thanks, for they restore him to me, my heart's joy, Cleinias. ”