Chapter LIV (3)

Having offered the battle sacrifice at the temple of Athênê, Brasidas called his men together to address to them the usual encouragements prior to an engagement. After appealing to the Dorian pride of his Peloponnesians, accustomed to triumph over Ionians, he explained to them his design of relying upon a bold and sudden movement with comparatively small numbers, against the Athenian army when not prepared for it,[741] when their courage was not wound up to battle pitch, and when, after carelessly mounting the hill to survey the ground, they were thinking only of quietly returning to quarters. He himself at the proper moment would rush out from one gate, and be foremost in conflict with the enemy: Klearidas, with that bravery which became him as a Spartan, would follow the example by sallying out from another gate: and the enemy, taken thus unawares, would probably make little resistance. For the Amphipolitans, this day and their own behavior would determine whether they were to be allies of Lacedæmon, or slaves of Athens, perhaps sold into captivity or even put to death as a punishment for their recent revolt.

[741] Thucyd. v, 9. Τοὺς γὰρ ἐναντίους εἰκάζω καταφρονήσει
τε ἡμῶν καὶ οὐκ ἂν ἐλπίσαντας ὡς ἂν ἐπεξέλθοι τις αὐτοῖς ἐς
μάχην, ἀναβῆναί τε πρὸς τὸ χωρίον, καὶ νῦν ἀτάκτως κατὰ θέαν
τετραμμένους ὀλιγωρεῖν.... Ἕως οὖν ἔτι ~ἀπαράσκευοι θαρσοῦσι~,
καὶ τοῦ ὑπαπιέναι πλέον ἢ τοῦ μένοντος, ἐξ ὧν ἐμοὶ φαίνονται,
τὴν διάνοιαν ἔχουσιν, ~ἐν τῷ ἀνειμένῳ αὐτῶν τῆς γνώμης, καὶ πρὶν
ξυνταχθῆναι μᾶλλον τὴν δόξαν~, ἐγὼ μὲν, etc.

The words τὸ ἀνειμένον τῆς γνώμης are full of significance in
regard to ancient military affairs. The Grecian hoplites, even
the best of them, required to be peculiarly _wound up_ for a
battle; hence the necessity of the harangue from the general
which always preceded. Compare Xenophon’s eulogy of the manœuvres
of Epameinondas before the battle of Mantineia, whereby he made
the enemy fancy that he was not going to fight, and took down the
preparation in the minds of their soldiers for battle: ἔλυσε μὲν
τῶν πλείστων πολεμίων τὴν ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς πρὸς μάχην παρασκευὴν,
etc. (Xenoph. Hellen. vii, 5, 22.)

These preparations, however, could not be completed in secrecy; for Brasidas and his army were perfectly visible while descending the hill of Kerdylium, crossing the bridge and entering Amphipolis, to the Athenian scouts without: moreover, so conspicuous was the interior of the city to spectators without, that the temple of Athênê, and Brasidas with its ministers around him, performing the ceremony of sacrifice, was distinctly recognized. The fact was made known to Kleon as he stood on the high ridge taking his survey, while at the same time those who had gone near to the gates reported that the feet of many horses and men were beginning to be seen under them, as if preparing for a sally.[742] He himself went close to the gate, and satisfied himself of this circumstance: we must recollect that there was no defender on the walls, and no danger from missiles. Anxious to avoid coming to any real engagement before his reinforcements should arrive, he at once gave orders for retreat, which he thought might be accomplished before the attack from within could be fully organized; for he imagined that a considerable number of troops would be marched out, and ranged in battle order, before the attack was actually begun, not dreaming that the sally would be instantaneous, made with a mere handful of men. Orders having been proclaimed to wheel to the left, and retreat in column on the left flank towards Eion, Kleon, who was himself on the top of the hill with the right wing, waited only to see his left and centre actually in march on the road to Eion, and then directed his right also to wheel to the left and follow them.

[742] Thucyd. v, 10. Τῷ δὲ Κλέωνι, φανεροῦ γενομένου αὐτοῦ
ἀπὸ τοῦ Κερδυλίου καταβάντος καὶ ἐν τῇ πόλει ἐπιφανεῖ οὔσῃ
ἔξωθεν περὶ τὸ ἱεροῦ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς θυομένου καὶ ταῦτα πράσσοντος,
ἀγγέλλεται (προὐκεχωρήκει γὰρ τότε κατὰ τὴν θέαν) ὅτι ἥ τε
στρατιὰ ἅπασα φανερὰ τῶν πολεμίων ἐν τῇ πόλει, etc.

Kleon did not himself _see_ Brasidas sacrificing, or see the
enemy’s army within the city; others on the lower ground were
better situated for seeing what was going on in Amphipolis,
than he was while on the high ridge. Others saw it, and gave
intimation to him.

The whole Athenian army were thus in full retreat, marching in a direction nearly parallel to the Long Wall of Amphipolis, with their right or unshielded side exposed to the enemy, when Brasidas, looking over the southernmost gates of the Long Wall with his small detachment ready marshalled near him, burst out into contemptuous exclamations on the disorder of their array.[743] “These men will not stand us; I see it by the quivering of their spears and of their heads. Men who reel about in that way, never stand an assailing enemy. Open the gates for me instantly, and let us sally out with confidence.”

[743] Thucyd. v, 10. Οἱ ἄνδρες ἡμᾶς οὐ μένουσι (q. μενοῦσι?)·
δῆλοι δὲ τῶν τε δοράτων τῇ κινήσει καὶ τῶν κεφαλῶν· οἷς γὰρ ἂν
τοῦτο γίγνηται, οὐκ εἰώθασι μένειν τοὺς ἐπιόντας.

This is a remarkable illustration of the regular movement of
heads and spears, which characterized a well-ordered body of
Grecian hoplites.

With that, both the gate of the Long Wall nearest to the palisade, and the adjoining gate of the palisade itself, were suddenly thrown open, and Brasidas with his one hundred and fifty chosen soldiers issued out through them to attack the retreating Athenians. Running rapidly down the straight road which joined laterally the road towards Eion along which the Athenians were marching, he charged their central division on the right flank:[744] their left wing had already got beyond him on the road towards Eion. Taken completely unprepared, conscious of their own disorderly array, and astounded at the boldness of their enemy, the Athenians of the centre were seized with panic, made not the least resistance, and presently fled. Even the Athenian left, though not attacked at all, instead of halting to lend assistance, shared the panic and fled in disorder. Having thus disorganized this part of the army, Brasidas passed along the line to press his attack on the Athenian right: but in this movement he was mortally wounded and carried off the field, unobserved by his enemies. Meanwhile Klearidas, sallying forth from the Thracian gate, had attacked the Athenian right on the ridge opposite to him, immediately after it began its retreat. But the soldiers on the Athenian right had probably seen the previous movement of Brasidas against the other division, and though astonished at the sudden danger, had thus a moment’s warning, before they were themselves assailed, to halt and take close rank on the hill. 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. The whole Athenian army was thus put to flight; the left hurrying to Eion, the men of the right dispersing and seeking safety among the hilly grounds of Pangæus in their rear. Their sufferings and loss in the flight, from the hands of the pursuing peltasts and cavalry, were most severe: and when they at last again mustered at Eion, not only the commander Kleon, but six hundred Athenian hoplites, half of the force sent out, were found missing.[745]

[744] Thucyd. v, 10. Καὶ ὁ μὲν, κατὰ τὰς ἐπὶ τὸ σταύρωμα πύλας,
καὶ τὰς πρώτας τοῦ μακροῦ τείχους τότε ὄντος ἐξελθὼν, ἔθει δρόμῳ
τὴν ὁδὸν ταύτην εὐθεῖαν, ᾗπερ νῦν κατὰ τὸ καρτερώτατον τοῦ χωρίου
ἰόντι τὸ τροπαῖον ἕστηκε.

Brasidas and his men sallied forth by two different gates at
the same time. One was the first gate in the Long Wall, which
would be the first gate in order, to a person coming from the
southward. The other was the _gate upon the palisade_ (αἱ ἐπὶ τὸ
σταύρωμα πύλαι), that is, the gate in the Long Wall which opened
_from the town upon the palisade_. The persons who sallied out by
this gate would get out to attack the enemy by the gate in the
palisade itself.

The gate in the Long Wall which opened from the town upon the
palisade, would be that by which Brasidas himself with his army
entered Amphipolis from Mount Kerdylium. It probably stood open
at this moment when he directed the sally forth: that which
had to be opened at the moment, was the gate in the palisade,
together with the first gate in the Long Wall.

The last words cited in Thucydidês—ᾗπερ νῦν κατὰ τὸ καρτερώτατον
τοῦ χωρίου ἰόντι τὸ τροπαῖον ἕστηκε—are not intelligible without
better knowledge of the topography than we possess. What
Thucydidês means by “the strongest point in the place,” we cannot
tell. We only understand that the trophy was erected in the road
by which a person went up to that point. We must recollect that
the expressions of Thucydidês here refer to the ground as it
stood sometime afterwards, not as it stood at the time of the
battle between Kleon and Brasidas.

[745] It is almost painful to read the account given by Diodorus
(xii, 73, 74) of the battle of Amphipolis, when one’s mind is
full of the distinct and admirable narrative of Thucydidês, only
defective by being too brief. It is difficult to believe that
Diodorus is describing the same event; so totally different are
all the circumstances, except that the Lacedæmonians at last
gain the victory. To say, with Wesseling in his note, “Hæc _non
usquequaque_ conveniunt Thucydideis,” is prodigiously below the
truth.

So admirably had the attack been concerted, and so entire was its success, that only seven men perished on the side of the victors. But of those seven, one was the gallant Brasidas himself, who being carried into Amphipolis, lived just long enough to learn the complete victory of his troops and then expired. Great and bitter was the sorrow which his death occasioned throughout Thrace, especially among the Amphipolitans. He received, by special decree, the distinguished honor of interment within their city, the universal habit being to inter even the most eminent deceased persons in a suburb without the walls. All the allies attended his funeral in arms and with military honors: his tomb was encircled by a railing, and the space immediately fronting it was consecrated as the great agora of the city, which was remodelled accordingly. He was also proclaimed œkist, or founder, of Amphipolis, and as such, received heroic worship with annual games and sacrifices to his honor.[746] The Athenian Agnon, the real founder and originally recognized œkist of the city, was stripped of all his commemorative honors and expunged from the remembrance of the people: his tomb and the buildings connected with it, together with every visible memento of his name, being destroyed. Full of hatred as the Amphipolitans now were towards Athens,—and not merely of hatred, but of fear, since the loss which they had just sustained of their saviour and protector,—they felt repugnance to the idea of rendering farther worship to an Athenian œkist. Nor was it convenient to keep up such a religious link with Athens, now that they were forced to look anxiously to Lacedæmon for assistance. Klearidas, as governor of Amphipolis, superintended those numerous alterations in the city which this important change required, together with the erection of the trophy, just at the spot where Brasidas had first charged the Athenians; while the remaining armament of Athens, having obtained the usual truce and buried their dead, returned home without farther operations.

[746] Thucyd. v, 11. Aristotle, a native of Stageirus near
to Amphipolis, cites the sacrifices rendered to Brasidas as
an instance of institutions established by special and local
enactment (Ethic. Nikomach. v, 7).

In reference to the aversion now entertained by the Amphipolitans
to the continued worship of Agnon as their œkist, compare the
discourse addressed by the Platæans to the Lacedæmonians,
pleading for mercy. The Thebans, if they became possessors of
the Platæid, would not continue the sacrifices to the gods who
had granted victory at the great battle of Platæa, nor funereal
mementos to the slain (Thucyd. iii, 58).

There are few battles recorded in history wherein the disparity and contrast of the two generals opposed has been so manifest,—consummate skill and courage on the one side against ignorance and panic on the other. On the singular ability and courage of Brasidas there can be but one verdict of unqualified admiration: but the criticism passed by Thucydidês on Kleon, here as elsewhere, cannot be adopted without reserves. He tells us that Kleon undertook his march, from Eion up to the hill in front of Amphipolis, in the same rash and confident spirit with which he had embarked on the enterprise against Pylus, in the blind confidence that no one would resist him.[747] Now I have already, in a former chapter, shown grounds for concluding that the anticipations of Kleon respecting the capture of Sphakteria, far from being marked by any spirit of unmeasured presumption, were sober and judicious, realized to the letter without any unlooked-for aid from fortune. Nor are the remarks, here made by Thucydidês on that affair, more reasonable than the judgment on it in his former chapter; for it is not true, as he here implies, that Kleon expected no resistance in Sphakteria: he calculated on resistance, but knew that he had force sufficient to overcome it. His fault even at Amphipolis, great as that fault was, did not consist in rashness and presumption. This charge at least is rebutted by the circumstance, that he himself wished to make no aggressive movement until his reinforcements should arrive, and that he was only constrained, against his own will, to abandon his intended temporary inactivity during that interval, by the angry murmurs of his soldiers, who reproached him with ignorance and backwardness, the latter quality being the reverse of that with which he is branded by Thucydidês.

[747] Thucyd. v, 7. Καὶ ἐχρήσατο τῷ τρόπῳ ᾧπερ καὶ ἐς τὴν Πύλον
εὐτυχήσας ἐπίστευσέ τι φρονεῖν· ἐς μάχην μὲν γὰρ οὐδὲ ἤλπισέν οἱ
ἐπεξιέναι οὐδένα, κατὰ θέαν δὲ μᾶλλον ἔφη ἀναβαίνειν τοῦ χωρίου,
καὶ τὴν μείζω παρασκευὴν περιέμενεν, etc.

When Kleon was thus driven to do something, his march up to the top of the hill, for the purpose of reconnoitring the ground, was not in itself unreasonable, and might have been accomplished in perfect safety, if he had kept his army in orderly array, prepared for contingencies. But he suffered himself to be completely out-generalled and overreached by that simulated consciousness of impotence and unwillingness to fight, which Brasidas took care to present to him. Among all military stratagems, this has perhaps been the most frequently practised with success against inexperienced generals, who are thrown off their guard and induced to neglect precaution, not because they are naturally more rash or presumptuous than ordinary men, but because nothing except either a high order of intellect, or special practice and training, will enable a man to keep steadily present to his mind liabilities even real and serious, when there is no discernible evidence to suggest their approach; much more when there _is_ positive evidence, artfully laid out by a superior enemy, to create belief in their absence. A fault substantially the same had been committed by Thucydidês himself and his colleague Euklês a year and a half before, when they suffered Brasidas to surprise the Strymonian bridge and Amphipolis: not even taking common precautions, nor thinking it necessary to keep the fleet at Eion. They were not men peculiarly rash and presumptuous, but ignorant and unpractised, in a military sense; incapable of keeping before them dangerous contingencies which they perfectly knew, simply because there was no present evidence of approaching explosion.

This military incompetence, which made Kleon fall into the trap laid for him by Brasidas, also made him take wrong measures against the danger, when he unexpectedly discovered at last that the enemy within were preparing to attack him. His fatal error consisted in giving instant order for retreat, under the vain hope that he could get away before the enemy’s attack could be brought to bear.[748] An abler officer, before he commenced the retreating march so close to the hostile walls, would have taken care to marshal his men in proper array, to warn and address them with the usual harangue, and to wind up their courage to the fighting-point: for up to that moment they had no idea of being called upon to fight; and the courage of Grecian hoplites, taken thus unawares while hurrying to get away in disorder visible both to themselves and their enemies, without any of the usual preliminaries of battle, was but too apt to prove deficient. To turn the right or unshielded flank to the enemy, was unavoidable from the direction of the retreating movement; nor is it reasonable to blame Kleon for this, as some historians have done, or for causing his right wing to move too soon in following the lead of the left, as Dr. Arnold seems to think. The grand fault seems to have consisted in not waiting to marshal his men and prepare them for standing fight during their retreat. Let us add, however, and the remark, if it serves to explain Kleon’s idea of being able to get away before he was actually assailed, counts as a double compliment to the judgment as well as boldness of Brasidas, that no other Lacedæmonian general of that day perhaps, not even Demosthenês, the most enterprising general of Athens, would have ventured upon an attack with so very small a band, relying altogether upon the panic produced by his sudden movement.

[748] Thucyd. v, 10. Οἰόμενος φθήσεσθαι ἀπελθὼν, etc.

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.[749]

[749] Contrast the brave death of the Lacedæmonian general
Anaxibius, when he found himself out-generalled and surprised by
the Athenian Iphikratês (Xenoph. Hellen. iv, 8, 38).

What is said about the disgraceful flight of Kleon himself, must be applied, with hardly less severity of criticism, to the Athenian hoplites under him. They behaved in a manner altogether unworthy of the reputation of their city; especially the left wing, which seems to have broken and run away without waiting to be attacked. And when we read in Thucydidês, that the men who thus disgraced themselves were among the best, and the best-armed hoplites in Athens; that they came out unwillingly under Kleon; that they began their scornful murmurs against him before he had committed any fault, despising him for backwardness when he was yet not strong enough to attempt anything serious, and was only manifesting a reasonable prudence in waiting the arrival of expected reinforcements; when we read this, we shall be led to compare the expedition against Amphipolis with former manœuvres respecting the attack of Sphakteria, and to discern other causes for its failure besides the military incompetence of the commander. These hoplites brought out with them from Athens the feelings prevalent among the political adversaries of Kleon. The expedition was proposed and carried by him, contrary to their wishes: they could not prevent it, but their opposition enfeebled it from the beginning, kept within too narrow limits the force assigned to it, and was one main reason which frustrated its success.

Had Periklês been alive, Amphipolis might perhaps still have been lost, since its capture was the fault of the officers employed to defend it. But if lost, it would probably have been attacked and recovered with the same energy as the revolted Samos had been, with the full force and the best generals that Athens could furnish. With such an armament under good officers, there was nothing at all impracticable in the reconquest of the place; especially as at that time it had no defence on three sides except the Strymon, and might thus be approached by Athenian ships on that navigable river. The armament of Kleon,[750] even if his reinforcements had arrived, was hardly sufficient for the purpose. But Periklês would have been able to concentrate upon it the whole strength of the city, without being paralyzed by the contentions of political party: he would have seen as clearly as Kleon, that the place could only be recovered by force, and that its recovery was the most important object to which Athens could devote her energies.

[750] Amphipolis was actually thus attacked by the Athenians
eight years afterwards, by ships on the Strymon, Thucyd. vii,
9. Εὐετίων στρατηγὸς Ἀθηναίων, μετὰ Περδίκκου στρατεύσας ἐπ᾽
Ἀμφίπολιν Θρᾳξὶ πολλοῖς, τὴν μὲν πόλιν οὐχ εἷλεν, ἐς δὲ τὸν
Στρύμονα περικομίσας τριήρεις ἐκ τοῦ ποταμοῦ ἐπολιόρκει,
ὁρμώμενος ἐξ Ἱμεραίου. (In the eighteenth year of the war.) But
the fortifications of the place seem to have been materially
altered during the interval. Instead of one long wall, with three
sides open to the river, it seems to have acquired a curved wall,
only open to the river on a comparatively narrow space near to
the lake; while this curved wall joined the bridge southerly by
means of a parallel pair of long walls with road between.

It was thus that the Athenians, partly from political intrigue, partly from the incompetence of Kleon, underwent a disastrous defeat instead of carrying Amphipolis. But the death of Brasidas converted their defeat into a substantial victory. There remained no Spartan either like or second to that eminent man, either as a soldier or a conciliating politician; none who could replace him in the confidence and affection of the allies of Athens in Thrace; none who could prosecute those enterprising plans against Athens on her unshielded side, which he had first shown to be practicable. The fears of Athens, and the hopes of Sparta, in respect to the future, disappeared alike with him. The Athenian generals, Phormio and Demosthenês, had both of them acquired among the Akarnanians an influence personal to themselves, apart from their post and from their country: but the career of Brasidas, exhibited an extent of personal ascendency and admiration, obtained as well as deserved, such as had never before been paralleled by any military chieftain in Greece: and Plato might well select him as the most suitable historical counterpart to the heroic Achilles.[751] All the achievements of Brasidas were his own individually, with nothing more than bare encouragement, sometimes even without encouragement, from his country. And when we recollect the strict and narrow routine in which as a Spartan he had been educated, so fatal to the development of everything like original thought or impulse, and so completely estranged from all experience of party or political discussion, we are amazed at his resource and flexibility of character, his power of adapting himself to new circumstances and new persons, and his felicitous dexterity in making himself the rallying-point of opposite political parties in each of the various cities which he acquired. The combination “of every sort of practical excellence,” valor, intelligence, probity, and gentleness of dealing, which his character presented, was never forgotten among the subject-allies of Athens, and procured for other Spartan officers in subsequent years favorable presumptions, which their conduct was seldom found to realize.[752] At the time when Brasidas perished, in the flower of his age, he was unquestionably the first man in Greece; and though it is not given to us to predict what he would have become had he lived, we may be sure that the future course of the war would have been sensibly modified; perhaps even to the advantage of Athens, since she might have had sufficient occupation at home to keep her from the disastrous enterprise in Sicily.

[751] Plato, Symp. c. 36, p. 221.

[752] Thuc. iv, 81. δόξας εἶναι κατὰ πάντα ἀγαθὸς, etc.

Thucydidês seems to take pleasure in setting forth the gallant exploits of Brasidas, from the first at Methônê to the last at Amphipolis, not less than the dark side of Kleon; both, though in different senses, the causes of his banishment. He never mentions the latter except in connection with some proceeding represented as unwise or discreditable. The barbarities which the offended majesty of empire thought itself entitled to practise in ancient times against dependencies revolted and reconquered, reach their maximum in the propositions against Mitylênê and Skiônê: both of them are ascribed to Kleon by name as their author. But when we come to the slaughter of the Melians, equally barbarous, and worse in respect to grounds of excuse, inasmuch as the Melians had never been subjects of Athens, we find Thucydidês mentioning the deed without naming the proposer.[753]

[753] Thucyd. v, 116.

Respecting the foreign policy of Kleon, the facts already narrated will enable the reader to form an idea of it as compared with that of his opponents. I have shown grounds for believing that Thucydidês has forgotten his usual impartiality in criticizing this personal enemy; that in regard to Sphakteria, Kleon was really one main and indispensable cause of procuring for his country the greatest advantage which she obtained throughout the whole war; and that in regard to his judgment as advocating the prosecution of war, three different times must be distinguished: 1. After the first blockade of the hoplites in Sphakteria; 2. After the capture of the island; 3. After the expiration of the one year truce. On the earliest of those three occasions he was wrong, for he seems to have shut the door on all possibilities of negotiation, by his manner of dealing with the Lacedæmonian envoys. On the second occasion, he had fair and plausible grounds to offer on behalf of his opinion, though it turned out unfortunate: moreover, at that time, all Athens was warlike, and Kleon is not to be treated as the peculiar adviser of that policy. On the third and last occasion, after the expiration of the truce, the political counsel of Kleon was right, judicious, and truly Periklêan, much surpassing in wisdom that of his opponents. We shall see in the coming chapters how those opponents managed the affairs of the state after his death; how Nikias threw away the interests of Athens in the enforcement of the conditions of peace; how Nikias and Alkibiadês together shipwrecked the power of their country on the shores of Syracuse. And when we judge the demagogue Kleon in this comparison, we shall find ground for remarking that Thucydidês is reserved and even indulgent towards the errors and vices of other statesmen, harsh only towards those of his accuser.

As to the internal policy of Kleon, and his conduct as a politician in Athenian constitutional life, we have but little trustworthy evidence. There exists, indeed, a portrait of him, drawn in colors broad and glaring, most impressive to the imagination, and hardly effaceable from the memory; the portrait in the “Knights” of Aristophanês. It is through this representation that Kleon has been transmitted to posterity, crucified by a poet who admits himself to have had a personal grudge against him, just as he has been commemorated in the prose of an historian whose banishment he had proposed. Of all the productions of Aristophanês, so replete with comic genius throughout, the “Knights” is the most consummate and irresistible; the most distinct in its character, symmetry, and purpose. Looked at with a view to the object of its author, both in reference to the audience and to Kleon, it deserves the greatest possible admiration, and we are not surprised to learn that it obtained the first prize. It displays the maximum of that which wit combined with malice can achieve, in covering an enemy with ridicule, contempt, and odium. Dean Swift would have desired nothing worse, even for Ditton and Winston. The old man, Demos of Pnyx, introduced on the stage as personifying the Athenian people,—Kleon, brought on as his newly-bought Paphlagonian slave, who by coaxing, lying, impudent and false denunciation of others, has gained his master’s ear, and heaps ill-usage upon every one else, while he enriches himself,—the Knights, or chief members of what we may call the Athenian aristocracy, forming the Chorus of the piece as Kleon’s pronounced enemies,—the sausage-seller from the market-place, who, instigated by Nikias find Demosthenês along with these Knights, overdoes Kleon in all his own low arts, and supplants him in the favor of Demos; all this, exhibited with inimitable vivacity of expression, forms the masterpiece and glory of libellous comedy. The effect produced upon the Athenian audience when this piece was represented at the Lenæan festival, January B.C. 424, about six months after the capture of Sphakteria, with Kleon himself and most of the real Knights present, must have been intense beyond what we can now easily imagine. That Kleon could maintain himself after this humiliating exposure, is no small proof of his mental vigor and ability. It does not seem to have impaired his influence, at least not permanently; for not only do we see him the most effective opponent of peace during the next two years, but there is ground for believing that the poet himself found it convenient to soften his tone towards this powerful enemy.

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. No man thinks of judging Sir Robert Walpole, or Mr. Fox, or Mirabeau, from the numerous lampoons put in circulation against them: no man will take measure of a political Englishman from Punch, or of a Frenchman from the Charivari. The unrivalled comic merit of the “Knights” of Aristophanês is only one reason the more for distrusting the resemblance of its picture to the real Kleon. We have means too of testing the candor and accuracy of Aristophanês by his delineation of Sokratês, whom he introduced in the comedy of “Clouds” in the year after that of the “Knights.” As a comedy, the “Clouds” stands second only to the “Knights”: as a picture of Sokratês, it is little better than pure fancy: it is not even a caricature, but a totally different person. We may indeed perceive single features of resemblance; the bare feet, and the argumentative subtlety, belong to both; but the entire portrait is such, that if it bore a different name, no one would think of comparing it with Sokratês, whom we know well from other sources. With such an analogy before us, not to mention what we know generally of the portraits of Periklês by these authors, we are not warranted in treating the portrait of Kleon as a likeness, except on points where there is corroborative evidence. And we may add, that some of the hits against him, where we can accidentally test their pertinence, are decidedly not founded in fact; as, for example, where the poet accuses Kleon of having deliberately and cunningly robbed Demosthenês of his laurels in the enterprise against Sphakteria.[754]

[754] Aristophan. Equit. 55, 391, 740, etc. In one passage of
the play, Kleon is reproached with pretending to be engaged at
Argos in measures for winning the alliance of that city, but in
reality, under cover of this proceeding, carrying on clandestine
negotiations with the Lacedæmonians (464). In two other passages,
he is denounced as being the person who obstructs the conclusion
of peace with the Lacedæmonians (790, 1390).

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. 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.[756]

[755] Thucyd. v, 17; iii, 45. καταφανέστερος μὲν εἶναι κακουργῶν,
καὶ ἀπιστότερος διαβάλλων—βιαιότατος τῶν πολιτῶν.

[756] Aristophan. Acharn. 8, with the Scholiast, who quotes from
Theopompus. Theopompus, Fragment, 99, 100, 101, ed. Didot.

But when we put together the different heads of indictment accumulated by Aristophanês, it will be found that they are not easily reconcilable one with the other; for an Athenian, whose temper led him to violent crimination of others, at the inevitable price of multiplying and exasperating personal enemies, would find it peculiarly dangerous, if not impossible, to carry on peculation for his own account. If, on the other hand, he took the latter turn, he would be inclined to purchase connivance from others even by winking at real guilt on their part, far from making himself conspicuous as a calumniator of innocence. We must therefore discuss the side of the indictment which is indicated in Thucydidês; not Kleon, as truckling to the people and cheating for his own pecuniary profit (which is certainly not the character implied in his speech about the Mitylenæans, as given to us by the historian),[757] but Kleon as a man of violent temper and fierce political antipathies, a bitter speaker, and sometimes dishonest in his calumnies against adversaries. These are the qualities which, in all countries of free debate, go to form what is called a great opposition speaker. It was thus that the elder Cato, “the universal biter, whom Persephonê was afraid even to admit into Hades after his death,” was characterized at Rome, even by the admission of his admirers to some extent, and in a still stronger manner by those who were unfriendly to him, as Thucydidês was to Kleon.[758] In Cato, such a temper was not inconsistent with a high sense of public duty. And Plutarch recounts an anecdote respecting Kleon, that, on first beginning his political career, he called his friends together, and dissolved his intimacy with them, conceiving that private friendships would distract him from his paramount duty to the commonwealth.[759]

[757] The public speaking of Kleon was characterized by Aristotle
and Theopompus (see Schol. ad Lucian. Timon, c. 30), not as
wheedling, but as full of arrogance; in this latter point too
like that of the elder Cato at Rome (Plutarch, Cato, c. 14). The
derisory tone of Cato in his public speaking, too, is said to
have been impertinent and disgusting (Plutarch, Reipub. Gerend.
Præcept. p. 803, c. 7).

[758] An epigram which Plutarch (Cato, c. 1) gives us from a poet
contemporary of Cato the Censor, describes him:—

Πυῤῥὸν, ~πανδακέτην~, γλαυκόμματον, οὐδὲ θανόντα
Πόρκιον εἰς Ἀΐδην Περσεφόνη δέχεται.

Livy says, in an eloquent encomium on Cato (xxxix, 40):
“Simultates nimio plures et exercuerunt eum, et ipse exercuit
eas: nec facile dixeris utrum magis presserit eum nobilitas, an
ille agitaverit nobilitatem. Asperi procul dubio animi, et linguæ
acerbæ et immodice liberæ fuit: sed invicti a cupiditatibus
animi et rigidæ innocentiæ: contemptor gratiæ, divitiarum....
Hunc sicut omni vitâ, tum censuram petentem premebat nobilitas;
coierantque candidati omnes ad dejiciendum honore eum; non
solum ut ipsi potius adipiscerentur, nec quia indignabantur
novum hominem censorem videre; sed etiam quod tristem censuram,
periculosamque multorum famæ, et _ab læso a plerisque et lædendi
cupido_, expectabant.”

See also Plutarch (Cato, c. 15, 16: his comparison between
Aristeidês and Cato, c. 2) about the prodigious number of
accusations in which Cato was engaged, either as prosecutor or
as party prosecuted. His bitter feud with the _nobilitas_ is
analogous to that of Kleon against the Hippeis.

I need hardly say that the comparison of Cato with Kleon applies
only to domestic politics: in the military courage and energy for
which Cato was distinguished, Kleon is utterly wanting, nor are
we entitled to ascribe to him anything like the superiority of
knowledge and general intelligence which we find recorded of Cato.

The expression of Cicero respecting Kleon: “turbulentum quidem
civem, sed tamen eloquentem,” (Cicero, Brutus, 7) appears to be
a translation of the epithets of Thucydidês—βιαιότατος—τῷ δήμῳ
πιθανώτατος (iii, 45).

The remarks made too by Latin critics on the style and temper
of Cato’s speeches, might almost seem to be a translation of
the words of Thucydidês about Kleon. Fronto said about Cato:
“Concionatur Cato _infeste_, Gracchus turbulente, Tullius
copiose. Jam in judiciis _sævit_ idem Cato, triumphat Cicero,
tumultuatur Gracchus.” See Dübner’s edition of Meyer’s Oratorum
Romanorum Fragmenta, p. 117 (Paris, 1837).

[759] Plutarch, Reip. Ger. Præcept. p. 806. Compare two other
passages in the same treatise, p. 805, where Plutarch speaks of
the ἀπόνοια καὶ δεινότης of Kleon; and p. 812, where he says,
with truth, that Kleon was not at all qualified to act as general
in a campaign.

Moreover, the reputation of Kleon as a frequent and unmeasured accuser of others, may be explained partly by a passage of his enemy Aristophanês: a passage the more deserving of confidence as a just representation of fact, since it appears in a comedy (the “Frogs”) represented (405 B.C.) fifteen years after the death of Kleon, and five years after that of Hyperbolus, when the poet had less motive for misrepresentations against either. In the “Frogs,” the scene is laid in Hades, whither the god Dionysus goes, in the attire of Hêraklês and along with his slave Xanthias, for the purpose of bringing up again to earth the deceased poet Euripidês. Among the incidents, Xanthias, in the attire which his master had worn, is represented as acting with violence and insult towards two hostesses of eating-houses; consuming their substance, robbing them, refusing to pay when called upon, and even threatening their lives with a drawn sword. Upon which the women, having no other redress left, announce their resolution of calling, the one upon her protector Kleon, the other on Hyperbolus, for the purpose of bringing the offender to justice before the dikastery.[760] 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 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; who would thus extend their own popularity, by means very similar to those practised by the leading men in Rome.[761]

[760] Aristophan. Ran. 566-576.

[761] Here again we find Cato the elder represented as constantly
in the forum at Rome, lending aid of this kind, and espousing
the cause of others who had grounds of complaint (Plutarch,
Cato, c. 3), πρωῒ μὲν εἰς ἀγορὰν βαδίζει καὶ παρίσταται
τοῖς δεομένοις—τοὺς μὲν θαυμαστὰς καὶ φίλους ἐκτᾶτο διὰ τῶν
ξυνηγοριῶν, etc.

But besides lending aid to others, doubtless Kleon was often also a prosecutor, in his own name, of official delinquents, real or alleged. That some one should undertake this duty was indispensable for the protection of the city; otherwise, the responsibility to which official persons were subjected after their term of office would have been merely nominal: and we have proof enough that the general public morality of these official persons, acting individually, was by no means high. But the duty was at the same time one which most persons would and did shun. The prosecutor, while obnoxious to general dislike, gained nothing even by the most complete success; and if he failed so much as not to procure a minority of votes among the dikasts, equal to one-fifth of the numbers present, he was condemned to pay a fine of one thousand drachms. What was still more serious, he drew upon himself a formidable mass of private hatred, from the friends, partisans, and the political club, of the accused party, extremely menacing to his own future security and comfort, in a community like Athens. There was therefore little motive to accept, and great motive to decline, the task of prosecuting on public grounds. A prudent politician at Athens would undertake it occasionally, and against special rivals, but he would carefully guard himself against the reputation of doing it frequently or by inclination, and the orators constantly do so guard themselves in those speeches which yet remain.

It is this reputation which Thucydidês fastens upon Kleon, and which, like Cato the censor at Rome, he probably merited; from native acrimony of temper, from a powerful talent for invective and from his position, both inferior and hostile to the Athenian knights, or aristocracy, who overshadowed him by their family importance. 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; whereas a prosecutor before the dikastery found his opponent prepared to reply or even to retort, and was obliged to specify his charge, as well as to furnish proof of it; so that there was a fair chance for the innocent man not to be confounded with the guilty.

[762] Aristophan. Equit. 1271:—

Λοιδορῆσαι τοὺς πονηροὺς, οὐδέν ἐστ᾽ ἐπίφθονον,
Ἀλλὰ τιμὴ τοῖσι χρηστοῖς, ὅστις εὖ λογίζεται.

The quarrel of Kleon with Aristophanês is said to have arisen out of an accusation which he brought against that poet[763] in the Senate of Five Hundred, on the subject of his second comedy, the “Babylonians,” exhibited B.C. 426, at the festival of the urban Dionysia in the month of March. At that season many strangers were present at Athens, and especially many visitors and deputies from the subject-allies, who were bringing their annual tribute: and as the “Babylonians,” (now lost), like so many other productions of Aristophanês, was full of slashing ridicule, not only against individual citizens but against the functionaries and institutions of the city,[764] Kleon instituted a complaint against it in the senate, as an exposure dangerous to the public security before strangers and allies. We have to recollect that Athens was then in the midst of an embarrassing war; that the fidelity of her subject-allies was much doubted; that Lesbos, the greatest of her allies, had been reconquered only in the preceding year, after a revolt both troublesome and perilous to the Athenians. Under such circumstances, Kleon had good reason for thinking that a political comedy of the Aristophanic vein and talent tended to degrade the city in the eyes of strangers, even granting that it was innocuous when confined to the citizens themselves. The poet complains[765] that Kleon summoned him before the senate, with terrible threats and calumny: but it does not appear that any penalty was inflicted. Nor, indeed, had the senate competence to find him guilty or punish him except to the extent of a small fine: they could only bring him to trial before the dikastery, which in this case plainly was not done. He himself, however, seems to have felt the justice of the warning: for we find that three out of his four next following plays, before the Peace of Nikias,—the Acharnians, the Knights, and the Wasps,—were represented at the Lenæan festival,[766] in the month of January, a season when no strangers nor allies were present. Kleon was doubtless much incensed with the play of the Knights, and seems to have annoyed the poet either by bringing an indictment against him for exercising freemen’s rights without being duly qualified, since none but citizens were allowed to appear and act in the dramatic exhibitions, or by some other means which are not clearly explained. Nor can we make out in what way the poet met him, though it appears that finding less public sympathy than he thought himself entitled to, he made an apology without intending to be bound by it.[767] Certain it is, that his remaining plays subsequent to the Knights, though containing some few bitter jests against Kleon, manifest no second deliberate set against him.

[763] It appears that the complaint was made ostensibly
against Kalistratus, in whose name the poet brought out the
“Babylonians,” (Schol. ad Arist. Vesp. 1284), and who was
of course the responsible party, though the real author was
doubtless perfectly well known. The Knights was the first play
brought out by the poet in his own name.

[764] See Acharn. 377, with the Scholia, and the anonymous
biography of Aristophanês.

Both Meineke (Aristoph. Fragm. Comic. Gr. vol. ii, p. 966) and
Ranke (Commentat. de Aristoph. Vitâ, p. cccxxx) try to divine the
plot of the “Babylonians;” but there is no sufficient information
to assist them.

[765] Aristoph. Acharn. 355-475.

[766] See the Arguments prefixed to these three plays; and
Acharn. 475, Equit. 881.

It is not known whether the first comedy, entitled _The Clouds_
(represented in the earlier part of B.C. 423, a year after the
Knights, and a year before the Wasps), appeared at the Lenæan
festival of January, or at the urban Dionysia in March. It was
unsuccessful, and the poet partially altered it with the view
to a second representation. If it be true that this second
representation took place during the year immediately following
(B.C. 422: see Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, ad ann. 422), it
must have been at the urban Dionysia in March, just at the time
when the truce for one year was coming to a close; for the Wasps
was represented in that year at the Lenæan festival, and the same
poet would hardly be likely to bring out two plays. The inference
which Ranke draws from Nubes 310, that it was represented at the
Dionysia, is not, however, very conclusive (Ranke, Commentat. de
Aristoph. Vitâ, p. ccxxi, prefixed to his edition of the Plutus).

[767] See the obscure passage, Vespæ, 1285, _seqq._; Aristoph.
Vita Anonymi, p. xiii, ed. Bekker; Demosthen. cont. Meid. p. 532.

It appears that Aristophanês was of Æginetan parentage (Acharn.
629); so that the γραφὴ ξενίας (indictment for undue assumption
of the rights of an Athenian citizen) was founded upon a real
fact. Between the time of the conquest of Ægina by Athens, and
the expulsion of the native inhabitants in the first year of the
Peloponnesian war (an interval of about twenty years), probably
no inconsiderable number of Æginetans became intermingled or
intermarried with Athenian citizens. Especially men of poetical
talent in the subject-cities would find it their interest to
repair to Athens: Ion came from Chios, and Achæus from Eretria;
both tragic composers.

The comic author Eupolis seems also to have directed some taunts
against the foreign origin of Aristophanês, if Meineke is correct
in his interpretation of a passage (Historia Comicor. Græc. i, p.
111).

The battle of Amphipolis removed at once the two most pronounced individual opponents of peace, Kleon and Brasidas. Athens too was more than ever discouraged and averse to prolonged fighting; for the number of hoplites slain at Amphipolis doubtless filled the city with mourning, besides the unparalleled disgrace now tarnishing Athenian soldiership. The peace-party under the auspices of Nikias and Lachês, relieved at once from the internal opposition of Kleon, as well as from the foreign enterprise of Brasidas, were enabled to resume their negotiations with Sparta in a spirit promising success. King Pleistoanax, and the Spartan ephors of the year, were on their side equally bent on terminating the war, and the deputies of all the allies were convoked at Sparta for discussion with the envoys of Athens. Such discussion was continued during the whole autumn and winter after the battle of Amphipolis, without any actual hostilities on either side. At first, the pretensions advanced were found very conflicting; but at length, after several debates, it was agreed to treat upon the basis of each party surrendering what had been acquired by war. The Athenians insisted at first on the restoration of Platæa; but the Thebans replied that Platæa was theirs neither by force nor by treason, but by voluntary capitulation and surrender of the inhabitants. This distinction seems to our ideas somewhat remarkable, since the capitulation of a besieged town is not less the result of force than capture by storm. But it was adopted in the present treaty; and under it the Athenians, while foregoing their demand of Platæa, were enabled to retain Nisæa, which they had acquired from the Megarians, and Anaktorium and Sollium,[768] which they had taken from Corinth. To insure accommodating temper on the part of Athens, the Spartans held out the threat of invading Attica in the spring, and of establishing a permanent fortification in the territory: and they even sent round proclamation to their allies, enjoining all the details requisite for this step. Since Attica had now been exempt from invasion for three years, the Athenians were probably not insensible to this threat of renewal under a permanent form.

[768] Thucyd. v, 17-30. The statement in cap. 30 seems to show
that this was the ground on which the Athenians were allowed to
retain Sollium and Anaktorium. For if their retention of these
two places had been distinctly and in terms at variance with the
treaty, the Corinthians would doubtless have chosen this fact as
the ostensible ground of their complaint: whereas they preferred
to have recourse to a πρόσχημα, or sham plea.

At the beginning of spring, about the end of March, 421 B.C., shortly after the urban Dionysia at Athens, the important treaty was concluded for the term of fifty years. The following were its principal conditions:—

1. All shall have full liberty to visit all the public temples of Greece, for purposes of private sacrifice, consultation of oracle, or public sacred mission. Every man shall be undisturbed both in going and coming. [The value of this article will be felt, when we recollect that the Athenians and their allies had been unable to visit the Olympic or Pythian festival since the beginning of the war.]

2. The Delphians shall enjoy full autonomy and mastery of their temple and their territory. [This article was intended to exclude the ancient claim of the Phocian confederacy to the management of the temple; a claim which the Athenians had once supported, before the thirty years’ truce: but they had now little interest in the matter, since the Phocians were in the ranks of their enemies.]

3. There shall be peace for fifty years, between Athens and Sparta with their respective allies, with abstinence from mischief, either overt or fraudulent, by land as well as by sea.

4. Neither party shall invade for purposes of mischief the territory of the other, not by any artifice or under any pretence.

Should any subject of difference arise, it shall be settled by equitable means, and by oaths tendered and taken, in form to be hereafter agreed on.

5. The Lacedæmonians and their allies shall restore Amphipolis to the Athenians.

They shall farther _relinquish_ to the Athenians Argilus, Stageirus, Akanthus, Skôlus, Olynthus, and Spartôlus. But these cities shall remain autonomous, on condition of paying tribute to Athens according to the assessment of Aristeidês. Any of their citizens who may choose to quit them shall be at liberty to do so, and to carry away his property. Nor shall the cities be counted hereafter either as allies of Athens or of Sparta, unless Athens shall induce them by amicable persuasions to become her allies, which she is at liberty to do if she can.

The inhabitants of Mekyberna, Sanê, and Singê, shall dwell independently in their respective cities, just as much as the Olynthians and Akanthians. [These were towns which adhered to Athens, and were still numbered as her allies; though they were near enough to be molested by Olynthus[769] and Akanthus, against which this clause was intended to insure them.]

[769] Compare v, 39 with v, 18, which seems to me to refute the
explanation suggested by Dr. Arnold, and adopted by Poppo.