“We want them for the theatre, you understand.... Ah! there is Lucillus! ... and of raw leather, not tanned.”
“What are you going to play in the theatre, then?”
“We are going to bring on Cleon, and make him dance, and fancy! since no one dares to represent the low-born tanner, I must do it. I will play Cleon.”
“Where is the great general, Cleon, now?”
“In a new campaign against Brasidas. When the commander Demosthenes won the battle of Sphacteria, Cleon claimed the honour of the victory and received a triumph. Then, since he regarded himself as a great warrior, he marched against Brasidas. The pitcher goes so often to the well....”
“Till it is broken,” interrupted a new arrival. It was Alcibiades. “Papaia!” he exclaimed, “Cleon is beaten! Cleon has fled! Now it is my turn! Come to the Pnyx.” And he went on.
“Very well—to the Pnyx,” said Aristophanes, “and I will obtain matter for a new comedy, to be called Alcibiades.”
“You are right, perhaps,” answered Lucillus. “The whole matter is not worth weeping for. Therefore let us laugh!”
Alcibiades stood again on the orator’s platform in the Pnyx. He felt at home there, and he always had the ear of the people, for he was not tedious. They all spoilt him, and his grotesque impudence had an enlivening effect upon them.