[560] Thucyd. iv, 39. Καὶ τοῦ Κλέωνος καίπερ μανιώδης οὖσα ἡ ὑπόσχεσις ἀπέβη· ἐντὸς γὰρ εἴκοσιν ἡμερῶν ἤγαγε τοὺς ἄνδρας, ὥσπερ ὑπέστη.
Mr. Mitford, in recounting these incidents, after having said, respecting Kleon: “In a very extraordinary train of circumstances which followed, his impudence and his fortune (if, in the want of another, we may use that term) wonderfully favored him,” goes on to observe, two pages farther:—
“It however soon appeared, that though for a man like Cleon, unversed in military command, the undertaking was rash and the bragging promise abundantly ridiculous, yet the business was not so desperate as it was in the moment generally imagined: and in fact the folly of the Athenian people, in committing such a trust to such a man, far exceeded that of the man himself, whose impudence seldom carried him beyond the control of his cunning. He had received intelligence that Demosthenês had already formed the plan and was preparing for the attempt, with the forces upon the spot and in the neighborhood. Hence, his apparent moderation in the demand for troops; which he judiciously accommodated to the gratification of the Athenian people, by avoiding to require any Athenians. He farther showed his judgment, when the decree was to be passed which was finally to direct the expedition, by a request which was readily granted, that Demosthenês might be joined with him in the command.” (Mitford, Hist. of Greece, vol. iii, ch. xv, sect. vii. pp. 250-253.)
It appears as if no historian could write down the name of Kleon without attaching to it some disparaging verb or adjective. We are here told in the same sentence that Kleon was an impudent braggart for promising the execution of the enterprise,—and yet that the enterprise itself was perfectly feasible. We are told in one sentence that he was rash and ridiculous for promising this, unversed as he was in military command: a few words farther, we are informed that he expressly requested that the most competent man to be found, Demosthenês, might be named his colleague. We are told of the cunning of Kleon, and that Kleon had received intelligence from Demosthenês,—as if this were some private communication to himself. But Demosthenês had sent no news to Kleon, nor did Kleon know anything which was not equally known to every man in the assembly. The folly of the people in committing the trust to Kleon is denounced,—as if Kleon had sought it himself, or as if his friends had been the first to propose it for him. If the folly of the people was thus great, what are we to say of the knavery of the oligarchical party, with Nikias at their head, who impelled the people into this folly, for the purpose of ruining a political antagonist, and who forced Kleon into the post against his own most unaffected reluctance? Against this manœuvre of the oligarchical party, neither Mr. Mitford nor any other historian says a word. When Kleon judges circumstances rightly, as Mr. Mitford allows that he did in this case, he has credit for nothing better than cunning.
The truth is, that the people committed no folly in appointing Kleon, for he justified the best expectations of his friends. But Nikias and his friends committed great knavery in proposing it, since they fully believed that he would fail. And, even upon Mr. Mitford’s statement of the case, the opinion of Thucydidês which stands at the beginning of this note is thoroughly unjustifiable; not less unjustifiable than the language of the modern historian about the “extraordinary circumstances,” and the way in which Kleon was “favored by fortune.” Not a single incident can be specified in the narrative to bear out these invidious assertions.
[561] The jest of an unknown comic writer (probably Eupolis or Aristophanês, in one of the many lost dramas) against Kleon: “that he showed great powers of prophecy after the fact,” (Κλέων Προμηθεύς ἐστι μετὰ τὰ πράγματα, Lucian, Prometheus, c. 2), may probably have reference to his proceedings about Sphakteria: if so, it is certainly undeserved.
In the letter which he sent to announce the capture of Sphakteria and the prisoners to the Athenians, it is affirmed that he began with the words—Κλέων Ἀθηναίων τῇ Βουλῇ καὶ τῷ Δήμῳ χαίρειν. This was derided by Eupolis, and is even considered as a piece of insolence, though it is difficult to see why (Schol. ad Aristophan. Plut. 322; Bergk, De Reliquiis Comœdiæ Antiquæ, p. 362).
[562] Vit. Thucydidis, p. xv, ed. Bekker.
[563] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 8; Thucyd. v, 7.
[564] Thucyd. iv, 41.