On his return from Patmos to Mitylênê, Pachês was induced to stop at Notium by the solicitations of some exiles. Notium was the port of Kolophon, from which it was some little distance, as Peiræus was from Athens.[401]
About three years before, a violent internal dissension had taken place in Kolophon, and one of the parties, invoking the aid of the Persian Itamanes (seemingly one of the generals of the satrap Pissuthnês), had placed him in possession of the town; whereupon the opposite party, forced to retire, had established itself separately and independently at Notium. But the Kolophonians who remained in the town soon contrived to procure a party in Notium, whereby they were enabled to regain possession of it, through the aid of a body of Arcadian mercenaries in the service of Pissuthnês. These Arcadians formed a standing garrison at Notium, in which they occupied a separate citadel, or fortified space, while the town became again attached as harbor to Kolophon. A considerable body of exiles, however, expelled on that occasion, now invoked the aid of Pachês to reinstate them, and to expel the Arcadians. On reaching the place, the Athenian general prevailed upon Hippias, the Arcadian captain, to come forth to a parley, under the promise that, if nothing mutually satisfactory could be settled, he would again replace him, “safe and sound,” in the fortification. But no sooner had the Arcadian come forth to this parley, than Pachês, causing him to be detained under guard, but without fetters or ill-usage, immediately attacked the fortification while the garrison were relying on the armistice, carried it by storm, and put to death both the Arcadians and the Persians who were found within. Having got possession of the fortification, he next brought Hippias again into it, “safe and sound,” according to the terms of the convention, which was thus literally performed, and then immediately afterwards caused him to be shot with arrows and javelins. Of this species of fraud, founded on literal performance and real violation of an agreement, there are various examples in Grecian history; but nowhere do we read of a more flagitious combination of deceit and cruelty than the behavior of Pachês at Notium. How it was noticed at Athens, we do not know: but we may remark, not without surprise, that Thucydidês recounts it plainly and calmly without a single word of comment.[402]
Notium was separated from Kolophon, and placed in possession of those Kolophonians who were opposed to the Persian supremacy in the upper town. But as it had been down to this time a mere appendage of Kolophon and not a separate town, the Athenians soon afterwards sent œkists and performed for it the ceremonies of colonization according to their own laws and customs, inviting from every quarter the remaining exiles of Kolophon.[403] Whether any new settlers went from Athens itself, we do not know: but the step was intended to confer a sort of Hellenic citizenship, and recognized collective personality, on the new-born town of Notium; without which, neither its theôry or solemn deputation would have been admitted to offer public sacrifice, nor its private citizens to contend for the prize, at Olympic and other great festivals.
Having cleared the Asiatic waters from the enemies of Athens, Pachês returned to Lesbos, reduced the towns of Pyrrha and Eresus, and soon found himself so completely master both of Mitylênê and the whole island, as to be able to send home the larger part of his force; carrying with them as prisoners those Mitylenæans who had been deposited in Tenedos, as well as others, prominently implicated in the late revolt, to the number altogether of rather more than a thousand. The Lacedæmonian Salæthus, being recently detected in his place of concealment, was included among the prisoners transmitted.
Upon the fate of these prisoners the Athenians had now to pronounce, and they entered upon the discussion in a temper of extreme wrath and vengeance. As to Salæthus, their resolution to put him to death was unanimous and immediate, nor would they listen to his promises, assuredly delusive, of terminating the blockade of Platæa, in case his life were spared. What to do with Mitylênê and its inhabitants was a point more doubtful, and was submitted to formal debate in the public assembly.
It is in this debate that Thucydidês first takes notice of Kleon, who is, however, mentioned by Plutarch as rising into importance some few years earlier, during the lifetime of Periklês. Under the great increase of trade and population in Athens and Peiræus during the last forty years, a new class of politicians seem to have grown up, men engaged in various descriptions of trade and manufacture, who began to rival more or less in importance the ancient families of Attic proprietors. This change was substantially analogous to that which took place in the cities of mediæval Europe, when the merchants and traders of the various guilds gradually came to compete with, and ultimately supplanted, the patrician families in whom the supremacy had originally resided. In Athens, persons of ancient family and station enjoyed at this time no political privilege, and since the reforms of Ephialtês and Periklês, the political constitution had become thoroughly democratical. But they still continued to form the two highest classes in the Solonian census founded on property,—the pentakosiomedimni, and the hippeis, or knights: new men enriched by trade doubtless got into these classes, but probably only in minority, and imbibed the feeling of the class as they found it, instead of bringing into it any new spirit. Now an individual Athenian of this class, though without any legal title to preference, yet when he stood forward as candidate for political influence, continued to be decidedly preferred and welcomed by the social sentiment at Athens, which preserved in its spontaneous sympathies distinctions effaced from the political code.[404] Besides this place ready prepared for him in the public sympathy, especially advantageous at the outset of political life,—he found himself farther borne up by the family connections, associations, and political clubs, etc., which exercised very great influence both on the politics and the judicature of Athens, and of which he became a member as a matter of course. Such advantages were doubtless only auxiliary, carrying a man up to a certain point of influence, but leaving him to achieve the rest by his own personal qualities and capacity. But their effect was nevertheless very real, and those who, without possessing them, met and buffeted him in the public assembly, contended against great disadvantages. A person of such low or middling station obtained no favorable presumptions or indulgence on the part of the public to meet him half-way,—nor had he established connections to encourage first successes, or help him out of early scrapes. He found others already in possession of ascendency, and well-disposed to keep down new competitors; so that he had to win his own way unaided, from the first step to the last, by qualities personal to himself; by assiduity of attendance, by acquaintance with business, by powers of striking speech, and withal by unflinching audacity, indispensable to enable him to bear up against that opposition and enmity which he would incur from the high-born politicians, and organized party clubs, as soon as he appeared to be rising up into ascendency.
The free march of political and judicial affairs raised up several such men, during the years beginning and immediately preceding the Peloponnesian war. Even during the lifetime of Periklês, they appear to have arisen in greater or less numbers: but the personal ascendency of that great man,—who combined an aristocratical position with a strong and genuine democratical sentiment, and an enlarged intellect rarely found attached to either,—impressed a peculiar character on Athenian politics. The Athenian world was divided into his partisans and his opponents, among each of whom there were individuals high-born and low-born,—though the aristocratical party, properly so called, the majority of wealthy and high-born Athenians, either opposed or disliked him. It is about two years after his death that we begin to hear of a new class of politicians: Eukratês, the rope-seller; Kleon, the leather-seller; Lysiklês, the sheep-seller; Hyperbolus, the lamp-maker;[405] the two first of whom must have been already well-known as speakers in the ekklesia, even during the lifetime of Periklês. Among them all, the most distinguished was Kleon, son of Kleænetus.
Kleon acquired his first importance among the speakers against Periklês, so that he would thus obtain for himself, during his early political career, the countenance of the numerous and aristocratical anti-Perikleans. He is described by Thucydidês in general terms as a person of the most violent temper and character in Athens,—as being dishonest in his calumnies, and virulent in his invective and accusation.[406] Aristophanês, in his comedy of the Knights, reproduces these features, with others new and distinct, as well as with exaggerated details, comic, satirical, and contemptuous. His comedy depicts Kleon in the point of view in which he would appear to the knights of Athens,—a leather-dresser, smelling of the tan-yard,—a low-born brawler, terrifying opponents by the violence of his criminations, the loudness of his voice, the impudence of his gestures,—moreover, as venal in his politics, threatening men with accusations, and then receiving money to withdraw them; a robber of the public treasury, persecuting merit as well as rank, and courting the favor of the assembly by the basest and most guilty cajolery. 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 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. Had they not possessed this quality, they would never have surmounted the opposition made to them: we may well believe that they had it to a displeasing excess,—and even if they had not, the same measure of self-assumption which in Alkibiadês would be tolerated from his rank and station, would in them pass for insupportable impudence. Unhappily, we have no specimens to enable us to appreciate the invective of Kleon. We cannot determine whether it was more virulent than that of Demosthenês and Æschinês, seventy years afterwards,—each of those eminent orators imputing to the other the grossest impudence, calumny, perjury, corruption, loud voice, and revolting audacity of manner, in language which Kleon can hardly have surpassed in intensity of vituperation, though he doubtless fell immeasurably short of it in classical finish. Nor can we even tell in what degree Kleon’s denunciations of the veteran Periklês were fiercer than those memorable invectives against the old age of Sir Robert Walpole, with which Lord Chatham’s political career opened. The talent for invective possessed by Kleon, employed first against Periklês, would be counted as great impudence by the partisans of that illustrious statesman, as well as by impartial and judicious citizens; but among the numerous enemies of Periklês, it would be applauded as a burst of patriotic indignation, and would procure for the orator that extraneous support at first which would sustain him until he acquired his personal hold on the public assembly.[407]
By what degrees or through what causes that hold was gradually increased, we do not know; but at the time when the question of Mitylênê came on for discussion, it had grown into a sort of ascendency which Thucydidês describes by saying that Kleon was “at that time by far the most persuasive speaker in the eyes of the people.” The fact of Kleon’s great power of speech, and his capacity 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.[408] The lofty combination of qualities possessed by Periklês exercised ascendency over both one and the other; but the qualities of Kleon swayed considerably the former without standing high in the esteem of the latter.
When the fate of Mitylênê and its inhabitants was submitted to the Athenian assembly, Kleon took the lead in the discussion. There never was a theme more perfectly suited to his violent temperament and power of fierce invective. Taken collectively, the case of Mitylênê presented a revolt as inexcusable and aggravated as any revolt could be: and we have only to read the grounds of it, as set forth by the Mitylenæan speakers themselves before the Peloponnesians at Olympia, to be satisfied that such a proceeding, when looked at from the Athenian point of view, would be supposed to justify, and even to require, the very highest pitch of indignation. The Mitylenæans admit, not only that they have no ground of complaint against Athens, but that they have been well and honorably treated by her, with special privilege. But they fear that she may oppress them in future: they hate the very principle of her empire, and eagerly instigate, as well as aid, her enemies to subdue her: they select the precise moment in which she has been worn down by a fearful pestilence, invasion, and cost of war. Nothing more than this would be required to kindle the most intense wrath in the bosom of an Athenian patriot: but there was yet another point which weighed as much as the rest, if not more: the revolters had been the first to invite a Peloponnesian fleet across the Ægean, and the first to proclaim, both to Athens and her allies, the precarious tenure of her empire.[409] The violent Kleon would on this occasion find in the assembly an audience hardly less violent than himself, and would easily be able to satisfy them that anything like mercy to the Mitylenæans was treason to Athens. He proposed to apply to the captive city the penalties tolerated by the custom of war in their harshest and fullest measure: to kill the whole Mitylenæan male population of military age, probably about six thousand persons,—and to sell as slaves all the women and children.[410] The proposition, though strongly opposed by Diodotus and others, was sanctioned and passed by the assembly, and a trireme was forthwith despatched to Mitylênê, enjoining Pachês to put it in execution.[411]