On his return to Lesbos, Paches despatched to Athens the prisoners who
had been sent to Tenedos, among whom was the Spartan Salaethus. When
they arrived the Athenians immediately put Salaethus to death, and then
met in full assembly to decide on the fate of the rest. They had just
been delivered from a fearful danger, and in the natural reaction of
vindictive rage which had now set in they came to the horrible
resolution of putting all the adult male population of Mytilene to the
sword, and selling the women and children as slaves. The Mytilenaeans,
they argued, were without excuse: they were not subjects of Athens, who
might wish to escape from their burdens, but free and privileged
allies. They had treacherously plotted against Athens, when she was
sunk deep in calamity, and brought a Peloponnesian fleet within the
sacred circle of her empire. For a long time past they had evidently
been hatching a vile conspiracy against the very existence of Athens.
Having once come to this decision, the Athenians lost no time, but sent
off a trireme on the same day, with orders to Paches to carry the
decree into effect.
But after a night of cool reflection they began to repent of their
haste. It was a cruel and monstrous thing, they now thought, to butcher
the population of a whole city, innocent and guilty alike. The
Mytilenaean envoys, who had been sent to Athens on the surrender of the
city, perceived that there was a change in the public temper, and
acting in concert with influential Athenians who were in their
interest, they induced the magistrates to summon a second assembly, and
re-open the debate.
It is on this occasion that we first catch sight [Footnote: That is, in
the narrative of Thucydides.] of the notorious demagogue Cleon, who for
the next six years will be the most prominent figure in Athenian public
life. This man belongs to a class of politicians who had begun to
exercise great influence on the affairs of Athens after the death of
Pericles. That great statesman had really led the people, checking
their excesses, setting bounds to their ambition, and guiding all the
moods of the stormy democracy. But the demagogues were lowborn
upstarts, who, while seeming to lead the people, really followed it,
and kept their position by pandering to the worst passions of the
multitude. It must, however, be mentioned that the two contemporary
writers from whom we draw our materials for the portrait of Cleon, the
historian Thucydides and the comic poet Aristophanes, were both
violently prejudiced against him. Aristophanes hated him as the
representative of the new democracy, which was an object of abhorrence
to the great comic genius; and Thucydides, a born aristocrat, of strong
oligarchical sympathies, looked with cold scorn and aversion on the
coarse mechanic, [Footnote: Cleon was a tanner by trade.] who presumed
to usurp the place, and ape the style, of a true leader like Pericles.
In the previous debate Cleon had been the chief promoter of the
murderous sentence passed against Mytilene; and when the question was
brought forward again, he made a vehement harangue, the substance of
which has been preserved by Thucydides. In this speech he appears as a
practised rhetorical bravo, whose one object is to vilify his
opponents, and throw contempt on their arguments, by an unscrupulous
use of the weapons of ridicule, calumny, and invective. He reproaches
the magistrates for convening a second assembly, in a matter which had
already been decided; and this was, in fact, strictly speaking, a
breach of the constitution. He laughs at the Athenians as weak
sentimentalists, always inclined to mercy, even when mercy was
suicidal. Of the subject communities he speaks as if they were mere
slaves and chattels, outside the pale of humanity, to be kept down with
the scourge and the sword. "Let the law prevail," cries this second
Draco. "The law is sacred, and must not be moved. You are so clever
that you will not live, by fixed rule and order, and you deride the
approved principles of political wisdom. Every one of you wants to be a
lawgiver, a statesman, and a reformer, and to manage the public affairs
in his own way. We, who understand your true interests, are bound to
resist this mood of lawless extravagance, and keep you in the right
path, whether you will or no."
Then preserving the same tone, as of one who is exposing an outrageous
paradox, Cleon proceeds to deal with the actual subject of debate. To
massacre a whole population, was, in his view, a commonplace and
ordinary proceeding; and, in the present instance, the only course
consistent with prudence and common sense. Those who maintained the
contrary were either flighty enthusiasts, whose opinion was not worth
considering, or venal orators, who had sold their country for a bribe.
"Will you suffer yourselves," asked the indignant moralist, "to be
blinded by these corrupt advocates, who amuse you with their eloquence,
and then pocket the price? But it is your own fault: you have no sense
of public responsibility--you are like clever children, playing at a
game of politics. While you sit here, listening to your favourite
speakers, and sharpening your wits against theirs, your empire is going
to ruin. Plain fact is too simple a diet for your pampered appetites;
you must have it hashed and served up with a fine flavouring of fancy
and wit. In short, you have lost all hold upon reality, you live in an
intellectual Utopia, and treat grave matters of public interest as
though they were mere themes in a school of declamation."
In drawing this remarkable picture of Athenian character, which, though
strangely out of place, really contained a large element of truth,
Cleon overreached himself, and was caught in his own snare. It was he,
and not his opponents, who was diverting attention from facts, and
involving a plain issue in a cloud of wordy rhetoric. He has no
arguments, worthy of the name, but tries to carry his case by playing
on the passions of the people, and blowing up the flames of their
anger, which was beginning to cool. But though the more discerning
among his audience must have seen through his sophistries, to a large
proportion of his hearers his speech no doubt seemed a masterpiece of
eloquence. The Athenians, who, like all people of lively talent, were
fond of laughing at themselves, would be especially amused by his
humorous description of their own besetting weakness, their restless
vanity, and inordinate love of change.
The chief advocate for mitigating the sentence against Mytilene was a
certain Diodotus, who had taken a leading part in the previous debate,
and now stood up again to oppose the blood-thirsty counsels of Cleon.
The speech of Diodotus is calm, sober, and business-like. After a
dignified remonstrance against the vile insinuations of Cleon, by whom
all who differed from him were decried as fools or knaves, Diodotus
proceeded to argue the question from the point of view of expediency.
He was not there, he said, to plead the cause of the Mytilenaeans, or
to discuss abstract questions of law and justice. What they had to
consider was what course would be most conducive to the interests of
Athens. According to Cleon, those interests would be best served by a
wholesale massacre of the inhabitants of Mytilene, which would strike
terror into the other subjects of Athens, and prevent them from
yielding to the same temptation. But, reasoned Diodotus, experience had
shown that intending criminals were not deterred from wrongdoing by the
increased severity of penal statutes. For a long time lawgivers had
framed their codes in this belief, thinking to drive mankind into the
path of rectitude by appealing to their terrors. Yet crime had not
diminished, but rather increased. And what was true of individuals, was
still more true of cities, where each man hoped to be concealed among
the crowd of transgressors. Criminals, whether they acted singly, or in
large numbers, were only rendered desperate, if all degrees of crime
were confounded in one common penalty of death.
Such were the enlightened principles of jurisprudence set forth by an
Athenian of the fifth century before Christ--principles which were
first recognised in modern Europe within the memory of men still
living. Then, bringing his theories to a practical test, he pointed out
the gross impolicy of driving a revolted city to desperation, by
excluding all rebels from the hope of pardon. This, he said, would be
the effect on the subjects of Athens, if they passed the same sentence
on the Mytilenaeans, without distinction between the innocent and the
guilty. At present the commons in every city were loyal to Athens; and
though they might be beguiled or coerced into rebellion, they would, if
assured of fair treatment, take the first opportunity of returning to
their allegiance, as the commoners of Mytilene had done. "Do not,
therefore," concluded Diodotus, "destroy this, the strongest guarantee
of your security, but punish the ringleaders of the revolt, after due
deliberation, and leave the rest in peace."
The arguments of Diodotus were unanswerable, and it might have been
supposed that the Athenians, in their relenting mood, would have
carried the amendment by a large majority. But this was not the case.
The debate was keenly contested, and when the president called for a
show of hands, the more merciful decree was only passed by a few votes.
There was no time to be lost, for the first trireme was already a day
and a night on her voyage, and the fate of Mytilene hung by a hair. A
second trireme was launched with all speed, and the Mytilenaeans
present in Athens promised large rewards to the crew if they arrived in
time. With such inducements the rowers toiled day and night, taking
their meals, which consisted of barley-meal kneaded with wine and oil,
at the oar, and sleeping and rowing by turns. Happily there was no
contrary wind to retard their progress, and the crew of the first
vessel, bearing that savage mandate, made no efforts to shorten their
passage. As it was, they were not an hour too soon: for when they
arrived, Paches had already received the decree, and was preparing to
carry it out. Thus Mytilene escaped destruction by a hair's-breadth,
and Athens was saved from committing a great crime. But even the
modified sentence, which was passed directly afterwards on the motion
of Cleon, condemning more than a thousand Mytilenaean citizens to
death, was sufficiently ferocious, and was remembered against the
tyrant city in the days of her humiliation.