Volume 6 — CHAPTER LIV. TRUCE FOR ONE YEAR.—RENEWAL OF WAR AND BATTLE OF AMPHIPOLIS.—PEACE OF NIKIAS. (continued 2)

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.

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.

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.]

The Lacedæmonians and their allies shall also restore Panaktum to the Athenians.

6. The Athenians shall restore to Sparta Koryphasium, Kythêra, Methônê, Pteleum, Atalantê, with all the captives in their hands from Sparta or her allies. They shall farther release all Spartans or allies of Sparta now blocked up in Skiônê.

7. The Lacedæmonians and their allies shall also restore all the captives in their hands, from Athens or her allies.

8. Respecting Skiônê, Torônê, Sermylus, or any other town in the possession of Athens, the Athenians may take their own measures.

9. Oaths shall be exchanged between the contracting parties, according to the solemnities held most binding in each city respectively, and in the following words: “I will adhere to this convention and truce sincerely and without fraud.” The oaths shall be annually renewed, and the terms of peace shall be inscribed on columns at Olympia, Delphi, and the Isthmus, as well as at Sparta and Athens.

10. Should any matter have been forgotten in the present convention, the Athenians and Lacedæmonians may alter it by mutual understanding and consent, without being held to violate their oaths.

These oaths were accordingly exchanged: they were taken by seventeen principal Athenians, and as many Spartans, on behalf of their respective countries, on the 26th day of the month Artemisius at Sparta, and on the 24th day of Elaphebolion at Athens, immediately after the urban Dionysia; Pleistolas being ephor eponymus at Sparta, and Alkæus archon eponymus at Athens. Among the Lacedæmonians swearing, are included the two kings Agis and Pleistoanax, the ephor Pleistolas, and perhaps other ephors, but this we do not know, and Tellis, the father of Brasidas. Among the Athenians sworn, are comprised Nikias, Lachês, Agnon, Lamachus, and Demosthenês.[770]

Such was the peace—commonly known by the name of the Peace of Nikias—concluded in the beginning of the eleventh spring of the war, which had just lasted ten full years. Its conditions were put to the vote at Sparta, in the assembly of deputies from the Lacedæmonian allies, the majority of whom accepted them: which, according to the condition adopted and sworn to by every member of the confederacy,[771] made it binding upon all. There was, indeed, a special reserve allowed to any particular state in case of religious scruple, arising out of the fear of offending some of their gods or heroes, but, saving this reserve, the peace had been formally acceded to by the decision of the confederates. But it soon appeared how little the vote of the majority was worth, even when enforced by the strong pressure of Lacedæmon herself, when the more powerful members were among the dissentient minority. The Bœotians, Megarians, and Corinthians, all refused to accept it; nor does it seem that any deputies from the allies took the oath along with the Lacedæmonian envoys; though the truce for a year, two years before,[772] had been sworn to by Lacedæmonian, Corinthian, Megarian, Sikyonian, and Epidaurian envoys.

The Corinthians were displeased because they did not recover Sollium and Anaktorium; the Megarians, because they did not regain Nisæa; the Bœotians, because they were required to surrender Panaktum. In spite of the urgent solicitations of Sparta, the deputies of all these powerful states not only denounced the peace as unjust, and voted against it in the general assembly of allies, but refused to accept it when the vote was carried, and went home to their respective cities for instructions.[773]

Such were the conditions, and such the accompanying circumstances, of the Peace of Nikias, which terminated, or professed to terminate, the great Peloponnesian war, after a duration of ten years. Its consequences and fruits, in many respects such as were not anticipated by either of the concluding parties, will be seen in my next volume.