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Updated: May 31, 2025
On his arrival he found the city reduced to the utmost distress; and, he coming like a messenger from heaven with his unhoped-for succour, Cleon, the governor of Tarsus, welcomed him with boundless thanks.
True, Cleon captured the Spartan garrison, and Narses gained victories, and Bunyan wrote the "Pilgrim's Progress;" but pestilent demagogues and mutilated guardians of Eastern zenanas have not always been successful in war, nor the great and useful profession of tinkers written allegory.
The sausage-seller returns to tell of Cleon's utter defeat; he is quickly followed by Cleon, who appeals to Demos himself, pointing out his own services. "At the first, when I was a member of the Council, I got in vast sums for the Treasury, partly by torture, partly by throttling, partly by begging.
In reply to the house-keeper's excited questions, he related that Protarch had sold his master's oil at Messina for as high a price as his own, bought two new horses for his neighbor Cleon, and sent Mopsus himself forward with them. If the wind didn't change, he would arrive that day.
The governor had no further means of defence; and thus in forty-eight hours after his arrival Vernon had accomplished his boast, and was master of the place." In a clever paper in the "Cambridge Museum Philologicum" Bishop Thirlwall compared the man and his exploit to Cleon and his achievement at Sphacteria in the Peloponnesian War.
"The whole garrison is in motion," said the messenger, "and we have caught sight of the feet of many horses and men under the gates: evidently they mean to attack us." Thus rudely startled from his meditations, Cleon went to look for himself, and seeing that the messenger had spoken the truth he gave the order for a retreat in the direction of Eion.
With the exception of this attack on Cleon, and with the exception also of the attacks on Euripides, whom he seems to have pursued with the most unrelenting perseverance, the other pieces of Aristophanes are not so exclusively pointed against individuals.
His spirits are inexhaustible, he laughs heartily and often without malice at the follies of the mass of men; Cleon and Euripides were anathema to him, but the rest he treats as Fluellen did Pistol: "You beggarly knave, God bless you". His lyrics must be classed with the best in Greek poetry.
Punish them as they deserve, and teach your other allies by a striking example that the penalty of rebellion is death. Let them once understand this and you will not have so often to neglect your enemies while you are fighting with your own confederates." Such were the words of Cleon.
After his death he received divine honours at Amphipolis, and was worshipped as the second founder of the city. The negotiations for peace, begun in the previous year; had been interrupted by the brilliant successes of Brasidas, and the factious opposition of Cleon, and after their death the main obstacle to a pacific understanding was removed.
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