Cleon

and Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, who had carried the former resolution, to put them to death, being on other subjects also the most violent of the citizens, and by far the most influential with the commons, at that time came forward again, and spoke as follows:

The other party, whom Paches had sent off as the chief authors of the revolt, the Athenians put to death, according to the advice of Cleon, amounting to rather more than one thousand.

If, however, you determine to do so, even though it is not proper, you must also, overlooking what is right, punish these men from regard to expediency, or else give up your empire, and act the honest man without danger.

For even among the Athenians, who were of all men the most democratic and assigned the most to the common and popular sort, no demagogue ever became so audacious — not even that Hyperbolus or Cleon — as to consider the Areopagus or the council of the six hundred less honourable than the people.

And after these, perhaps, you will say that certain others became daimones of the Athenians, such as Alcibiades the son of Cleinias, and Nicias and Cleon and Hyperbolus—some of them perhaps fair enough, others utterly base and harsh.

who struck Cleon in the belly when at the height of his power, and could not bear to attack him afterward when he was down.

If you should convict the cormorant Cleon of bribery and embezzlement, and then make fast his neck in the stocks, the affair will turn out for the state to the ancient form again, if you have mismanaged in any way, and to a prosperous issue.

And then, when you were for choosing as your general the Paphlagonian tanner, hateful to the gods, we contracted our brows and were enraged;

When Pericles died, Nicias, who died in Sicily, was at the head of the distinguished, and of the people Cleon son of Cleaenetus, who seems above all to have corrupted the people by his impetuosity, and who was the first to shout on the platform and to use abuse, and to gird up his cloak and make a speech, while the others spoke decorously.

Granted, it injured popular men, wicked, seditious in the commonwealth—Cleon, Cleophon, Hyperbolus.

Besides all this, my mother is shown to have been first given in marriage to Cleomedon, whose father Cleon, we are told, commanded troops among whom were your ancestors, and captured alive a large number of Lacedaemonians in Pylos, and won greater renown than any other man in the state;

Her father gave her in marriage to Cleomedon, son of Cleon, adding a talent as her marriage-portion;

Cleon's father, however, passed by adoption into another family, and they still belong to that family, so that in law they have no sort of relationship with Astyphilus.

On the death of Astyphilus a certain Cleon, his first cousin, produced a will, alleging that it had been made in favor of his own son.

So confident, indeed, has Cleon here always been, and still is, that no one but himself is to have the estate, that, as soon as the news of Astyphilus's death was reported—my father being ill at the time and I abroad on military service—he entered into possession of the landed estate and declared that anything else which Astyphilus left belonged to his own son, without ever giving you the opportun …