measurably unreliable sources. Aristoph'anes, the chief of the
comic poets, describes him as "a noisy brawler, loud in his
criminations, violent in his gestures, corrupt and venal in his
principles, a persecutor of rank and merit, and a base flatterer
and sycophant of the people." Thucydides also calls him "a dishonest
politician, a wrongful accuser of others, and the most violent
of all the citizens." Both these writers, however, had personal
grievances. Of course Cleon very naturally became a target for
the invective of the poet. "The taking of Pylus," says GILLIES,
"and the triumphant return of Cleon, a notorious coward transformed
by caprice and accident into a brave and successful commander,
were topics well suiting the comic vein of Aristophanes; and in
the comedy first represented in the seventh year of the war--The
Knights--he attacks him in the moment of victory, when fortune
had rendered him the idol of a licentious multitude, when no
comedian was so daring as to play his character, and no painter
so bold as to design his mask." The poet himself, therefore,
appeared on the stage, "only disguising his face, the better
to represent the part of Cleon." As another writer has said,
"Of all the productions of Aristophanes, so replete with comic
genius throughout, The Knights is the most consummate and
irresistible; and it presents a portrait of Cleon drawn in colors
broad and glaring, most impressive to the imagination, and hardly
effaceable from the memory." The following extract from the play
will show the license indulged in on the stage in democratic
Athens, the boldness of the poet's attacks, and will serve, also,
as a sample of his style:


Cleon the Demagogue.