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