Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/839

Rh had consented to give the tributary &quot; earth and water,&quot; Cleomenes proceeded to the island to punish its treachery to the national cause. His fellow-king Demaratus, who was always jealous of him, privately encouraged the ^Egine- tans in their resistance, and the feud between the two became so bitter, that Cleomenes brought up an old charge of illegitimacy against his colleague, and succeeded in driving him into exile. Retributive fate very soon overtook himself; he was convicted of having procured the deposi tion of Demaratus by tampering with the priestess of the Delphian oracle, and had to retire for safety into Thessaly, and thence into Arcadia. There he endeavoured to raise war against his countrymen, who in their alarm were weak enough to recall him. His renewed reign was not long. He soon after showed symptoms of madness, attacking violently with his staff those who came to him for audience. Some attributed this derangement to a habit of hard drinking which had grown upon him ; others saw in it the just punishment of his impiety, both in his intrigues with the oracle at Delphi, and in the burning of the sacred grove at Argos and the massacre of those who had taken sanctuary there. At length he had to be placed in close confinement, when he persuaded the slave who had charge of him to bring him a knife, with which he deliberately slashed him self to pieces.

the last of the Agid line, succeeded 240 B.C., a king of strong and determined character, who wished to restore at Sparta the old constitution and discipline of Lycurgus, and to destroy the Achaean League. He met Aristomachus, the &quot; captain &quot; of the League, with a force of 5000 men against 25,000 at Palantium, but the Achaeans, even with this advantage, declined ths engagement. The next year he defeated them in a great battle at the foot of Mount Lycaeum. He found active opponents at Sparta in the Ephors, whose anomalous authority he held to have been gradually usurped in derogation of the royal prerogative, affecting dangerously the independence of the kings, and wMch it was therefore his great object to crush. He succeeded in this at last by an unscrupulous coup d etat, surrounding the hall in which the Ephors were feasting with a body of armed mercenaries, and slaughtering them on the spot. He met with no resist ance from the panic-stricken citizens, and at once proceeded to inaugurate his new constitution, abolishing the Ephorate entirely, restoring the old prerogatives of the kings, and amongst other reforms making a re-distribution of lands, and extending the franchise. He had still to contend with the Achaean League for the supremacy of Greece. In the war which ensued he was finally defeated by Antigonus of Macedonia, who had become virtually the master of the League, in the battle of Sellasia (222), when the death-blow was given to the independence of Sparta. Cleomenes took refuge in Egypt with Ptolemy Euergetes, who received him kindly. But the succeeding Ptolemy neglected and even imprisoned him. He escaped and attempted to head an insurrection against the king, failing in which, he committed suicide.  CLEON (KAecuv), one of those popular leaders who rose to great temporary influence at Athens during the Peloponnesian War, and especially after the death of Pericles. He was emphatically a man of the people, sprung from their own ranks, his father Cleaenetus having been a tanner or leather-dresser. He possessed considerable ability and was a powerful public speaker, though coarse and violent in manner and language. At first he seems to have formed one of the large party at Athens who protested against the policy of the war, and on that ground became a bitter op ponent of Pericles. But his views must afterwards have changed, since we find him repeatedly urging active warlike measures in opposition to the peace party of which Xicias and others were the representatives. He was at the height of his political influence when in 427 B.C. the revolted citizens of Mitylene, after a long siege, submitted to the Athenian forces, and the question of their punishment was discussed in a public assembly. Cleon proposed and carried, though against strong opposition, the terrible decree that all the males who were able to bear arms (Grote estimates them at as many as 6000) should be put to death, and the women and children sold for slaves. However, in a second assembly held next day, the decree was rescinded in spite of Cleon s remonstrances. A vessel hastily despatched was barely in time to stay its execution. Even as it was, a thousand of those who were considered the ringleaders of the revolt were put to death. But it was perhaps fortunate for Cleou s future influence with the Athenian commons that he had not to bear the odium of a cruelty which they might have bitterly repented. He was hated at all times by the aristocracy of Athens, and on one occasion they succeeded in convicting him of something like extortion of money from certain of the islanders who were subject to the Athenian rule. In 425, the seventh year of the war, he achieved his greatest military and political triumph. The Athenians had succeeded in cutting off from their ships and supplies a strong detach ment of Lacedaemonian infantry, and blockading them ill the small island of Sphacteria, off Pylos (the modern Navarino). At first it seemed that they must speedily surrender; Cleon persuaded the Athenians to dictate, as the price of their release, hard conditions of peace, which the Lacedaemonians rejected. Time wore on, and the Lacedaemonians still held out, while the blockade was maintained with great difficulty and hardship. Then Cleon came forward, and publicly declared that if he were-general, he would undertake to bring the men who were on the island prisoners to Athens, dead or alive, within twenty days. Nicias, who at that time held the command-in-chief, anxious probably to discredit a political opponent, offered to take him at his word, and make over to him the command at Pylos. Cleon s own party were loud in their encourage ments ; and willingly or unwillingly, after obtaining a strong reinforcement of troops, and getting Demosthenes, an able general then employed on the station, joined with him in the command, he set out for the scene of operations. The historian Thucydides calls his boast &quot;insane/ but admits that he fulfilled it. Within the days named he landed on the island of Sphacteria, compelled the Lacedaemonian force there, after great loss, to surrender at discretion, and brought 300 prisoners to Athens. It is very probable that much of the credit was due to the skilful dispositions of Demosthenes, his colleague in command of the forces; but nevertheless, the man who dared and succeeded where others had so long failed must have had a well-grounded confidence in his own energy and resources. He did not long enjoy his new glories. Two years after wards he was sent to act against Brasidas, the Lacedaemonian commander in Thrace, and to attempt the reconquest of Amphipolis. At first he was successful ; he took Torone, and made an advance upon Amphipolis; but a sudden sally of Brasidas from the town utterly routed the Athenian forces, and Cleon fell there with half his men. Brasidas was at the same time mortally wounded. We have to judge of the character and conduct of Cleon almost entirely from the history of Tbucydides and the satiric comedies of Aristophanes. But the historian, even if his judgment were not warped by the fact asserted by some writers, that Cleon had been instrumental in procuring his disgrace and banishment whilst holding a military command, had at any rate strong oligarchical prejudices, and regarded him as a restless and dangerous agitator. If we might trust the picture given of him by Aristophanes 