Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/274

 252 HISTORY OF GREECE. it, or by the mere impression of seductive discourses. Justice against the Mitylengeans, not less than the strong political inter- ests of Athens, required the infliction of the sentence decreed on the day preceding. 1 The harangue of Kleon is in many respects remarkable. If AVC are surprised to find a man, whose whole importance resided in his tongue, denouncing so severely the license and the undue influence of speech in the public assembly, ve must recollect that Kleon had the advantage of addressing himself to the intense prevalent sentiment of the moment, that he could, therefore, pass off the dictates of this sentiment as plain, downright, honest sense and patriotism; while the opponents, speaking against the reigning sentiment, and therefore driven to collateral argument, circumlocution, and more or less of manoeuvre, might be repre- sented as mere clever sophists, showing their talents in making the worse appear the better reason, if not actually bribed, at least unprincipled, and without any sincere moral conviction. As this is a mode of dealing with questions both of public con- cern and of private morality, not less common at present than it was in the time of the Peloponnesian war, to seize upon some strong and tolerably wide-spread sentiment among the public, to treat the dictates of that sentiment as plain common sense and obvious right, and then to shut out all rational estimate of coming good and evil as if it were unholy or immoral, or at best mere uncandid subtlety, we may well notice a case in which Kleon employs it to support a proposition now justly regarded as bar- barous. Applying our modern views to this proposition, indeed, the prevalent sentiment would not only not be in favor of Kleon, but would be irresistibly in favor of his opponents. To put to death in cold blood some six thousand persons, would so revolt modern feelings, as to overbalance all considerations of past misconduct in the persons to be condemned. Nevertheless, the speech of Diodotus, who followed and opposed Kleon, not only contains no appeal to any such merciful predispositions, but even positively 1 Thncyd. iii, 40. irei-&6/j.evoi tie tyoi TU re diicaia ef 'Mirv'Atjvaiovf KOI -ft i-vfujiopa ufta TioirjGETE' ukhus 6e yvovTef rolf uev ov xapitla&e, i'/uuc fi oTo;'f fiat./.ov diKatuaecr&e.