Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/350

 328 HISTORY OF GREECE. proposition, however, was by no means obvious. In all p/oba- bility, the trireme which brought the Lacedaemonian envoys also brought the first news of that unforeseen and instantaneous turn of events which had rendered the Spartans in Sphakteria certain prisoners, so it was then conceived, and placed the whole Lacedaemonian fleet in their power ; thus giving a totally new character of the Avar. The sudden arrival of such prodigious intelligence / the astounding presence of Lacedaemonian envoys, bearing the olive-branch, and in an attitude of humiliation, must have produced in the susceptible public of Athens emotions of the utmost intensity ; an elation and confidence such as had probably never been felt since the reconquest of Samos. It was difficult at first to measure the full bearings of the new situation, and even Perikles himself might have hesitated what to recom- mend : but the immediate and dominant impression with the gen- eral public was, that Athens might now ask her own terms, as consideration for the prisoners in the island. 1 Of this reigning tendency Kleon 2 made himself the emphatic organ, as he had done three years before in the sentence passed on the Mityle- naeans ; a man who like leading journals, in modern times often appeared to guide the public because he gave vehement utterance to that which they were already feeling, and carried it out in its collateral bearings and consequences. On the present occasion, he doubtless spoke with the most genuine conviction ; for he was full of the sentiment of Athenian force and Athenian imperial dignity, as well as disposed to a sanguine view of future chances. Moreover, in a discussion like that now opened, where there was much room for doubt, he came forward with a proposi- tion at once plain and decisive. Reminding the Athenians of 1 Thucyd. iv, 21. 8 Thucyd. iv, 21. fiuAiara 6e avToiif ivr/ye K/.suv 6 KleaivsTov, uvijp Arjfj.a-yuybe /car' EKELVOV TOV %povov uv Kal rtj (5//y*cj 7Tii?avwrarof Kit EKEIGEV uxoKpivaodai, etc. This sentence reads like a first introduction of Kleon to the notice of the reader. It would appear that Thucydides had forgotten that he had before introduced Kleon on occasion of the Mitylenaean surrender, and that too in language very much the same, iii, 36. nai Kheuv 6 Kfaaivlrov, uv Kal kr T& vXha, fiiaioTdTOf TUV TroXtrwv, Kal TV dyuc,) iraou ro7*v kv rf *-OTE rrwc, etc.