Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/358

 535 HISTORY OF GREECE. up this murmur, and delighted to have caught his political enemy in a trap, stood forward in person, and pressed him to set aboul the enterprise without delay ; intimating the willingness of him- self and his colleagues to grant him any portion of the military force of the city which he chose to ask for. Kleon at first closed with this proposition, believing it to be a mere stratagem of debate and not seriously intended : but so soon as he saw that what was said -was really meant, he tried to back out, and observed to jSikias : " It is your place to sail : you are general, not I."' Nik- ias only replied by repeating his exhortation, renouncing for- mally the command against Sphakteria, and calling upon the Athenians to recollect what Kleon had said, as well as to hold him to his engagement. The more Kleon tried to evade the duty, the louder and more unanimous did the cry of the assembly become that JSikias should surrender it to him, and that he should undertake it. At last, seeing that there was no possibility of receding, Kleon reluctantly accepted the charge, and came for- ward to announce his intention in a resolute address : " I am not at all afraid of the Lacedemonians (he said) : I shall sail with- out even taking with me any of the hoplites from the regular Athenian muster-roll, but only the Lemnian and Imbrian hoplites who are now here (that is, Athenian kleruchs or out-citizens who had properties in Lemnos and Imbros, and habitually resided there), together with some peltasts, brought from <<Enos, in Thrace, and four hundred bowmen. With this force, added to what is already at Pylos, I engage in the space of twenty days either to bring the Lacedaemonians in Sphakteria hither as prisoners, or to kill them in the island." The Athenians observes Thucy- dides laughed somewhat at Kleon's looseness of tongue ; but 1 Thucyd. iv, 28. 'O <5e (KXeuv), rb fisv xpuTov o/o^evof av~bv ftdvov u&uvai, eroipot; TJV, yvovg 6e rn jco ixeivif) ijTE^ouv T.Tieiv. "Qore OVK exuv o~o>f TUV elptjiiivuv en k!-ana?. la/9, vQiara-a rbv vrAoiv, Kal napehduv- OVTE oofiela&ai ejj viovf, etc.