Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/508

 486 HISTORY OF GREECE. M Antipho or some other rhetor for paid advice and aid as to the conduct of his complaint ; but a poor man or woman would think themselves happy to obtain the gratuitous suggestion, and some- times the auxiliary speech, of Kleon or Hyperbolus ; who would thus extend their own popularity, by means very similar to those practised by the leading men in Rome. 1 But besides lending aid to others, doubtless Kleon was often also a prosecutor, in his own name, of official delinquents, real or alleged. That some one should undertake this duty was indis- pensable for ths protection of the city ; otherwise, the responsi- bility to which official persons were subjected after their term of office would have been merely nominal : and we have proof enough that the general public morality of these official persons, acting individually, was by no means high. But the duty was at the same time one which most persons would and did shun. The prosecutor, while obnoxious to general dislike, gained nothing even by the most complete success ; and if he failed so much as not to procure a minority of votes among the dikasts, equal to one-fifth of the numbers present, he was condemned to pay a fine of one thousand drachms. What was still more serious, he drew upon himself a formidable mass of private hatred, from the friends, partisans, and the political club, of the accused party, extremely menacing to his own future security and comfort, in a community like Athens. There was therefore little motive to accept, and great motive to decline, the task of prosecuting on public grounds. A prudent politician at Athens would under- take it occasionally, and against special rivals, but he would carefully guard himself against the reputation of doing it fre- quently or by inclination, and the orators constantly do so guard themselves in those speeches which yet remain. It is this reputation which Thucydides fastens upon Kleon, and which, like Cato the censor at Rome, he probably merited ; from native acrimony of temper, from a powerful talent for invective 1 Here again we find Cato the elder represented as constantly in the foram at Rome, lending aid of this kind, and espousing the cause of others who had grounds of complaint (Plutarch, Cato, c. 3), irput fiev C:'f uyopav Bodied Kal irapiararai roif deofievoif, roftf (iiv i?fv//oorar Kal <pi/ov< hrere 6t<i ruv fwrj-yopiuV' etc.