Cléon

See also: Cléon (Seine-Maritime)

Cléon (in Greek old Κλέων / Kléôn ), wire of a rich person tanner, Cléainétos, is one of the principal Athenian politicians in the first years of the Peloponnesian War.

Its first known political acts are the attacks which it directs against Périclès in 431 and 430. After the death of this last in 429, he partly becomes the most influential politician of the time thanks to his oratorical talents, although he posts to scorn the flowery language.

In 427, he proposes a decree punishing of dead the inhabitants of Mytilène after the crushing of their revolt.

He is in favor of the military victory at all costs, as long as it brings power, glory and richness with the Athenian people. After the Athenian victory with Pylos (425), he refused the peace proposals Spartans. He criticizes for their incompetence the generals who besiege without success the Spartans on the island of Sphactérie, and when Nicias suggests giving him the command of the army, it is obliged to accept.

With the assistance of the Strategist Démosthène, Cléon holds its promise to take Sphactérie and to bring back the prisoners in twenty days. The catch of Sphactérie and the rendering of Lacédémoniens caused a geopolitical seism in the Greek world. The terrestrial military superiority of Sparte was called as well into question as the proud city proposed a " again; peace blanche" in Athens. The latter refused again under the influence of Cléon.

At the same time, it is made popular (by demagogy, showed its opponents) while carrying the wages of the Dicastes from two to three mites. However this measurement at one time or the number of Athenians without resources does not cease growing because of war is perceived like a decision of assistance to poorest . The strong increase in the tribute that were to pay the allied is probably to put at its credit.

In 423, it makes pass a decree asking the destruction of Sicyone and the execution as of its citizens.

After the reverse of Athens in Thrace, he is elected strategist and order forwarding in this area, but after some successes the Athenian task force is beaten and Cléon is killed at the time of the battle of Amphipolis by the general Spartan Brasidas (who also dies during the combat).

Its death and that of Brasidas raise all the obstacles to the peace of Nicias, which was signed in 421.

The character of Cléon is known for us only by Thucydide, which it made exile, and especially by Aristophane, that it had prosecuted and which by this fact was violently opposite for him (see the Riders ). It is presented like a parvenu without education, violent one, boasting and guilty of misappropriation. However, this judgment should be relativized because Cléon is representative of this new generation of Athenian politicians resulting from more popular mediums, which Cléon asserts with pride, and far away from the big families which up to that point dominated the Athenian public life.

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