It was in the immediate aftermath of the Periclean era that a new type of public speaker came to political prominence. He was new for several reasons. He came from a non-aristocratic background, he had none of the family ties that aristocrats had drawn on as a matter of course,9 he was wealthy but had accumulated that wealth largely through business and trade, he (like Pericles) spoke directly to the people, and he had not held a military command. These ‘new’ speakers were given the common name rhetores (orators) because they literally relied on their speaking ability not merely to address their peers in the Assembly but to persuade them to vote for their proposals.10 Over time, other terms came to be used, mostly in a pejorative sense, including demagogue (demagegos), adviser (politeuomenos, sumboulos), and (a phrase that has existed for some time but takes on a more odious meaning now), leader of the people (prostates tou demou).11 The rhe:tores were also responsible for the introduction of new vocabulary, such as philodemos (‘friend of the people’), misodemos (‘enemy of the people’), philopolis (‘friend of the city’) and misopolis (‘enemy of the city’). Again, to judge by references to such terms in writers (Aristophanes, for example), these new words were not exactly welcomed, and they deliberately cast aspersions on the characters of the speakers.12
Solon’s goal of the ordinary people advancing politically was apparently realised, but not in the way he envisioned, for political power had come to rest not on office per se but on popular support in the Assembly. One reason for this switch was the move from election to the selection of archons by lot in 487 (AP22.5), which made offices less attractive and reduced arenas for nobles to exercise sway over mass audiences. However, the primary reason was rhetoric. The Athenian elite knew about rhetoric of course before the later fifth century, but they were concerned more with it as an intellectual pursuit. The sophistic movement, with its emphasis on the art of speaking, and especially the visit of the philosopher and rhetorician
Gorgias (483-378) from Leontini in Sicily in 427 was as much a turning point in the political exploitation of rhetoric and the rise of orators as the creation of radical democracy (Thuc. 3.86, Diod. 12.53). Gorgias came to request Athenian support in his city’s struggle against Syracuse. The Athenians were then in the fourth year of the Peloponnesian War and were still recovering from a catastrophic plague that had killed about a quarter of the population including Pericles. In such circumstances, Gorgias’ mission ought to have been unsuccessful, but he apparently dazzled the Assembly with his speaking ability and his request was granted. After all, he believed that arguments based on probability (eikota) carried more weight than the truth (Pl. Phaedrus 267a-b), and the people were evidently putty in his hands.
Gorgias later returned to live in Athens. There, and elsewhere in Greece, he taught rhetoric in return for payment (Pl. Hippias Major 282b4-c1). It soon became a fundamental part of education, as T. Morgan describes in Chapter 20. Indeed, it grew into what Aristotle would call a techne:, and was the art of thinking and speaking. As J. A.E. Bons discusses in Chapter 4, Gorgias taught rhetoric as a means to an end, namely to give his pupils the ability to convince an audience on any subject regardless of whether they (the speakers) had expertise in it. His teaching involved learning literary passages and perhaps even allusions to past events in order to appeal to the emotions of the listeners. For Gorgias, the greatest good for men in which he claims expertise is not knowledge or morality, but the ability to use rhetoric to persuade an audience at the public or civic level. He makes this point clearly to Socrates in an exchange between the two of them as given to us by Plato in his Gorgias (452e4):
Gorgias: I mean, Socrates, what is in actual truth the greatest blessing, which confers
On everyone who possess it not only freedom for himself but also the power of ruling his fellow countrymen.
Socrates: What do you mean by that?
Gorgias: I mean the ability to convince by means of speech a jury in a court of justice,
Members of the Council in their Chamber, voters at a meeting of the Assembly, and any other gathering of citizens whatever it may be. By the exercise of this ability you will have the doctor and the trainer as your slaves, and your man of business will turn out to be making money not for himself but for another; for you, in fact, who have the ability to speak and to convince the masses.13
In his speech Against Timocrates of 355, Demosthenes said that Athenian democracy was compassionate for the weak, that it prohibited strong and powerful individuals acting violently towards others and that it refused to condone venal treatment of the masses by influential speakers (24.171). This may have been true in theory, but the reality was quite different. For many decades before and after Demosthenes delivered his speech, speakers in the Assembly pursued their own agendas (not always against the best interests of the state), and in the process clashed with each other. They were able to do so because non-aristocrats in particular seized upon the use of rhetoric that Gorgias advocated and exploited it for reasons that had nothing to do with education. (Thus we can understand Plato’s criticism of the sophists.)
Such ambitious men realised that a much faster path to success lay not in standing for public office or winning military renown (and being strategos) but in using their oratorical abilities to manipulate the people in the Assembly. More than that, political success elevated their social standing. They were much looked down upon by the aristocratic stratum of society, regardless of how much wealth they might accumulate, given the social snobbery that existed. Political power redressed that imbalance for them. Hence their aim in entering political life was not necessarily to do well for their state and its people, but for themselves. Rhetoric gave them the means to this end, and they crafted their use of language specifically for the political arena, as A. Lbpez Eire so ably demonstrates (Chapter 22).
The first demagogue, to use that term, was Cleon, and as such he warrants more attention than others in this chapter. Aristophanes made Cleon out to be a sleazy tanner, but this seems to have been a deliberate slur on his character - and the same slurs may apply to the references by trade of all of the demagogues in order to make them out to be cheap workers with no social status. Cleon came from a wealthy family. His father owned a factory that turned hides into leather, and an indication of his wealth is that he may have performed a liturgy (a public service for the state).14 Cleon was different from his predecessor Pericles not only as far as his social background was concerned but also in the way he addressed the people. He was quick to criticise them for their shortcomings, and almost brutal in some of his comments, and this starts a pattern to which all the rheetores conformed.
Cleon first properly attracts our attention in Thucydides’ account of the Mytilene debate of 427 (3.36-48). In the previous year, Athens’ ally Mytilene, a major naval power on the island of Lesbos, revolted from the Delian League. The timing of the revolt coincided with the aftermath of the crippling plague, in Athens, when the city was in dire straits. Despite their predicament, the Athenians besieged Mytilene and after some time it capitulated. An Assembly was then held to decide the fate of the Mytileneans. Cleon proposed to kill all the male Mytileneans and to sell the women and children into slavery. This harsh treatment was, as S. Usher says in his treatment of the debate (Chapter 15, p. 223), a ‘brutal version of Pericles’ brand of justice’, but understandable in the circumstances. The Athenians needed to maintain control of their empire at all costs, especially given the city’s current plight, hence it was necessary to set an example in order to prevent other allies from revolting, and so affect Athenian security and prosperity. The people voted in Cleon’s favour, but overnight they had a change of heart, and they held an extraordinary Assembly the next day. Cleon proposed the same penalty for the same reasons as the day before. As on the previous day, a certain Diodotus, arguing on grounds of expediency and that it would be more just to execute only the ringleaders, opposed him. This time Diodotus’ recommendation was approved, but only by the narrowest of margins (Thuc. 3.49.1).
Thucydides says next to nothing about the first meeting, but he supplies the speeches of Cleon and Diodotus from the second. What he gives us is hardly verbatim.15 Indeed, the speeches in Thucydides’ narrative are rhetorically crafted to reflect his views on the nature of Athenian imperialism, human personal ideologies, and the misuse of rhetoric in a political setting (see further, M. A. Fox and N. Livingstone, Chapter 35). It is unfortunate that we do not have any speeches by popular leaders such as Pericles or Cleon that exist independently of Thucydides’ account as we do of the Attic orators (beginning with Antiphon in the late fifth century and extending to Dinarchus in the late fourth century). The speeches from the Mytilene debate are stirring, and it is easy to see how in the emotionally charged atmosphere of the Assembly they would affect the people. A few relevant extracts from Cleon’s speech will suffice:
What you do not realise is that your empire is a tyranny exercised over subjects who do not like it and who are always plotting against you; you will not make them obey you by injuring your own interests in order to do them a favour; your leadership depends on superior strength and not on any goodwill of theirs. And this is the very worst thing - to pass measures and then not abide by them... Now, to act as they acted is not what I should call a revolt (for people only revolt when they have been badly treated); it is a case of calculated aggression, of deliberately taking sides with our bitterest enemies in order to destroy us. And this is far worse than if they had made war against us simply to increase their own power... They made up their minds to put might first and right second, choosing the moment when they thought they would win, and then making their unprovoked attack upon us... Let them now therefore have the punishment which their crime deserves. Do not put the blame on the aristocracy and say that the people were innocent. The fact is that the whole lot of them attacked you together, although the people might have come over to us and, if they had, would now be back again in control of their city. Yet, instead of doing this, they thought it safer to share the dangers, and join in the revolt of the aristocracy... Punish them as they deserve, and make an example of them to your other allies, plainly showing that revolt will be punished by death. Once they realise this, you will not have so often to neglect the war with your enemies because you are fighting with your own allies.
Diodotus, while acknowledging the Mytileneans had done wrong and needed to be punished, differed greatly from Cleon’s ‘might is right’ argument:
I have not come forward to speak about Mytilene in any spirit of contradiction or with any wish to accuse anyone. If we are sensible people, we shall see that the question is not so much whether they are guilty as whether we are making the right decision for ourselves... One of Cleon’s chief points is that to inflict the death penalty will be useful to us in the future as a means of deterring other cities from revolt; but I, who am just as concerned as he is with the future, am quite convinced that this is not so. . . at the moment, if a city has revolted and realises that the revolt cannot succeed, it will come to terms while it is still capable of paying an indemnity and continuing to pay tribute afterwards. But if Cleon’s method is adopted, can you not see that every city will not only make much more careful preparations for revolt, but will also hold out against siege to the very end, since to surrender early or late means just the same thing? This is, unquestionably, against our interests - to spend money on a siege because of the impossibility of coming to terms, and, if we capture the place, to take over a city that is in ruins so that we lose the future revenue from it. And it is just on this revenue that our strength in war depends. . . We should be looking for a method by which, employing moderation in our punishments, we can in future secure for ourselves the full use ofthose cities which bring us important contributions.
Cleon lost this debate, but his influence in political life continued to grow. At an Assembly in 425/4 he criticised the general Nicias’ handling of the siege of a few hundred Spartans on the island of Sphacteria (Thuc. 4.27-28). The clash between the two men grew more heated, with the people egging each man on by shouting and so behaving, says Thucydides, ‘in the way that crowds usually do’. When Nicias unexpectedly handed over his command to Cleon, the latter found himself suddenly faced with the prospect of showing in actions what he was saying with words. He requested the help of the general Demosthenes and proclaimed that he would return within twenty days with the Spartans as captives. This ‘mad promise’ appealed to the people, according to Thucydides, for they knew that if Cleon succeeded they would gain a valuable advantage over the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War, and if Cleon failed he would be dead. In fact, to everyone’s (especially, we imagine, Nicias’) amazement, Cleon fulfilled his promise, and the Spartans immediately sued for peace (see below). The success led to Cleon’s election as general for the next year (thus reversing the pattern of those who used military office as a means of entry into political life), and his political ascendancy was now assured. He died in battle at Amphipolis in 422 (Thuc. 5.10). Even in death, Thucydides had nothing good to say about Cleon, who, he alleges, ‘had no intention of standing his ground; he immediately took to flight and was overtaken and killed by a Myrcinian peltast’.
There is much personal bias in Thucydides’ portrayal of Cleon.16 The first time we meet him, in the context of the Mytilene debate, he is described as ‘the most violent of the citizens’ (Thuc. 3.36.6), and even the manner of his death was cowardly. Thucydides has various reasons for why he depicts Cleon as he does. For one thing, the latter may well have been responsible for his exile in 421, when he failed to save the Athenian colony of Amphipolis from the Spartans. For another, there is the social snobbery directed against someone who was not an aristocrat and who dared to address and guide the people. Cleon, like the demagogues after him, may well have been very wealthy, but that meant nothing. That power could be the hands of an influential few, or even of one man, as Thucydides’ statement on Pericles (quoted above, p. 257) would suggest, was acceptable if those men came from the right (aristocratic) background. Certainly, Pericles had his brushes with the Assembly, which on occasions deprived him of his generalship, but he always bounced back thanks to his reputation, not to mention his oratorical prowess. However, it was one thing for the ‘right’ people to sway the Assembly, but quite another when those from the wrong side of the tracks did so, and their critics cared about only that.17
Of course, many of these ‘new men’ proved adept and wise advisers because they had to claw their way to the top. Whether Cleon had any sort of rhetorical education is unknown, but I think it unlikely, or at least that he had little (in contrast to the demagogues after him, perhaps with the exception of Aeschines).18 T. Morgan takes me to task for my view here (Chapter 20, n. 5); however, it is hard to see exactly what such education involved. Gorgias came to Athens in only 427, by which time Cleon was already politically active (he was a member of the Boule in 428), and it seems clear that the latter’s visit (in the same year as Cleon dominated the first Assembly on Mytilene; see above) was what led to rhetoric becoming a formal part of education. I suspect that Cleon simply found he had the talent to speak well by attending assemblies and listening to how things were done before he spoke. His membership of the Boule would have greatly enhanced his knowledge of the workings of the state, not to mention his political savvy. Thus, in 424, when the Athenians took the Spartan soldiers from Sphacteria to Athens as prisoners-of-war (see above), the Spartans immediately sued for peace on terms, but Cleon blocked their proposals, and the war continued. In hindsight, he was right to do so, for he realised that the Spartans wanted only to secure the return of the prisoners, and thus that any peace agreed to at that time would have been ephemeral. It is important to note that Thucydides has no praise of Cleon’s success at Sphacteria, and he also laments the lost opportunity of making peace with Sparta at that time. Further, Cleon is denigrated in another contemporary source, Aristophanes’ Knights.19 Aristophanes, like Thucydides, has his axes to grind against Cleon and his new use of rhetoric,20 and in his comedy he casts him as a Paphlagonian slave that has bewitched the people, characterised as the old man Demus, and who stole success at Sphacteria from the generals Nicias and Demosthenes. The one person who ought to be criticised in the whole affair is Nicias, who handed over his command to Cleon seemingly on a whim, yet he was not indicted for his action or for any dereliction of duty. However, he was an aristocrat, and a general, and hence escapes blame. Perhaps this is why Thucydides tells us about the Assembly clash between Cleon and Nicias in reported speech and more briefly in order to deflect attention from the seriousness of Nicias’ action.
The remainder of the classical period was the age of the nouveaux riches or ‘commoner’ rhetores. Significant figures in the fifth century included Hyperbolus the lampmaker and Cleophon the lyremaker (both of whom may have owned factories making these products and so, like Cleon, may have been rich). They dominated political life for what would be only short periods of time, however. The fourth century, on the other hand, was different in that individual rheetores dominated political life for greater stretches of time. In the 350s, one such man was Eubulus.21 By this time, Athens was in severe economic straits, its annual revenue reduced to a mere 137 talents from the 1,000 talents it had in 431, at the start of the Peloponnesian War (Dem. 4.37). Eubulus organised the Athenian budget in such a way that part of the surpluses from the various accounts were paid into a Military Fund to help pay for war efforts (these being the largest drain on the city’s finances). He also created the Theoric Fund, into which was paid the annual budget surpluses. Its treasurer came to wield great political power because of the fund’s huge resources, and in some respects the office was as much a stepping stone to political power as that of the generalship in the fifth century. Later, the treasurer Lycurgus was so influential that even after his tenure of power ended in about 332 he continued to dominate political life from behind the scenes.22
Perhaps the greatest Greek rhetor, and certainly the most well-known, was Demosthenes, a contemporary of Eubulus and Lycurgus.23 Demosthenes made a name for himself writing speeches for the law courts (and in some cases delivering them himself) before his entry into public life in the 350s. He also came from a well-to-do but non-aristocratic background.24 His father had died when he was seven, leaving an estate of almost fourteen talents. However, the guardians to whom it and his son were entrusted squandered the money, and only 7,000 drachmas were left when Demosthenes turned eighteen in about 366. Faced with financial ruin, Demosthenes sued the guardians in about 364.25 He won his suit, but probably got back only part of the lost estate. That success earned him enough of a reputation to pursue a career in oratory, specifically as a speechwriter (logographos) who wrote court speeches for others (for a fee). Intent on a political career, he successfully worked to overcome a speech disability by practising speaking with pebbles in his mouth (Plut. Dem. 11.1).
Demosthenes’ first political speeches were failures, and it was not until he turned his attention to Philip II, beginning with his first Philippic in 351, that he began to find success. By 346, he was a dominant force in Athenian political life, and he was instrumental in wrecking negotiations with Philip after the Peace of Philocrates of 346 that would lead to another war in 340. Indeed, in the later 340s Demosthenes’ anti-Macedonian policy became that of the city. It would end in disaster, however, at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338, when Philip defeated a Greek army led by Athens and Thebes and imposed Macedonian hegemony on Greece. Thus, Demosthenes ultimately misjudged the political situation. Perhaps he did so for all the ‘right’ reasons; in other words, that he saw in Philip a threat to Greek freedom and urged resistance to him at all costs, whatever the outcome. On the other hand, his Macedonian stance may have been merely to further his own political agenda, and hence power in Athens, for it is significant that success came to him only when he focused on Philip as the enemy of Greece.26
World History
