uses their fleet was unable to reach the
place. Meanwhile the provisions of the town were exhausted, and it was
therefore resolved, as a last desperate expedient, to make a sally, and
endeavour to raise the blockade. With this view even the men of the
lower classes were armed with the full armour of the hoplites. But
this step produced a very different result from what had been expected
or intended. The great mass of the Mytileneans regarded their own
oligarchical government with suspicion and now threatened that, unless
their demands were complied with, they would surrender the city to the
Athenians. In this desperate emergency the Mytilenean government
perceived that their only chance of safety lay in anticipating the
people in this step. They accordingly opened a negotiation with
Paches, the Athenian commander, and a capitulation was agreed upon by
which the city was to be surrendered and the fate of its inhabitants to
be decided by the Athenian Assembly.

At Athens the disposal of the prisoners caused great debate. It was on
this occasion that the leather-seller Cleon first comes prominently
forward in Athenian affairs. If we may trust the picture drawn by the
comic poet Aristophanes, Cleon was a perfect model of a low-born
demagogue; a noisy brawler, insolent in his gestures, corrupt and venal
in his principles. Much allowance must no doubt be made for comic
licence and exaggeration in this portrait, but even a caricature must
have some grounds of truth for its basis. It was this man who took the
lead in the debate respecting the disposal of the Mytileneans, and made
the savage and horrible proposal to put to death the whole male
population of Mytilene of military age, and to sell the women and
children into slavery. This motion he succeeded in carrying and a
trireme was immediately despatched to Mytilene, conveying orders to
Paches to carry the bloody decree into execution. This barbarous
decree made no discrimination between the innocent and the guilty; and
on the morrow so general a feeling prevailed of the horrible injustice
that had been committed, that the magistrates acceded to the prayer of
the Mytilenean envoys and called a fresh assembly. Notwithstanding the
violent opposition of Creon, the majority of the assembly reversed
their former decree and resolved that the Mytileneans already in
custody should be put upon their trial, but that the remainder of the
population should be spared. A seco