I
will play Cleon."
"Where is the great general, Cleon, now?"
"In a new campaign against Brasidas. When the commander Demosthenes
won the battle of Sphacteria, Cleon claimed the honour of the
victory and received a triumph. Then, since he regarded himself as a
great warrior, he marched against Brasidas. The pitcher goes so
often to the well...."
"Till it is broken," interrupted a new arrival. It was Alcibiades.
"Papaia!" he exclaimed, "Cleon is beaten! Cleon has fled! Now it is
my turn! Come to the Pnyx." And he went on.
"Very well--to the Pnyx," said Aristophanes, "and I will obtain
matter for a new comedy, to be called _Alcibiades_."
"You are right, perhaps," answered Lucillus. "The whole matter is
not worth weeping for. Therefore let us laugh!"
* * * * *
Alcibiades stood again on the orator's platform in the Pnyx. He felt
at home there, and he always had the ear of the people, for he was
not tedious. They all spoilt him, and his grotesque impudence had an
enlivening effect upon them.
Before the orator's platform, among others, was to be seen the wise,
rich, and aristocratic Nicias, who had always sought to mediate
between Sparta and Athens, but through his over-deliberation had
done more harm than good.
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