“Please don’t misunderstand me-I don’t say these things to be provocative. I raise my concerns because I believe the People deserve to know what the prospects for success really are. And so the question must be put to our strategist-in-chief: with the Lacedaemonians lounging unconcerned on the beach, and our treasury running low, and the autumn storms bearing down on our brave sailors, what provision has he made to bring the siege to a prompt end?”
Having said not one word more than he believed necessary, Cleon surrendered the wreath. And while there were some titters around the sanctum when he claimed not to seek an argument, it was an uncannily statesmanlike performance for a man of Cleon’s reputation.
Nicias, who was at the nearby house of a friend when his adversary had begun speaking, rushed back just in time to hear Cleon’s final question. One of his allies filled him in on the rest as he came forward, his back bent like an old tree tormented by the wind. When Nicias reached the platform he seemed more than usually loathe to speak. It was a reticence that had served him well over the years: though he was one of the wealthiest men in Athens, his defenders came from all strata of fortune and penury, many out of simple pity for the civic burdens he so obviously bore.
“Cleon is a speaker,” began Nicias. “I am not a speaker, but just a general. Perhaps Cleon will excuse me, then, for voicing an opinion on matters of my expertise during one of the rare moments when we are not enjoying his.”
Laughter. Cleon bit his lip.
“I know that it seems that this affair has gone on for a long time. This should not be a surprise, considering that certain voices have been proclaiming victory since the first hours of the siege. In any case, I need not remind this Assembly of the magnitude of our task, both to maintain a blockade on a distant island and to defend our position there, deep in enemy territory. Many minds have been concerned so far with how to accomplish this-minds far more subtle than mine, grappling with problems many of us cannot begin to fathom. Through their efforts, we stand today on the brink of the victory so loudly anticipated by some. It is something to savor on its own, the nearness of our victory! That we cannot yet make a final celebration is unfortunate, perhaps, but hardly an emergency.
“But now we hear the question posed, I suspect more in impatience than in disrespect, of what plans we have to subdue the enemy before autumn. With equal respect, then, allow my reply to be just as abrupt-there are many plans. Plans, after all, are cheap; they cost nothing, and have no consequences. They are as plentiful as pebbles on a beach. What is rare, though, is the wisdom to know which plan to use.
“Allow me to answer the esteemed Cleon with another question: how many Spartans are on the island today? Or to put it another way, how much force need we apply to defeat them, without leaving the fleet too weak to fight its way home? For surely, given our friend’s confident turn of rhetoric on this issue, he has the kind of deep strategical knowledge to allay the concerns of minds so much simpler than his! How many Spartans, Cleon? The People want to know.”
Nicias’s sarcasm, so uncharacteristic of him, struck the Assembly like a bolt of lightning, electrifying the left and deadening the tongues of everyone else. But in the midst of it all Cleon was calm, even amused. With his right hand, he patted the place on his chiton where he had tucked the dispatch. In the letter, his informant had described the final consequences of the fire: with Sphacteria denuded of most vegetation, the enemy was exposed to the Athenian lookouts on Koryphasion. There were precisely 582 Lacedaemonians on the island. Of those, no more than 420 were hoplites, and the rest shieldbearers. This was a lower number than anyone had supposed-and far too few to defend an island twenty stades long.
“Nicias asks a question,” Cleon replied. “Far be it for me to deny our distinguished friend an answer, fashioned in the same style with which he answered mine! He wonders how many Spartans occupy the island. I say this is a strange thing for a commander to ask a civilian! How many Spartans, Nicias? I tell you I have no idea-and I say further that the real problem lies not in my ignorance, but in yours! Why don’t you know, Nicias?”
Cleon had fallen into his signature mode now-his tone rising, his right hand pounding his thigh. The assemblymen looked at each other with anticipation; with any luck, Cleon would soon be running up and down the sanctum, voice in a shriek, excoriating citizens at random as if each of them was Nicias.
“What fun our commander makes of the basic good sense of the Athenians! While we all wonder why the Lacedaemonians are allowed to make fools of us month upon month, Nicias dares quibble over qualifications. As if only generals are permitted to take pride in the reputation of Athenian arms! As if honest citizens are not obliged to sniff out incompetence! Tell us, is this how little you think of us, Nicias? Tell us!”
A wave of sound, like one of the monstrous surges that pounded the coast after a storm at sea, rose from the back and broke over the front row where Nicias glowered.
“There have been a lot of questions posed today-questions that have gotten no good answers from either side. And so permit me to make not a question but a statement. I want to make a statement that is so simple, so self-evident, that even we, we unschooled Athenians, can understand it! Here it is…”
2.
If twenty thousand pairs of ears made a sound as they pricked to attention, Cleon heard it. After the requisite pause, he opened his arms wide in a gesture of indiscriminate, encompassing, yet self-aggrandizing love.
“Neither Nicias nor I know the strength of the enemy-but I say now that should not matter! What care had the men who fought at Marathon for troop counts, Nicias? Or the citizens who took the oars at Salamis? The verdict of this war, and the future of the Athenians, depend on either routing the Lacedaemonians or taking them to ransom. For that reason the task must be done despite the odds. It must be done despite the excuses of topography, bad supplies, or interference from the enemy ships. It must be done despite fears for our personal reputation if we fail! For the Athenians can accept defeat-they can understand and forgive, as they have the valiant Demosthenes, who lost so many in Aetolia. What they cannot forgive, though, is the failure even to come to grips with the task-to flit and skulk and delay while the chance for victory slips away!
“Do I have your attention, Nicias? If I do, I call on you to avail us of the talent you showed so well against the Megarians. The moment you present yourself at Pylos, and redouble your efforts against them, the Lacedaemonians will fall in no more than twenty days. That is my prediction-you will bear them home in chains in twenty days. For I have faith in you, Nicias, if you do not!”
Cleon came down with his fellow citizens reduced to silence before him. Men came to the Assembly to hear him speak for many reasons; in a body that could only function in an air of mind-numbing decorum, they came for Cleon’s histrionic excess, for his humor, for his talent of turning any debate, on any issue he chose, into an elemental struggle between light and darkness. He had often used the tactic of picking out one member of the opposition in the crowd, some specimen of his class, and blustering directly at him. But today another line had been crossed. Pericles, in a generation on the platform, rarely deigned to mention the name of any living man, let alone expose him to direct criticism. Cleon had dropped all such delicacy in his war against Nicias. A debate about policy had become, in his hands, a prosecution.