Cleon


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Cleon

died 422 bc, Athenian demagogue and military leader
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Cleon

Died 422 B.C. Greek political figure of antiquity, leader of the most radical wing of the Athenian slaveholding democrats. He came from the trade and craftsman strata of the demos (he owned a leather enterprise).

As a politician Cleon came to the fore in 430 B.C., heading the opposition to Pericles. After Pericles’ death in 429, he opposed Nicias, the leader of the moderate democratic group. He attained political predominance with policies that were popular among the radical democrats, including increasing the pay for jurors to three obols; introducing the eisphora (an extraordinary war tax levied on wealthy citizens); doubling the tax tribute levied on the allies; establishing cleruchy (colonies) on the lands of the allies (for example, on Lesbos); strengthening Athens’ role in the Delian League; and cruelly suppressing discontent among the allies (the reprisals againt Mytilene, which had revolted against Athens in 428). Cleon was the champion of military operations against Sparta and its allies, and he himself participated in the Peloponnesian War of 431–404 as a strategos. In 425, with Demosthenes, he seized the island of Sphacteria. In 422 he directed military operations against the Spartan general Brasidas in Thrace but was defeated and killed in battle before Amphipolis.

The classical authors who provide information on Cleon come from the camp of his political opponents.

S. S. SOLOV’EVA

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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