a good opinion of yourself? Come, are you of honest parentage?
SAUSAGE-SELLER. By the gods! No! of very bad indeed.
DEMOSTHENES. Spoilt child of fortune, everything fits together to ensure your greatness.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. But I have not had the least education. I can only read, and that very badly.
DEMOSTHENES. That is what may stand in your way, almost knowing how to read. The demagogues will neither have an educated nor an honest man; they require an ignoramus and a rogue. But do not, do not let go this gift, which the oracle promises.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. But what does the oracle say?
DEMOSTHENES. Faith! it is put together in very fine enigmatical style, as elegant as it is clear: "When the eagle-tanner with the hooked claws shall seize a stupid dragon, a blood-sucker, it will be an end to the hot Paphlagonian pickled garlic. The god grants great glory to the sausage-sellers unless they prefer to sell their wares."
SAUSAGE-SELLER. In what way does this concern me? Pray instruct my ignorance.
DEMOSTHENES. The eagle-tanner is the Paphlagonian.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. What do the hooked claws mean?
DEMOSTHENES. It means to say, that he robs and pillages us with his claw-like hands.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And the dragon?
DEMOSTHENES. That is quite clear. The dragon is long and so also is the sausage; the sausage like the dragon is a drinker of blood. Therefore the oracle says, that the dragon will triumph over the eagle-tanner, if he does not let himself be cajoled with words.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. The oracles of the gods summon me! Faith! I do not at all understand how I can be capable of governing the people.
DEMOSTHENES. Nothing simpler. Continue your trade. Mix and knead together all the state business as you do for your sausages. To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them. Besides, you possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, cross-grained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing. The oracles are in your favour, even including that of Delphi. Come, take a chaplet, offer a libation to the god of Stupidity27 and take care to fight vigorously.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Who will be my ally? for the rich fear the Paphlagonian and the poor shudder at the sight of him.
DEMOSTHENES. You will have a thousand brave Knights,28 who detest him, on your side; also the honest citizens amongst the spectators, those who are men of brave hearts, and finally myself and the god. Fear not, you will not see his features, for none have dared to make a mask resembling him. But the public have wit enough to recognize him.29
NICIAS. Oh! mercy! here is the Paphlagonian!
CLEON. By the twelve gods! Woe betide you, who have too long been conspiring against Demos. What means this Chalcidian cup? No doubt you are provoking the Chalcidians to revolt. You shall be killed, butchered, you brace of rogues.
DEMOSTHENES. What! are you for running away? Come, come, stand firm, bold Sausage-seller, do not betray us. To the rescue, oh! Knights. Now is the time. Simon, Panaetius,30 get you to the right wing; they are coming on; hold tight and return to the charge. I can see the dust of their horses' hoofs; they are galloping to our aid. Courage! Repel, attack them, put them to flight.
CHORUS. Strike, strike the villain, who has spread confusion amongst the ranks of the Knights, this public robber, this yawning gulf of plunder, this devouring Charybdis,31 this villain, this villain, this villain! I cannot say the word too often, for he is a villain a thousand times a day. Come, strike, drive, hurl him over and crush him to pieces; hate him as we hate him; stun him with your blows and your shouts. And beware lest he escape you; he knows the way Eucrates32 took straight to a bran sack for concealment.
CLEON. Oh! veteran Heliasts,33 brotherhood of the three obols,34 whom I fostered by bawling at random, help me; I am being beaten to death by rebels.
CHORUS. And 'tis justice; you devour the public funds that all should share in; you treat the officers answerable for the revenue like the fruit of the fig tree, squeezing them to find which are still green or more or less ripe; and, when you find one simple and timid, you force him to come from the Chersonese,35 then you seize him by the middle, throttle him by the neck, while you twist his shoulder back; he falls and you devour him.36 Besides, you know very well how to select from among the citizens those who are as meek as lambs, rich, without guile and loathers of lawsuits.
CLEON. Eh! what! Knights, are you helping them? But, if I am beaten, 'tis in your cause, for I was going to propose to erect you a statue in the city in memory of your bravery.
CHORUS. Oh! the impostor! the dull varlet! See! he treats us like old dotards and crawls at our feet to deceive us; but the cunning wherein lies his power shall this time recoil on himself; he trips up himself by resorting to such artifices.
CLEON. Oh Citizens! oh people! see how these brutes are bursting my belly.
CHORUS. What shouts! but 'tis this very bawling that incessantly upsets the city!
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I can shout too—and so loud that you will flee with fear.
CHORUS. If you shout louder than he does, I will strike up the triumphal hymn; if you surpass him in impudence, the cake is ours.
CLEON. I denounce this fellow; he has had tasty stews exported from Athens for the Spartan fleet.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I denounce him, who runs into the Prytaneum with empty belly and comes out with it full.
DEMOSTHENES. And by Zeus! he carries off bread, meat, and fish, which is forbidden. Pericles himself never had this right.
CLEON. You are travelling the right road to get killed.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I'll bawl three times as loud as you.
CLEON. I will deafen you with my yells.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I you with my bellowing.
CLEON. I shall calumniate you, if you become a Strategus.37
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Dog, I will lay your back open with the lash.
CLEON. I will make you drop your arrogance.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will baffle your machinations.
CLEON. Dare to look me in the face!
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I too was brought up in the market-place.
CLEON. I will cut you to shreds if you whisper a word.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will daub you with dung if you open your mouth.
CLEON. I own I am a thief; do you admit yourself another.
SAUSAGE-SELLER.
As though stupidity were an essential of good government.
The Athenian citizens were divided into four classes—the Pentacosiomedimni, who possessed five hundred minae; the Knights, who had three hundred and were obliged to maintain a charger (hence their name); the Zeugitae and the Thetes. In Athens, the Knights never had the high consideration and the share in the magistracy which they enjoyed at Rome.
It is said that Aristophanes played the part of Cleon himself, as no one dared to assume the role. (
They were two leaders of the knightly order.
The famous whirlpool, near Sicily.
Eucrates, the oakum-seller, already mentioned, when the object of a riot, took refuge in a mill and there hid himself in a sack of bran.
The chief Athenian tribunal only next in dignity to the Areopagus; it generally consisted of two hundred members; it tried civil cases of the greatest importance and some crimes beyond the competence of other courts, e.g. rape, adultery, extortion. The sittings were in the open air, hence the name ([Greek: _Elios], the sun).
The Heliasts' salary. (
Tributary to Athens; Olynthus and Potidaea were the chief towns of this important Peninsula.
Meaning he frightens him with the menace of judicial prosecution forces him to purchase silence.
The strategi were the heads of the military forces.
