Plutarch tells a story that at Bactra, in 327 BC in a debate with Callisthenes, he advised all to worship Alexander as a god even during his lifetime, is with greater probability attributed to the Sicilian Cleon.

The sausage-seller makes some serious accusations in the first half of the debate: Cleon is indifferent to the war-time sufferings of ordinary people, he has used the war as an opportunity for corruption and he prolongs the war out of fear that he will be prosecuted when peace returns.

The first half of the debate at the Pnyx ( lines 756-835 ) features some serious accusations that are clearly aimed at Cleon.

It takes the form of a debate on the Pnyx between Cleon and the sausage-seller.

Reassuming the bold attitude he had taken at the start of the debate, Cleon proclaimed that, with the force he had been given, he would either kill or capture the Spartans within twenty days.

He is never called ' Cleon ' and he doesn't look like Cleon since the maskmakers refused to caricature him.

Both had personal conflicts with Cleon, and The Knights is a satirical, allegorical comedy that doesn't even mention Cleon by name.

Cleon says it doesn't matter, Skip killed the officer, a ex-Marine Black officer at that.

Pay was raised from 2 to 3 obols by Cleon early in the Peloponnesian war and there it stayed ; the original amount is not known.

Aristophanes however had singled Cleon out for special treatment in his previous play The Knights in 424 and there are relatively few references to him in The Clouds.

* Pylos: A bay in the Peloponnese, shut in by the island of Sphacteria, it is associated with Cleon's famous victory and there are many references to it in the play: as a cake that Cleon pinched from Demosthenes ( lines 57, 355, 1167 ); as a place where Cleon like a colossus has got one foot ( 76 ); as an oath by which Cleon swears ( 702 ); as the place where Cleon snatched victory from the Athenian generals ( 742 ); as the origin of captured Spartan shields ( 846 ); as an epithet of the goddess Athena ( 1172 ); and as an equivalent of the hare that Agoracritus stole from Cleon ( 1201 ).

Ironically, Cleon later perished in a military campaign to quell the revolt there.

Cleon offers Agoracritus a bribe of one talent not to mention the bribe of ten talents he is said to have taken from there ( line 438 ).

Since the loss of the war was largely blamed on democratic politicians such as Cleon and Cleophon, there was a brief reaction against democracy, aided by the Spartan army ( the rule of the Thirty Tyrants ).

* Thrace: A region of strategic significance in the Peloponnesian War, the Chorus mentions it in line 288 in relation to the impending trial of one of the ' traitors ' there ( possibly a reference to Thucydides, who had been prosecuted by Cleon the previous year after the Athenian defeat at Amphipolis.

Modern critics call the Greek playwright Aristophanes one of the best known early satirists: his plays are known for their critical political and societal commentary, particularly for the political satire by which he criticized the powerful Cleon ( as in The Knights ).

* 422 BC: The Spartans defeat the Athenians in the Battle of Amphipolis, where the Athenian Cleon and the Spartan Brasidas are both killed.

* 422 Cleon meets Brasidas outside of Amphipolis, both are killed ( Battle of Amphipolis )

* Following the failure of peace negotiations between Athens and Sparta, a number of Spartans stranded on the island of Sphacteria after the Battle of Pylos are attacked by an Athenian force under Cleon and Demosthenes.

Both Brasidas and Cleon are killed in the battle, thereby removing the key members of the pro-war factions on both sides.

The Knights is a satire on political and social life in 5th-century Athens, the characters are drawn from real life and Cleon is clearly intended to be the villain.

This summary features the real-world names Cleon, Nicias and Demosthenes ( though these names are never mentioned in the play ).

They advise us that even the mask-makers are afraid of Cleon and not one of them could be persuaded to make a caricature of him for this play.

Thereafter the sausage seller's accusations become increasingly absurd: Cleon is accused of waging a campaign against buggery in order to stifle opposition ( because all the best orators are buggers ) and he is said to have brought down the price of silphium so that jurors who bought it would suffocate each other with their flatulence.

* Cunna and Salabaccho: Two courtesans, they are considered by Cleon to be great examples of service to Athens ( line 765 ).

* Smicythes: An androgynous name like ' Kim ', it identifies a man whose interests are represented by a legal guardian ( as if he were a woman ) and who is therefore a tempting target for prosecution by Cleon ( line 969 ).

* Bakis: Another widely read prophet, his oracles are treasured by Cleon, stolen by Nicias, perused by Demosthenes between gulps of wine ( line 123 ) and later they are read to Demos by Cleon in opposition to the sausage-seller's reading of the oracles of his brother Glanis ( 104 ).

There is an allusion to her famous saying that Athens would ride the sea like a wine skin and never sink but the receptacle is misrepresented by Cleon as a pan-molgos ( 963 ). The oracle and her sanctuary are mentioned in a variety of contexts in other plays.

* Medes: An Asiatic people associated with the Persians, they are said by Cleon to be involved in the sausage-seller's cospiratorial comings and goings in the city at night ( line 478 ).

Rabanus states that Joseph of Arimathea was sent to Britain, and he goes on to detail who travelled with him as far as France, claiming that he was accompanied by " the two Bethany sisters, Mary and Martha, Lazarus ( who was raised from the dead ), St. Eutropius, St. Salome, St. Cleon, St. Saturnius, St. Mary Magdalen, Marcella ( the maid of the Bethany sisters ), St. Maxium or Maximin, St.

The wine bowl that the two slaves steal from the house is Chalcidian in design and Cleon subsequently accuses them of stealing it to provoke a Chalcidian revolt ( line 237 ).

* Cerberus: The watchdog of Hades, it is an oracular metaphor for Cleon ( line 1030 ) and it receives a mention in two other plays.

After the two generals who opposed peace, the Athenian Cleon and the Spartan Brasidas, were slain in battle, Nicias decided to seek peace between all the warring states.

It is therefore possible that Cleon has had injustice done to him in the portraits handed down by these two writers.

The Peloponnesian War and Aristophanes ' personal battle with the pro-war populist, Cleon, are the two most important issues that underlie the play.

Cleon and the Athenian jury system: About two years before the performance of The Wasps, Athens had obtained a significant victory against its rival, Sparta, in the Battle of Sphacteria.

After taking a pitch of two balls and one strike, Johnson hit a fly-ball out to left field which was caught by Cleon Jones .< ref name = uooohav >

Cleon and Vermin would found the Warriors, being the first two inaugural members.

Demosthenes directs them in the knights ' manoeuvres against Cleon during the parodos-a further clue that he represents the general ( lines 242-43 ).

At this point, Cleon and Demosthenes declined to push the attack further, preferring to take as many Spartans as they could prisoner.

The second parabasis in The Wasps implies that Cleon retaliated for his drubbing in The Knights with yet further efforts to intimidate or prosecute Aristophanes and it is possible that the poet publicly yielded to this pressure for a short time.