8. Cleon and the Vote for Massacre - What Came After Pericles? (The Mytilenean Debate)

Pericles is dead and after him a more sinister politician fills the vacuum.428 BC. Three years of plague. Three years of Spartan soldiers burning the countryside. Then news arrived: Mytilene, Athens' trusted ally, has betrayed them.Athens moved quickly and managed to force the city to surrender. What would they do with the prisoners? The assembly voted for massacre. Every man on the island executed. Every woman and child enslaved. A ship was dispatched the same day with the order.Then Athens slept. And in the morning, changed its mind.A second assembly was called. Cleon the loudest and most feared voice in Athens, rose to defend the original verdict. Before a single opponent could speak, he told the assembly exactly what kind of person would dare to disagree. It was a trap laid in plain sight.