Cleon

A re-evaluation of the political work of Cleon, the Athenian political leader during the first years of the Peloponnesian War. Contemporary writers like Thucydides or Aristophanes portrayed Cleon as a corrupt, venal demagogue and warmonger. This book, however, attempts to leave aside ideological and moral bias and reconstruct Cleon's historical context, allowing him to be considered in a more positive light: as a leader whose political goals hardly differed from Pericles'.