Then preserving the same tone, as of one who is exposing an outrageous paradox, Cleon proceeds to deal with the actual subject of debate. To massacre a whole population, was, in his view, a commonplace and ordinary proceeding; and, in the present instance, the only course consistent with prudence and common sense. Those who maintained the contrary were either flighty enthusiasts, whose opinion was not worth considering, or venal orators, who had sold their country for a bribe. "Will you suffer yourselves," asked the indignant moralist, "to be blinded by these corrupt advocates, who amuse you with their eloquence, and then pocket the price? But it is your own fault: you have no sense of public responsibility--you are like clever children, playing at a game of politics. While you sit here, listening to your favourite speakers, and sharpening your wits against theirs, your empire is going to ruin. Plain fact is too simple a diet for your pampered appetites; you must have it hashed and served up with a fine flavouring of fancy and wit. In short, you have lost all hold upon reality, you live in an intellectual Utopia, and treat grave matters of public interest as though they were mere themes in a school of declamation."
In drawing this remarkable picture of Athenian character, which, though strangely out of place, really contained a large element of truth, Cleon overreached himself, and was caught in his own snare. It was he, and not his opponents, who was diverting attention from facts, and involving a plain issue in a cloud of wordy rhetoric. He has no arguments, worthy of the name, but tries to carry his case by playing on the passions of the people, and blowing up the flames of their anger, which was beginning to cool. But though the more discerning among his audience must have seen through his sophistries, to a large proportion of his hearers his speech no doubt seemed a masterpiece of eloquence. The Athenians, who, like all people of lively talent, were fond of laughing at themselves, would be especially amused by his humorous description of their own besetting weakness, their restless vanity, and inordinate love of change.
The chief advocate for mitigating the sentence against Mytilene was a certain Diodotus, who had taken a leading part in the previous debate, and now stood up again to oppose the blood-thirsty counsels of Cleon. The speech of Diodotus is calm, sober, and business-like. After a dignified remonstrance against the vile insinuations of Cleon, by whom all who differed from him were decried as fools or knaves, Diodotus proceeded to argue the question from the point of view of expediency. He was not there, he said, to plead the cause of the Mytilenaeans, or to discuss abstract questions of law and justice. What they had to consider was what course would be most conducive to the interests of Athens. According to Cleon, those interests would be best served by a wholesale massacre of the inhabitants of Mytilene, which would strike terror into the other subjects of Athens, and prevent them from yielding to the same temptation. But, reasoned Diodotus, experience had shown that intending criminals were not deterred from wrongdoing by the increased severity of penal statutes. For a long time lawgivers had framed their codes in this belief, thinking to drive mankind into the path of rectitude by appealing to their terrors. Yet crime had not diminished, but rather increased. And what was true of individuals, was still more true of cities, where each man hoped to be concealed among the crowd of transgressors. Criminals, whether they acted singly, or in large numbers, were only rendered desperate, if all degrees of crime were confounded in one common penalty of death.