Cleophon was an Athenian politician and demagogue who was of great influence during the Peloponnesian War

Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases...

. He was a staunch democrat, and vehement opponent of the oligarchs; his sparring with Critias

Critias

Critias , born in Athens, son of Callaeschrus, was an uncle of Plato, and a leading member of the Thirty Tyrants, and one of the most violent. He was an associate of Socrates, a fact that did not endear Socrates to the Athenian public. He was noted in his day for his tragedies, elegies and prose...

 rated a mention in Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

's Rhetoric

Rhetoric (Aristotle)

Aristotle's Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion, dating from the 4th century BC. In Greek, it is titled ΤΕΧΝΗ ΡΗΤΟΡΙΚΗ, in Latin Ars Rhetorica. In English, its title varies: typically it is titled Rhetoric, the Art of Rhetoric, or a Treatise on...

.

On three separate occasions, he inspired the citizens of Athens to reject the Spartans' attempts to make peace; once after the Athenian victory at Cyzicus

Cyzicus

Cyzicus was an ancient town of Mysia in Anatolia in the current Balıkesir Province of Turkey. It was located on the shoreward side of the present Kapıdağ Peninsula , a tombolo which is said to have originally been an island in the Sea of Marmara only to be connected to the mainland in historic...

 (410 BC), again after the Athenian victory at Arginusae (406 BC), and once again after the decisive Spartan naval victory at Aegospotami

Aegospotami

Aegospotami or Aegospotamos is a small river issuing into the Hellespont, northeast of Sestos. At its mouth was the scene of the decisive battle in 405 B.C...

 (405 BC). During Lysander's

Lysander

Lysander was a Spartan general who commanded the Spartan fleet in the Hellespont which defeated the Athenians at Aegospotami in 405 BC...

 ensuing siege, the tide of opinion turned against the democrats, and the oligarchs used the opportunity to rid themselves of their rival. One of their members, Satyrus

Satyrus

Satyrus may refer to:* Satyrus , a legendary creature* Satyrus , a genus of butterflies* Simia satyrus, the original scientific classification of the orangutan* Satyrus, one of three Short Kent aircraft that were builtPeople...

, brought a charge against Cleophon of neglect of military duty, leading to his arrest. Since it was by no means certain that Cleophon could be convicted of this, the commissioner for the publication of the Athenian laws, Nicomachus

Nicomachus

Nicomachus was an important mathematician in the ancient world and is best known for his works Introduction to Arithmetic and Manual of Harmonics in Greek. He was born in Gerasa, in the Roman province of Syria , and was strongly influenced by Aristotle...

, was persuaded by bribery or partisanship to exhibit a "law" allowing the oligarch-dominated Boule to oversee Cleophon's trial by lot-chosen jury. The oligarchs used this assessorship over the jurors to ensure the conviction of Cleophon and his death sentence.

Cleophon was made the object of satire by the comic poet Plato

Plato (comic poet)

Plato was an Athenian comic poet and contemporary of Aristophanes. None of his plays survive intact, but the titles of thirty of them are known, including a Hyperbolus , Victories , Cleophon , and Phaon . The titles suggest that his themes were often political...

 in an eponymous play (now lost), and by Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

, a famous Greek playwright in The Frogs

The Frogs

The Frogs is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus, in 405 BC, and received first place.-Plot:...

. Both made fun of Cleophon's Thracian

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

 origins and accent (since his father is known to have been an Athenian citizen, his mother is conjectured to have been Thracian) and Plato of his low Athenian birth (Andocides

Andocides

Andocides or Andokides was a logographer in Ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the third century BCE.He was implicated during the Peloponnesian War in the mutilation of the...

 says that Cleophon was a harp

Lyre

The lyre is a stringed musical instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later. The word comes from the Greek "λύρα" and the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists", written in Linear B syllabic script...

-maker by trade, and Aelian

Aelian

Aelian or Aelianus may refer to:* Aelianus Tacticus, Greek military writer of the 2nd century, who lived in Rome* Casperius Aelianus, Praetorian Prefect, executed by Trajan...

comments on the poverty of his early life).