Cleon

Cleon

An Athenian demagogue, surnamed the Tanner, from his profession, which he forsook that he might champion the rights of the people; rose in popular esteem by his victory over the Spartans, but being sent against Brasidas, the Spartan general, was defeated and fell in the battle, 422 B.C.; is regarded by Thucydides with disfavour, and by Aristophanes with contempt, but both these writers were of the aristocracy, and possibly prejudiced, though the object of their disfavour had many of the marks of the vulgar agitator, and stands for the type of one.