Emotional Appeals in the Mytilenean Debate

Thucydides’ Mytilenean debate has often been read as a study in opposites, and one of the standard oppositions seen in it is that between reason and passion. This article seeks to show that Cleon’s and Diodotus’ speeches are more similar than different, and that both contain implicit emotional appeals cloaked in the guise of reason. Both men presume that a certain kind of emotional education is necessary to the functioning of democracy, and both attempt to provide it. Aristotle’s Rhetoric provides a key to looking at reason and passion not as polar opposites but as two integral parts of decision-making.