Before long, so strict was the blockade, food began to run short in the hapless island, and the Spartans failed to send the help they had promised. But when the citizens were desperate with hunger, a messenger from Sparta reached the town. He had passed the Athenian army unnoticed and had entered Mytilene, to the delight of the starving people. When he assured them that ships laden with corn were on the way and would reach them soon, their joy was unbounded. Day after day, week after week passed, but the Spartan ships did not come, and hope began to die out of the hearts of the Mytileneans. It was plain that they must either surrender or starve to death; so they determined to surrender. They sent for Paches, and agreed to give up the city, and to leave their fate to be decided by the Athenian assembly. In the meantime about one thousand of the inhabitants were sent as prisoners to Athens. The Athenians had been bitterly angry with the Mytileneans for revolting when their hands were already full with war at home and with the misery caused by the plague. They were in no mood now to deal mercifully with them. Cleon, a leather-merchant, who by his own efforts had risen to a high position in the State, roused the temper of the people by his rough and noisy eloquence, and Pericles was no longer alive to restrain it, as he had so often done, by his wiser, calmer speech. When the assembly met, it was Cleon who proposed that all those able to bear arms should be put to death, and that the women and children should be sold as slaves. In its angry mood the assembly voted as Cleon wished. No sooner was the sentence of death passed, than a ship was despatched to the island to bid Paches, the Athenian general, carry out the terrible decision of the assembly. But a little later, when the assembly broke up and escaped from the influence of Cleon’s eloquence, the members began to be ashamed of their cold-blooded sentence. Ambassadors from Mytilene had come to Athens to plead the cause of their people. When they saw that the Athenians were uneasy, they persuaded them to call another meeting of the assembly the following morning, to reconsider the sentence that they had passed. Cleon had felt no regret at the fate of the rebels, and he was indignant that the assembly should dream of revoking its decree. When it met on the following day he spoke even more vehemently than before, urging the members to see that the sentence was carried out. But Diodotus, a noble Athenian, whose name has never been forgotten, spoke as well as Cleon. So wise were his words that those who had already wished to alter the sentence for pity’s sake, were now sure that wisdom also demanded that the Mytileneans should be spared. Diodotus won the day, for Cleon was defeated by a small majority.