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- Demus.—A personification of the Athenian people, the John Bull of Athens, a testy selfish suspicious old man, a tyrant to his slaves, with the exception of one (a new acquisition), the Paphlagonian—Cleon, by whom he is cajoled and governed.
- Nicias and Demosthenes The two most fortunate and able generals of the republic, of very opposite characters; the one cautious and superstitious in the extreme; the other a blunt, hearty, resolute, jolly fellow, a very decided lover of good wine. These two, the servants of the public, are naturally introduced as the slaves of Demus. After complaining of the ill-treatment, to which they are subject in consequence of their master's partiality to his newly purchased slave the Paphlagonian, they determine to supplant him, which they effect in conformity to the directions of a secret Oracle, in which they find it predicted that the Tanner (i. e. Cleon the Paphlagonian) shall be superseded by a person of meaner occupation and lower character.
- Cleon.—The Tanner, (as he is called from his property consisting in a leather manufactory) or the Paphlagonian (a nickname applied in ridicule of his mode of speaking from the word paphlazo to foam) has been already described. He is represented as a fawning obsequious slave, insolent and arrogant to all except his master, the terror of his fellow-servants.
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A Sausage Seller (whose name Agoracritus “so called from the Agora where I got my living,” is not declared till towards the conclusion of the play) is the person announced by the Oracle, as ordained by fate, to baffle the Paphlagonian, and to supersede him in the favor of his master.—His breeding and education are described as having been similar to that of the younger Mr Weller, in that admirable and most unvulgar exhibition of vulgar life, the Pickwick Papers.—Finally, after a long struggle, his undaunted vulgarity and superior dexterity are
crowned with deserved success. He supplants the Paphlagonian, and is installed in the supreme direction of the old gentleman's affairs.v
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
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