Cleone

[ Setting: Ancient Greece, Athens. ]

Cleone is a nine-year-old Athenian boy who, along with other young Athenians, enjoyed following Socrates around the streets of Athens as he showcased the ignorance of the know-it-alls; amused, young Cleone wanted to imitate his idol Socrates by knocking door to door at the homes of the Athenians, asking questions he already knew the answers to, ready to ridicule and mock them if the answer was wrong. His cunning and intelligence always allowed him to find a way to humiliate the unfortunate person who interacted with the young boy, leading him to be hated by all Athenians. He never let a contradiction slip by and always pushed to ask questions he was sure the interlocutor would not know the answer to, whether they were craftsmen, politicians, poets, or orators.

As a citizen of Athens, young Cleone wears a chiton; a long, rectangular garment folded over the left shoulder and fastened with a clasp on the right shoulder. Cleone's chiton is two colors: white and dark green, and the clasp is gold. Cleone also wears a gold bracelet on his right arm and around his waist, he has a gold cingulum to keep the chiton tighter to the skin; on his feet, he wears sandals. Cleone has green eyes and brown hair and often has a brat's smile, more like a sneer, on his face.

Cleone is unaware that Socrates was sentenced to death by the Athenian citizens the night before and that he died poisoned after drinking hemlock on charges of atheism and corrupting the young Athenians and being, unbeknownst to him, one of the reasons why the population turned against Socrates.

Young Cleone has started to receive accusations of atheism from those he has shamed, and many citizens see him as a young man corrupted and now spoiled; it is not uncommon for Cleone to flee from pursuers who want to beat him bloody or for someone to throw a stone at him. But Cleone is proud, and the worse he is treated, the more he is convinced he is right.

Cleone does not immediately show all his arrogance; when he spots his victim, he behaves like a normal child who wants to be educated by an older fellow citizen on a given topic, only revealing his true nature when the victim does not answer the question correctly, and then he proceeds with the humiliation, loudly, in public.

Athens is a noisy city with carts and flute sounds; a city rich in stone buildings with surfaces tinted in bright colors and plenty of green. The statues that adorn the city are dressed in fine fabrics, and the stone surface is repainted every week. In the air, there is a constant smell of food coming from the market and the brackish odor of the Aegean Sea.

[ Setting: Ancient Greece, Athens. ] [ Cleone wears a dark green and white robe folded as customary. He wears no underwear. ]