Listed 10 sub titles with search on: Biographies for wider area of: "LAKIA Ancient demos ATHENS" .
Miltiades, a name borne by at least three of the family of the Cimonidae. The
family sprang from Aegina, and traced their descent to Aeacus. In the genealogy
of the family given in the life of Thucydides which bears the name of Marcellinus,
mention is made of a Miltiades, son of Tisander; but it is very questionable whether
even the text is correct.
Miltiades, the son of Cypselus, who was a man of considerable distinction in Athens
in the time of Peisistratus. The Doloncians, a Thracian tribe dwelling in the
Chersonesus, being hard pressed in war by the Absinthians, applied to the Delphic
oracle for advice, and were directed to admit a colony led by the man who should
be the first to entertain them after they left the temple. This was Miltiades,
who, eager to escape from the rule of Peisistratus, gladly took the lead of a
colony under the sanction of the oracle, and became tyrant of the Chersonese,
which he fortified by a wall built across its isthmus. In a war with the people
of Lampsacus he was taken prisoner, but was set at liberty on the demand of Croesus.
He died without leaving any children, and his sovereignty passed into the hands
of Stesagoras, the son of his half-brother Cimon. Sacrifices and games were instituted
in his honour, in which no Lampsacene was suffered to take part (Herod. vi. 34,
38, 103, 36--38). Both Cornelius Nepos (Milt. i. ]) and Pausanias (vi. 19.6) confound
this Miltiades with the Great (II).
Miltiades. He was a man of considerable distinction in Athens in the time of Pisistratus. The Doloncians, a Thracian tribe dwelling in the Chersonesus, being hard pressed in war by the Absinthians, applied to the Delphic oracle for advice, and were directed to admit a colony led by the man who should be the first to entertain them after they left the temple. This was Miltiades, who, eager to escape from the rule of Pisistratus, gladly took the lead of a colony under the sanction of the oracle, and became tyrant of the Chersonesus, which he fortified by a wall built across its isthmus. In a war with the people of Lampsacus he was taken prisoner, but was set at liberty on the demand of Croesus. He died without leaving any children, and his sovereignty passed into the hands of Stesagoras, the son of his half-brother Cimon. Sacrifices and games were instituted in his honour, in which no Lampsacene was suffered to take part.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Miltiades. The son of Cimon (I) and brother of Stesagoras. He became tyrant of the Chersonesus on the death of the latter, being sent out by Pisistratus from Athens to take possession of the vacant inheritance. By a stratagem he got the chief men of the Chersonesus into his power and threw them into prison, and took a force of mercenaries into his pay. In order to strengthen his position still more, he married Hegesipyle, the daughter of a Thracian prince named Olorus. He joined Darius Hystaspis on his expedition against the Scythians, and was left with the other Greeks in charge of the bridge over the Danube. When the appointed time had expired, and Darius had not returned, Miltiades recommended the Greeks to destroy the bridge and leave Darius to his fate. Some time after the expedition of Darius, an inroad of the Scythians drove Miltiades from his possessions; but after the enemy had retired the Doloncians brought him back. It appears to have been between this period and his withdrawal to Athens, that Miltiades conquered and expelled the Pelasgian inhabitants of Lemnos and Imbros and subjected the islands to the dominion of Attica. Lemnos and Imbros belonged to the Persian dominions; and it is probable that this encroachment on the Persian possessions was the cause which drew upon Miltiades the hostility of Darius, and led him to fly from the Chersonesus, when the Phoenician fleet approached, after the subjugation of Ionia. Miltiades reached Athens in safety, but his eldest son Metiochus fell into the hands of the Persians. At Athens Miltiades was arraigned, as being amenable to the pen Miltiades. alties enacted against tyranny, but was acquitted. When Attica was threatened with invasion by the Persians under Datis and Artaphernes, Miltiades was chosen one of the ten generals. Miltiades by his arguments induced the polemarch Callimachus to give the casting vote in favour of risking a battle with the enemy, the opinions of the ten generals being equally divided. Miltiades waited till his turn came, and then drew his army up in battle array on the ever-memorable field of Marathon. After the defeat of the Persians, Miltiades endeavoured to urge the Athenians to measures of retaliation, and induced them to intrust to him an armament of seventy ships, without knowing the purpose for which they were designed. He proceeded to attack the island of Paros, for the purpose of gratifying a private enmity. His attacks, however, were unsuccessful; and after receiving a dangerous hurt in the leg, while penetrating into a sacred enclosure on some superstitious errand, he was compelled to raise the siege and return to Athens, where he was impeached by Xanthippus for having deceived the people. His wound had turned into a gangrene, and, being unable to plead his cause in person, he was brought into court on a couch, his brother Tisagoras conducting his defence for him. He was condemned; but on the ground of his services to the State the penalty was commuted to a fine of fifty talents, the cost of the equipment of the armament. Being unable to pay this, he was thrown into prison, where he not long after died of his wound. The fine was subsequently paid by his son Cimon.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Miltiades Kimonos
(c. 550-489 B.C.) Miltiades, noted general and victor of the Battle of Marathon
(490), was the son of Cimon I. He was a member of Athens' rich and powerful Philaidai
family. The family acquired interests in the Chersonese when the elder Miltiades,
a second cousin of Miltiades Kimonos was invited there by the Dolonci to fortify
a settlement for their protection. Miltiades' son, Cimon II, was an Athenian statesman
and general of the first half of the fifth century.
Biography
Although Miltiades' father had been murdered by Hippias and Hipparchus,
sons of Pisistratus (Hdt. 6.103), he was treated well by Hippias, who gave him
his daughter in marriage. Hippias then sent Miltiades from Athens c. 524 to the
Chersonese to take possession of the family's inheritance, left vacant upon the
death of his brother, the younger Stesagoras. There, while continuing a policy
of Athenian hegemony, Miltiades acted as virtual tyrant, arresting all of the
leading men in the town upon his arrival and hiring a bodyguard of mercenary forces
(Hdt. 6.39).
In c. 516 King Darius of Persia invaded Scythia, taking with him several
Greeks, including Miltiades. At the river Danube, Darius left the Greeks to guard
the bridge which they had constructed for sixty days, and he led the Persian army
into Scythia (Hdt. 6.97.2-98.3). The King decided to return, since the expedition
did not produce a major engagement. The Scythians pursued him by an alternate
route and reached the Danube first. By this time the sixty days had passed, and
the Scythians asked the Ionians to break up the bridge. Miltiades is said to have
argued for the destruction of the bridge, but the Greeks were won over by Histiaeus
of Miletus, and the bridge was left intact (Hdt. 4.136.2-138.2), thus allowing
Darius to return safely to Persia.
A problem with the Herodotean account is that Miltiades would not
have been spared his life had he actually urged betrayal of the Persians. Again,
it may be that a punitive expedition of the Scythians into the Chersonese soon
afterwards resulting in Miltiades' flight from there was attributable to Darius'
wrath (Hdt. 6.40). Miltiades was brought back to the Chersonese by its inhabitants
sometime before 499 (Hdt. 6.40.2).
Perhaps during this period Miltiades divorced the daughter of Hippias, who had become a political liability with that tyrant's fall in 510, and married the Thracian princess, Hegesipyle, daughter of Olorus; she was the mother of Cimon. At about this time Miltiades took the strategically important island of Lemnos, part of the Persian dominions in Ionia, and gave it to the Athenians (Hdt. 6.136.2). He possibly took the island of Imbros at the same time, for he found safe haven there in the aftermath of the Ionian Revolt in 493 when the Phoenician fleet approached the Chersonese (Hdt. 6.104.1). Miltiades escaped to Athens with four ships, but a fifth ship containing his older son Metiochos was captured by the Persians (Hdt. 6.41).
Upon his return to Athens, Miltiades was put on trial for tyranny
in the Chersonese and acquitted (Hdt. 6.104.2). Historians build a case for an
alliance between Miltiades and Themistocles based on an anti-Persian stance the
two may have held in common. One scenario holds it possible that Themistocles
was Miltiades' judge, and that he biased the trial in Miltiades' favor. Between
this trial and the Battle of Marathon he is mentioned only by Pausanias, who says
that he had a herald of Darius killed (Paus. 3.12.7), perhaps in order that the
Persian king be angry with all of Athens as well as Miltiades himself.
Darius was determined to punish the Athenians and the Eretrians for
their part in the Ionian Revolt. In 490 his commanders Datis and Artaphernes sacked
Eretria after a seven-day siege and led its inhabitants into captivity. The Persian
fleet then made for the Bay of Marathon, on the east coast of Attica. At the time
of the invasion Miltiades was serving as one of the ten generals of Athens (Hdt.
6.104). The Athenians made the crucial decision to send out a force to oppose
the Persians; they were joined by a contingent of Plataeans. The board of generals,
which operated by concensus, was deadlocked whether or not to fight. There was
an eleventh vote, however, that of the Polemarch, Callimachus of Aphidnae. Herodotus
attributes to Miltiades a speech in which he persuades the Polemarch to cast his
vote to fight, thereby turning the majority in favor of Miltiades' opinion (Hdt.
6.109).
Two issues are whether Callimachus and not Miltiades was actually
in charge on the day of the battle, and if Miltiades, exactly how the command
passed him. Herodotus says simply that each of the generals voting to fight resigned
his presidency of the board in favor of Miltiades, who "accepted the office
but did not make an attack until it was his own day to preside (Hdt. 6.110)".
On August 12, 490 the ten thousand or so Athenians and Plataeans, outnumbered
perhaps ten to one, advanced at a run against the Persians (Hdt. 6.112.1). In
an attempt to cover the entire Persian front, the Athenians drew up in a line
across the plain. This line was thin in the middle and deeper on each end. The
Persians broke though the middle, but the Athenians and Plataeans routed the Persians
on the flanks. Then, in a pincer movement, the Athenians turned their wings to
crush the Persians who had broken through the center (Hdt. 6.110-115). The Persians,
having lost 6800 men, withdrew to the fleet. Of the Athenians, 192 fell.
After the battle of Marathon, Miltiades was greatly esteemed in Athens.
Consequently, he was able to convince the Athenians to send an expedition to take
the island of Paros on the "pretext" (Herodotus' word) that "the Parians
had brought this on themselves by first sending triremes with the Persian fleet
to Marathon". The historian goes on to allege that the real reason for the
expedition was a grudge Miltiades held against a certain Parian, Lysagoras son
of Tisias (Hdt. 6.133). He besieged the city for 23 days, but received an injury
in the leg (Hdt. 6.134) and was forced to return Athens without taking the island.
Upon his return charges were leveled against Miltiades that the Parian
expedition had been an attempt to defraud the public. He was prosecuted by Xanthippus
son of Ariphron, who called for the death penalty (Hdt. 6.136.1); it is probable
that this Xanthippus was the father of Pericles. Miltiades, weak from his wound
and unable to defend himself, lay on a couch as his friends conducted his defence.
The people found him guilty, but did not sentence him to death. Miltiades was
fined 50 talents of silver, but died-in prison according to legend (Nepos, Milt.
8)-in 489 before he could pay the fine, which his son Cimon paid for him.
Frederick Sher, ed.
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Cimon. The son of Miltiades and of Hegesipyle, the daughter of Olorus,
a Thracian prince. His education, according to Plutarch, was very much neglected,
and he himself indulged, at first, in every species of excess. At his father's
death he seems to have succeeded to a very scanty fortune, and he would perhaps
have found it very difficult to pay the fine of fity talents which had been imposed
upon his parent, and which the son was bound to pay to the public treasury, had
not Callias, one of the wealthiest men of Athens, struck by the charms of his
half-sister Elpinice, undertaken to discharge the sum as the price of her hand.
Cimon, however, had attracted notice and gained reputation by the spirit which
he displayed on the occasion of leaving the city on the approach of the Persians,
when he was the foremost to hang up a bridle in the Acropolis, as a sign that
he placed all his hopes in the fleet; and also by the valour with which he fought
at Salamis. Aristides, in particular, saw in him a fit coadjutor to himself and
antagonist to Themistocles, and exerted himself in his favour; and the readiness
with which the allied Greeks, when disgusted by the arrogance of Pausanias, united
themselves with Athens, was owing in a great measure to Cimon's mild temper and
to his frank and gentle manners. The popularity of Themistocles was already declining,
while Cimon, by a series of successful enterprises, was rapidly rising in public
favour. He defeated the Persians in Thrace, on the banks of the Strymon, took
Eion, and made himself master of the whole country. He conquered the island of
Scyros, the inhabitants of which were addicted to piracy; and brought thence to
Athens what were deemed the bones of the national hero Theseus. He next subdued
all the cities on the coast of Asia Minor, and went against the Persian fleet
which lay at the mouth of the Eurymedon. The Persians, although superior in number,
did not dare to abide an engagement, but sailed up the river to place themselves
under the protection of their land forces. Cimon, however, provoked them to a
battle, and, having defeated and sunk or taken two hundred ships, landed his men,
flushed with victory, and completely routed the Persian army. Returning to Athens
after these two victories thus achieved in a single day, he employed the perquisites
of his command, and the resources which he had acquired from his successes over
the barbarians, in the embellishment of his native city and in relieving the wants
of the indigent. He laid a part of the foundations of the Long Walls with magnificent
solidity at his own cost, and the southern wall of the citadel was built with
the treasures which he brought from Asia into the coffers of the State. He also
set the example of adorning the public places of the city with trees; and, by
introducing a stream of water, converted the Academy, a spot about two miles north
of the city, from an arid waste into a delightful grove. He threw down the fences
of his fields and orchards, that all who wished might enter and partake of their
fruits. He not only gave the usual entertainments expected from the rich to the
members of his own borough, but kept a table constantly open for them. He never
appeared in public without a number of persons attending him in good apparel,
who, when they met with any elderly citizen scantily clothed, would insist on
exchanging their warm mantles for his threadbare covering. It was the office of
the same persons respectfully to approach any of the poorer citizens of good character
whom they might see standing in the market-place, and silently to put some small
pieces of money into their hands. This latter kind of expenditure was certainly
of a mischievous tendency; and was not the less that of a demagogue because Cimon
sought popularity not merely for his own sake, but for that of his order and his
party.
About B.C. 466, Cimon was sent to the Thracian Chersonesus,
of which the Persians still kept possession, and having driven them out, next
reduced the island of Thasus, and took possession of the Thasian gold mines on
the neighbouring continent. Scarcely, however, had he returned to Attica, when
an accusation was preferred against him of having been corrupted by the king of
Macedonia, because he had refrained, not, according to the common account, from
attacking the Macedonians then at peace with Athens, but from striking a blow
at the Thracian tribes on the frontier of that kingdom, who had recently cut off
the Athenian settlers on the banks of the Strymon. From this accusation Cimon
had a very narrow escape. Having been sent, however, after this, with a body of
troops to aid the Spartans before Ithome, and the latter having, after some interval,
sent back their Athenian allies, whom they suspected of not lending them any effectual
assistance, the irritation produced by this national insult fell principally upon
Cimon, who was known to be an admirer of the Spartan character and constitution,
and he was accordingly driven into exile. Subsequent events, however, made the
Athenians feel the want of this able commander, and he was recalled and sent on
an expedition against Egypt and Cyprus; but was carried off by illness, or the
consequences of a wound, in the harbour of Citium, which place he was besieging
(B.C. 449). His spirit, however, still animated his countrymen; for the fleet,
when sailing home with his remains, gained a naval victory over a large squadron
of Phoenician and Cilician galleys near the Cyprian Salamis, and followed up this
victory by another which they gained on shore, either over the troops which had
landed from the enemy's ships, or over a land force by which they were supported.
Cimon was, beyond dispute, the ablest and most successful general
of his day; and his victories shed a lustre on the arms of Athens which almost
dimmed the glories of Marathon and Salamis.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Cimon. Grandson of the preceding, and son of the great Miltiades, is mentioned
in Herodotus as paying his father's fine and capturing Eion (vi. 136, vii. 107).
This latter event, the battle of Eurymedon, the expedition in aid of Sparta, and
his death in Cyprus, are the only occasions in which he is expressly named by
his relation, Thucydides; whose summary, moreover, of the history of this period
leaves us by its briefness necessarily dependent for much on the additional authorities,
which form the somewhat heterogeneous basis of Plutarch's biography. We find here
the valuable contemporary recollections of Ion of Chios, and the almost worthless
contemporary gossip and scandal of the Thasian Stesimbrotus: some little also
from the poets of the time, Cratinus, Melanthius, and Archelaus. He seems to have
followed Thucydides, though not very strictly, as a guide in general, while he
filled up the details from the later historians, perhaps from Theopompus more
than from Ephorus, whose account, as followed probably by Diodorus (xi. 60), differs
materially. He appears to have also used Callisthenes, Cratinus, Phanodemus, Diodorus
Periegetes, Gorgias, and Nausicrates; Aristotle, Eupolis, Aristophanes, and Critias.
On the death of Miltiades, probably in B. C. 489, Cimon, we are told
by Diodorus (Excerpta.), in order to obtain the corpse for burial, took his father's
place in prison till his fine of 50 talents should be paid. It appears, however,
certain (see Dem. c. Androt.) that the atimia, if not the imprisonment, of the
public debtor was legally inherited by the son, and Cornelius Nepos, whose life
comes in many parts from Theopompus, states the confinement to have been compulsory.
The fine was eventually paid by Callias on his marriage with Elpinice,
Cimon's sister. A more difficult point is the previous connexion and even marriage
of Cimon with this sister or half-sister, which was recorded by numerous writers,
but after all was very probably the scandal of Stesimbrotus and the comedians
(Eupolis, ap. Plut. Cim. 15, comp. 4; Nepos, Cim. 1; Athen. xiii). Nor, again,
can we very much rely on the statement which Plutarch introduces at this time,
that he and Themistocles vied with each other at the Olympian games in the splendour
of their equipments and banquets (Plut. Themist. 5). It is more credible that
his first occasion of attracting notice and admiration was the forwardness with
which, when the city in B. C. 480 was to be deserted, he led up to the citadel
a company of young men to offer to the goddess their now unserviceable bridles
(Plut. Cim. 5). After the battle of Plataea, Aristeides brought him forward. They
were placed together in 477 at the head of the Athenian contingent to the Greek
armament, under the supreme command of Pausanias. Cimon shared the glory of transferring
that supremacy to Athens, and in the first employment of it reduced the Persian
garrison at Eion, and opened the important district in the neighbourhood for Athenian
colonization (Plut. Cim. 6; Herod. vii. 107; Thuc. i. 98; Nepos, Cim. 2; Schol.
ad Aesch. de Fals. Leg.). In honour of this conquest he received from his countrymen
the distinction, at that time unprecedented, of having three busts of Hermes erected,
inscribed with triumphal verses, but without mention of the names of the generals
(Plut. Cim. 6; Aesch. c. Ctesiph.). In 476, apparently under his conduct, the
piratical Dolopians were expelled from Scyros, and a colony planted in their room;
and the remains of Theseus discovered there, were thence transported, probably
after some years' interval (B. C. 468) with great pomp to Athens (Plut. Cim. 8;
Paus. i. 17.6, iii. 3.6).
The reduction of Carystus and Naxos was, most likely, effected under
his command (Thuc. i. 98); and at this period he was doubtless in war and politics
his country's chief citizen. His coadjutor at home would be Aristeides; how far
he contributed to the banishment of Themistocles may be doubtful (Comp. Plut.
Arist. 25, Them. 24). The year B. C. 466 saw the completion of his glory. In the
command of the allied forces on the Asiatic coast he met a Persian fleet of 350
ships, attacked them, captured 200, and following the fugitives to the shore,
by the river Eurymedon, in a second and obstinate engagement on the same day,
routed the land armament; indeed, according to Plutarch, he crowned his victory
before night by the defeat of a reinforcement of 80 Phoenician ships (Plut. Cim.
12; Thuc. i. 100; Diod. xi. 60). His next achievement was the expulsion of the
Persians from the Chersonese, and the subjection of the territory to Athens, accompanied
perhaps with the recovery of his own patrimony. The effect of these victories
was doubtless very great; they crushed perhaps a last aggressive movement, and
fixed Persia finally in a defensive position. In later times it was believed,
though on evidence, as was shewn by Callisthenes, quite insufficient, that they
had been succeeded by a treaty (the famous peace of Cimon) negotiated through
Callias, and containing in its alleged conditions the most humiliating concessions.
They placed Cimon at the height of his power and glory, the chief of that empire
which his character had gained for Athens, and which his policy towards the allies
was rendering daily firmer and completer. Themistocles, a banished man, may perhaps
have witnessed his Asiatic triumphs in sorrow; the death of Aristeides had left
him sole possessor of the influence they had hitherto jointly exercised: nor had
time yet matured the opposition of Pericles (Plut. Cim. 13, 14). Still the loss
of the old friend and the rapidly increasing influence of the new opponent rendered
his position precarious.
The chronology of the events that follow is henceforth in most points
disputed; according to Clinton's view, which cannot hastily be deserted, the revolt
of Thasos took place in 465; in 463 Cimon reduced it; in the year intervening
occurred the earthquake and insurrection at Sparta, and in consequence, upon Cimon's
urgent appeal, one if not two (Plut. Cim. 16; comp. Aristoph. Lysistr. 1137) expeditions
were sent from Athens, under his command, to assist the Spartans. In these occurrences
were found the means for his humiliation. During the siege of Thasos, the Athenian
colonists on the Strymon were cut off by the Thracians, and Cimon seems to have
been expected, after his victory there, to retrieve this disaster: and, neglecting
to do so, he was on his return brought to trial; but the accusation of having
taken bribes from Alexander of Macedon, was, by Pericles at any rate, not strongly
urged, and the result was an acquittal. The termination of his Lacedaemonian policy
in the jealous and insulting dismissal of their Athenian auxiliaries by the Spartans,
and the consequent rupture between the two states was a more serious blow to his
popularity. And the victory of his opponents was decided when Ephialtes and Pericles,
after a severe struggle, carried their measure for reducing the authority of the
aristocratic Areiopagus. Upon this it would seem his ostracism ensued. Soon after
its commencement (B. C. 457) a Lacedaemonian army, probably to meet the views
of a violent section of the defeated party in Athens, posted itself at Tanagra.
The Athenians advanced to meet it: Cimon requested permission to fight in his
place; the generals in suspicion refused: he departed, begging his own friends
to vindicate his character: they, in number a hundred, placed in the ensuing battle
his panoply among them, and fell around it to the last man. Before five years
of his exile were fully out, B. C. 453 or 454, he was recalled on the motion of
Pericles himself; late reverses having inclined the people to tranquillity in
Greece, and the democratic leaders perhaps being ready, in fear of more unscrupulous
opponents, to make concessions to those of them who were patriotic and temperate.
He was probably employed in effecting the five years' truce with Sparta which
commenced in 450. In the next year he sailed out with 200 ships to Cyprus, with
the view of retrieving the late mishaps in Egypt. Here, while besieging Citium,
illness or the effects of a wound carried him off. His forces, while sailing away
with his remains, as if animated by his spirit, fell in with and defeated a fleet
of Phoenician and Cilician galleys, and added to their naval victory a second
over forces on shore (Plut. Cim. 14--19; Thuc. i. 112; Diod. xi. 64, 86, xii.
3, 4; Theopomp. ap. Ephori fragm.).
Cimon's character (see Plut. Cim. 4, 5, 9, 1 0, 16, Peric. 5) is marked
by his policy. Exerting himself to aggrandize Athens, and to centralize in her
the power of the naval confederacy, he still looked mainly to the humiliation
of the common enemy, Persia, and had no jealous feeling towards his country's
rivals at home. lie was always an admirer of Sparta: his words to the people when
urging the succours in the revolt of the Helots were, as recorded by Ion (Plut.
Cim. 16) "not to suffer Greece to be lamed, and Athens to lose its yoke-fellow".
He is described himself to have had something of the Spartan character, being
deficient in the Athenian points of readiness and quick discernment. He was of
a cheerful, convivial temper, free and indulgent perhaps rather than excessive
in his pleasures (philopotes kai ameles Eupolis, ap. Plut. Cim. 15), delighting
in achievement for its own sake rather than from ambition. His frankness, affability,
and mildness, won over the allies from Pausanias; and at home, when the recovery
of his patrimony or his share of spoils had made him rich, his liberality and
munificence were unbounded. His orchards and gardens were thrown open; his fellow
demesmen (Aristot. ap. Plut. Cim. 10; comp. Cic. de Off. ii. 18 and Theopomp.
ap. Athen. xii. 533) were free daily to his table, and his public bounty verged
on ostentation. With the treasure he brought from Asia the southern wall of the
citadel was built, and at his own private charge the foundation of the long walls
to the Peiraeeus, works which the marshy soil made difficult and expensive, were
laid down in the most costly and efficient style. According to the report of Ion,
the tragic poet, who as a boy supped in his company (Plut. Cim. 5, 9), he was
in person tall and good-looking, and his hair, which he wore long, thick and curly.
He left three sons, Lacedaemonius, Eleus, and Thessalus, and was, according to
one account, married to Isodice, a daughter of Euryptolemuis, the cousin of Pericles,
as also to an Arcadian wife (Diodorus Periegetes, ap. Plut. Cim. 16). Another
record gives him three more sons, Miltiades, Cimon, and Peisianax (Schol. ad Aristid.
iii.).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Benefactions by Cimon and his family
Cimon, an aristocratic and wealthy man, gained great fame for his costly benefactions
to his fellow citizens. He was renowned, for example, for opening his orchards
to let others pick whatever they wanted, but his most famous benefactions were
architectural. He paid to have landscaping with shade trees and running tracks
installed in open areas of Athens, and he also footed the enormous bill for the
construction of footings for defensive walls to link the urban center of Athens
and the harbor at Piraeus some seven kilometers away. Cimon's brother-in-law also
participated in the family tradition of benefiting Athens by paying for highly-visible
public building projects. He had built as a gift to the city the renowned Painted
Stoa. Stoas were narrow, colonnaded buildings open along one side, whose purpose
was to provide shelter from sun or rain for these conversations. The Painted Stoa
stood on the edge of the central open area, the agora, at the center of the city.
The agora served both as a market area where merchants could set up small stalls
and as a gathering place for Athenian men to discuss politics and every other
issue affecting their lives in the city-state. It was the commercial and social
heart of Athens. The crowds of men who came to the agora daily for conversation
would cluster inside the Painted Stoa, whose walls were decorated with paintings
of great moments in Greek history commissioned from the most famous painters of
the time, Polygnotus and Mikon. That one of the stoa's paintings portrayed the
battle of Marathon in which Cimon's father, Miltiades, had won glory was only
appropriate, since the building had been paid for by the husband of Cimon's sister,
probably with financial assistance from Cimon himself.
This text is from: Thomas Martin's An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander, Yale University Press. Cited June 2005 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Cimon
Peripoltas the seer, who conducted King Opheltas with his subjects from Thessaly
into Boeotia, left a posterity there which was in high repute for many generations.
The greater part of them settled in Chaeroneia, which was the first city they
won from the Barbarians. Now the most of this posterity were naturally men of
war and courage, and so were consumed away in the Persian invasions and the contests
with the Gauls, because they did not spare themselves. There remained, however,
an orphan boy, Damon by name, Peripoltas by surname, who far surpassed his fellows
in beauty of body and in vigor of spirit, though otherwise he was untrained and
of a harsh disposition.
With this Damon, just passed out of boy's estate, the Roman commander
of a cohort that was wintering in Chaeroneia fell enamored, and since he could
not win him over by solicitations and presents, he was plainly bent on violence,
seeing that our native city was at that time in sorry plight, and neglected because
of her smallness and poverty. Violence was just what Damon feared, and since the
solicitation itself had enraged him, he plotted against the man, and enlisted
against him sundry companions,--a few only, that they might escape notice. There
were sixteen of them in all, who smeared their faces with soot one might, heated
themselves with wine, and at daybreak fell upon the Roman while he was sacrificing
in the market-place, slew him, together with many of his followers, and departed
the city. During the commotion which followed, the council of Chaeroneia met and
condemned the murderers to death, and this was the defence which the city afterwards
made to its Roman rulers. But in the evening, while the magistrates were dining
together, as the custom is, Damon and his men burst into the town hall, slew them,
and again fled the city.
Now about that time (74 BC) it chanced that Lucius Lucullus passed
that way, on some errand, with an army. Halting on his march and investigating
matters while they were still fresh in mind, he found that the city was in no
wise to blame, but rather had itself also suffered wrong. So he took its garrison
of soldiers and led them away with him. Then Damon, who was ravaging the country
with predatory forays and threatening the city, was induced by embassies and conciliatory
decrees of the citizens to return, and was appointed gymnasiarch. But soon, as
he was anointing himself in the vapor-bath, he was slain. And because for a long
while thereafter certain phantoms appeared in the place, and groans were heard
there, as our Fathers tell us, the door of the vapor-bath was walled up, and to
this present time the neighbors think it the source of alarming sights and sounds.
Descendants of Damon's family (and some are still living, especially near Stiris
in Phocis, Aeolians in speech) are called "Asbolomeni", or "Besooted",
because Damon smeared himself with soot before he went forth to do his deed of
murder.
But the Orchomenians, who were neighbors and rivals of the Chaeroneians,
hired a Roman informer to cite the city by name, as though it were an individual
person, and prosecute it for the murder of the Roman soldiers who had been slain
by Damon. The trial was held before the praetor of Macedonia (the Romans were
not yet sending praetors to Greece), and the city's advocates invoked the testimony
of Lucullus. Lucullus, when the praetor wrote to him, testified to the truth of
the matter, and so the city escaped capital condemnation. Accordingly, the people
who at that time were saved by him erected a marble statue of Lucullus in the
market-place beside that of Dionysus. And we, though many generations removed
from him, think that his favour extends even down to us who are now living; and
since we believe that a portrait, which reveals character and disposition is far
more beautiful than one which merely copies form and feature, we shall incorporate
this man's deeds into our parallel lives, and we shall rehearse them truly. The
mere mention of them is sufficient favour to show him; and as a return for his
truthful testimony he himself surely would not deign to accept a false and garbled
narrative of his career.
We demand of those who would paint fair and graceful features that,
in case of any slight imperfection therein, they shall neither wholly omit it
nor yet emphasize it, because the one course makes the portrait ugly and the other
unlike its original. In like manner, since it is difficult, nay rather perhaps
impossible, to represent a man's life as stainless and pure, in its fair chapters
we must round out the truth into fullest semblance; but those transgressions and
follies by which, owing to passion, perhaps, or political compulsion, a man's
career is sullied, we must regard rather as shortcomings in some particular excellence
than as the vile products of positive baseness, and we must not all too zealously
delineate them in our history, and superfluously too, but treat them as though
we were tenderly defending human nature for producing no character which is absolutely
good and indisputably set towards virtue.
On looking about for some one to compare with Lucullus, we decided
that it must be Cimon. Both were men of war, and of brilliant exploits against
the Barbarians, and yet they were mild and beneficent statesmen, in that they
gave their countries unusual respite from civil strifes, though each one of them
set up martial trophies and won victories that were famous. No Hellene before
Cimon and no Roman before Lucullus carried his wars into such remote lands, if
we leave out of our account the exploits of Heracles and Dionysus, and whatever
credible deeds of Perseus against the Aethiopians or Medes and Armenians, or of
Jason, have been brought down in the memory of man from those early times to our
own. Common also in a way to both their careers was the incompleteness of their
campaigns. Each crushed, but neither gave the death blow to his antagonist. But
more than all else, the lavish ease which marked their entertainments and hospitalities,
as well as the ardour and laxity of their way of living, was conspicuous alike
in both. Possibly we may omit still other resemblances, but it will not be hard
to gather them directly from our story.
Cimon was the son of Miltiades by Hegesipyle, a woman of Thracian
stock, daughter of King Olorus, as it is stated in the poems of Archelaus and
Melanthius addressed to Cimon himself. That explains how it was that the father
of Thucydides the historian -and Thucydides was connected with the family
of Cimon- was also an Olorus, who referred his name back to that of the
common ancestor, and also how it was that Thucydides had gold mines in Thrace
(Thuc. 4.105). And it is said that Thucydides died in Skapte Hyle, a place in
Thrace, having been murdered there; but his remains were brought to Attica, and
his monument is shown among those of Cimon's family, hard by the tomb of Elpinice,
Cimon's sister. However, Thucydides belonged to the deme of Halimus, the
family of Miltiades to that of Laciadae.
Now Miltiades, who had been condemned to pay a fine of fifty talents
and confined till payment should be made, died in prison, and Cimon, thus left
a mere stripling with his sister who was a young girl and unmarried, was of no
account in the city at first. He had the bad name of being dissolute and bibulous,
and of taking after his grandfather Cimon, who, they say, because of his simplicity,
was dubbed Coalemus, or Booby. And Stesimbrotus the Thasian, who was of about
Cimon's time, says that he acquired no literary education, nor any other liberal
and distinctively Hellenic accomplishment; that he lacked entirely the Attic cleverness
and fluency of speech; that in his outward bearing there was much nobility and
truthfulness; that the fashion of the man's spirit was rather Peloponnesian:
Plain, unadorned, in a great crisis brave and true,
Euripides; Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., 473.
as Euripides says of Heracles, a citation which we may add to what Stesimbrotus wrote.
While he was still a youth he was accused of improper intercourse
with his sister. And indeed in other cases too they say that Elpinice was not
very decorous, but that she had improper relations also with Polygnotus the painter,
and that it was for this reason that, in the Peisianacteum, as it was then called,
but now the Painted Colonnade, when he was painting the Trojan women, he made
the features of Laodice a portrait of Elpinice. Now Polygnotus was not a mere
artisan, and did not paint the stoa for a contract price, but gratis, out of zeal
for the welfare of the city, as the historians relate, and as Melanthius the poet
testifies after this fashion:
He at his own lavish outlay the gods' great fanes,
and the market
Named Cecropia, adorned; demigods' valor his theme.
Melanthius, unknown
Still, there are some who say that Elpinice did not live with Cimon in secret
intercourse, but openly rather, as his wedded wife, because, on account of her
poverty, she could not get a husband worthy of her high lineage; but that when
Callias, a wealthy Athenian, fell in love with her, and offered to pay into the
state treasury the fine which had been imposed upon her father, she consented
herself, and Cimon freely gave Elpinice to Callias to wife.
However, it is perfectly apparent that Cimon was given to the love
of women. Asteria, of a Salaminian family, and a certain Mnestra are mentioned
by the poet Melanthius, in a sportive elegy addressed to Cimon, as wooed and won
by him. And it is clear that he was even too passionately attached to his lawful
wife, Isodice, the daughter of Euryptolemus and grand-daughter of Megacles, and
that he was too sorely afflicted at her death, if we may judge from the elegy
addressed to him for the mitigation of his grief. This was composed by the naturalist
Archelaus, as Panaetius the philosopher thinks, and his conjecture is chronologically
possible.
All other traits of Cimon's character were admirable and noble. Neither
in daring was he inferior to Miltiades, nor in sagacity to Themistocles, and it
is admitted that he was a juster man than either, and that while not one whit
behind them in the good qualities of a soldier, he was inconceivably their superior
in those of a statesman, even when he was still young and untried in war. When
the Medes made their invasion, and Themistocles was trying to persuade the people
to give up their city, abandon their country, make a stand with their fleet off
Salamis, and fight the issue at sea, most men were terrified at the boldness of
the scheme; but lo! Cimon was first to act, and with a gay mien led a procession
of his companions through the Cerameicus up to the Acropolis, to dedicate to the
goddess there the horse's bridle which he carried in his hands, signifying thus
that what the city needed then was not knightly prowess but sea-fighters. After
he had dedicated his bridle, he took one of the shields which were hung up about
the temple, addressed his prayers to the goddess, and went down to the sea, whereat
many were first made to take heart.
He was also of no mean presence, as Ion the poet says, but tall and
stately, with an abundant and curly head of hair. And since he displayed brilliant
and heroic qualities in the actual struggle at Salamis (480 BC), he soon acquired
reputation and good will in the city. Many thronged to him and besought him to
purpose and perform at once what would be worthy of Marathon. So when he entered
politics the people gladly welcomed him, and promoted him, since they were full
to surfeit of Themistocles, to the highest honors and offices in the city, for
he was engaging and attractive to the common folk by reason of his gentleness
and artlessness. But it was Aristides, son of Lysimachus, who more than any one
else furthered his career, for he saw the fine features of his character, and
made him, as it were, a foil to the cleverness and daring of Themistocles.
After the flight of the Medes from Hellas, Cimon was sent out as a
commander(478-477 BC), before the Athenians had obtained their empire of the sea,
and while they were still under the leadership of Pausanias and the Lacedaemonians.
During this campaign, the citizen-soldiers he furnished on expeditions were always
admirably disciplined and far more zealous than any others; and again, while Pausanias
was holding treasonable conference with the Barbarians, writing letters to the
King, treating the allies with harsh arrogance, and displaying much wantonness
of power and silly pretension, Cimon received with mildness those who brought
their wrongs to him, treated them humanely, and so, before men were aware of it,
secured the leadership of Hellas, not by force of arms, but by virtue of his address
and character. For most of the allies, because they could not endure the severity
and disdain of Pausanias, attached themselves to Cimon and Aristides, who had
no sooner won this following than they sent also to the Ephors and told them,
since Sparta had lost her prestige and Hellas was in confusion, to recall Pausanias.
It is said that a maiden of Byzantium, of excellent parentage, Cleonice
by name, was summoned by Pausanias for a purpose that would disgrace her. Her
parents influenced by constraint and fear, abandoned their daughter to her fate,
and she, after requesting the attendants before his chamber to remove the light,
in darkness and silence at length drew near the couch on which Pausanias was asleep,
but accidentally stumbled against the lamp-holder and upset it. Pausanias, startled
by the noise, drew the dagger which lay at his side, with the idea that some enemy
was upon him, and smote and felled the maiden. After her death in consequence
of the blow, she gave Pausanias no peace, but kept coming into his sleep by night
in phantom form, wrathfully uttering this verse:
Draw thou nigh to thy doom; 'tis evil for men to
be wanton.
At this outrage the allies were beyond measure incensed, and joined Cimon in forcing
Pausanias to give up the city. Driven from Byzantium, and still harassed by the
phantom, as the story goes, he had recourse to the ghost-oracle of Heracleia,
and summoning up the spirit of Cleonice, besought her to forgo her wrath. She
came into his presence and said that he would soon cease from his troubles on
coming to Sparta, thus darkly intimating, as it seems, his impending death. At
any rate, this tale is told by many.
But Cimon, now that the allies had attached themselves to him, took
command of them and sailed to Thrace(476-475 BC), for he heard that men of rank
among the Persians and kinsmen of the King held possession of Eion, a city on
the banks of the Strymon, and were harassing the Hellenes in that vicinity. First
he defeated the Persians themselves in battle and shut them up in the city; then
he expelled from their homes above the Strymon the Thracians from whom the Persians
had been getting provisions, put the whole country under guard, and brought the
besieged to such straits that Butes, the King's general, gave up the struggle,
set fire to the city, and destroyed with it his family, his treasures, and himself.
And so it was that though Cimon took the city, he gained no other memorable advantage
thereby, since most of its treasures had been burned up with the Barbarians; but
the surrounding territory was very fertile and fair, and this he turned over to
the Athenians for occupation. Wherefore the people permitted him to dedicate the
stone Hermae, on the first of which is the inscription:
Valorous-hearted as well were they who at Eion fighting,
Facing the sons of the Medes, Strymon's current
beside,
Fiery famine arrayed, and gore-flecked Ares, against
them,
Thus first finding for foes that grim exit,--despair;
and on the second:
Unto their leaders reward by Athenians thus hath
been given;
Benefits won such return, valorous deeds of the
brave.
All the more strong at the sight will the men of
the future be eager,
Fighting for commonwealth, war's dread strife to
maintain;
and on the third:
With the Atridae of old, from this our city, Menestheus
Led his men to the plain Trojan called and divine.
He, once Homer asserted, among well-armoured Achaeans,
Marshaller was of the fight, best of them all who
had come.
Thus there is naught unseemly in giving that name
to Athenians;
Marshallers they both of war and of the vigor of
men.
Although these inscriptions nowhere mentioned Cimon by name, his contemporaries
held them to be a surpassing honor for him. Neither Themistocles nor Miltiades
achieved any such, nay, when the latter asked for a crown of olive merely, Sophanes
the Deceleian rose up in the midst of the assembly and protested. His speech was
ungracious, but it pleased the people of that day. "When", said he,
"thou hast fought out alone a victory over the Barbarians, then demand to
be honored alone". Why, then, were the people so excessively pleased with
the achievement of Cimon? Perhaps it was because when the others were their generals
they were trying to repel their enemies and so avert disaster; but when he led
them they were enabled to ravage the land of their enemies with incursions of
their own, and acquired fresh territories for settlement, not only Eion itself,
but also Amphipolis. They settled Scyros too, which Cimon seized for the following
reason. Dolopians were living on the island, but they were poor tillers of the
soil. So they practised piracy on the high sea from of old, and finally did not
withhold their hands even from those who put into their ports and had dealings
with them, but robbed some Thessalian merchants who had cast anchor at Ctesium,
and threw them into prison. When these men had escaped from bondage and won their
suit against the city at the Amphictyonic assembly, the people of Scyros were
not willing to make restitution, but called on those who actually held the plunder
to give it back. The robbers, in terror, sent a letter to Cimon, urging him to
come with his fleet to seize the city, and they would give it up to him. In this
manner Cimon got possession of the island, drove out the Dolopians and made the
Aegean a free sea.
On learning that the ancient Theseus, son of Aegeus, had fled in exile
from Athens to Scyros, but had been treacherously put to death there, through
fear, by Lycomedes the king, Cimon eagerly sought to discover his grave. For the
Athenians had once received an oracle bidding them bring back the bones of Theseus
to the city and honor him as became a hero, but they knew not where he lay buried,
since the Scyrians would not admit the truth of the story, nor permit any search
to be made. Now, however, Cimon set to work with great ardour, discovered at last
the hallowed spot, had the bones bestowed in his own trireme, and with general
pomp and show brought them back to the hero's own country after an absence of
about four hundred years. This was the chief reason why the people took kindly
to him.
But they also cherished in kindly remembrance of him that decision of his
in the tragic contests which became so famous. When Sophocles, still a young man,
entered the lists with his first plays, Apsephion the Archon, seeing that the
spirit of rivalry and partisanship ran high among the spectators, did not appoint
the judges of the contest as usual by lot, but when Cimon and his fellow-generals
advanced into the theater and made the customary libation to the god, he would
not suffer them to depart, but forced them to take the oath and sit as judges,
being ten in all, one from each tribe. So, then, the contest, even because of
the unusual dignity of the judges, was more animated than ever before. But Sophocles
came off victorious and it is said that Aeschylus, in great distress and indignation
thereat, lingered only a little while at Athens, and then went off in anger to
Sicily. There he died also, and is buried near Gela.
Ion says that, coming from Chios to Athens as a mere stripling, he
was once a fellow-guest with Cimon at a dinner given by Laomedon, and that over
the wine the hero was invited to sing, and did sing very agreeably, and was praised
by the guests as a cleverer man than Themistocles. That hero, they said, declared
that he had not learned to sing, nor even to play the lyre, but knew how to make
a city great and rich (Plut. Them. 2.3. .1). Next, Ion says, as was natural over
the cups, the conversation drifted to the exploits of Cimon, and as his greatest
deeds were being recounted, the hero himself dwelt at length on one particular
stratagem which he thought his shrewdest. Once, he said, when the Athenians and
their allies had taken many barbarian prisoners at Sestos and Byzantium and turned
them over to him for distribution, he put into one lot the persons of the captives,
and into another the rich adornments of their bodies, and his distribution was
blamed as unequal. But he bade the allies choose one of the lots, and the Athenians
would be content with whichever one they left. So, on the advice of Herophytus
the Samian to choose Persian wealth rather than Persians, the Allies took the
rich adornments for themselves, and left the prisoners for the Athenians. At the
time Cimon came off with the reputation of being a ridiculous distributor, since
the allies had their gold anklets and armlets and collars and jackets and purple
robes to display, while the Athenians got only naked bodies ill-trained for labour.
But a little while after, the friends and kinsmen of the captives came down from
Phrygia and Lydia and ransomed every one of them at a great price, so that Cimon
had four months' pay and rations for his fleet, and besides that, much gold from
the ransoms was left over for the city.
And since he was already wealthy, Cimon lavished the revenues from
his campaign, which he was thought to have won with honor from the enemy, to his
still greater honor, on his fellow-citizens. He took away the fences from his
fields, that strangers and needy citizens might have it in their power to take
fearlessly of the fruits of the land; and every day he gave a dinner at his house--simple,
it is true, but sufficient for many, to which any poor man who wished came in,
and so received a maintenance which cost him no effort and left him free to devote
himself solely to public affairs. But Aristotle says (Aristot. Const. Ath. 27.3)
that it was not for all Athenians, but only for his own demesmen, the Laciadae,
that he provided a free dinner. He was constantly attended by young comrades in
fine attire, each one of whom, whenever an elderly citizen in needy array came
up, was ready to exchange raiment with him. The practice made a deep impression.
These same followers also carried with them a generous sum of money, and going
up to poor men of finer quality in the market-place, they would quietly thrust
small change into their hands. To such generosity as this Cratinus seems to have
referred in his Archilochi, with the words:
Yes, I too hoped, Metrobius, I, the public scribe,
Along with man divine, the rarest host that lives,
In every way the best of all Hellenic men,
With Cimon, feasting out in joy a sleek old age,
To while away the remnant of my life. But he
Has gone before and left me. Cratinas, Archilochi
And again, Georgias the Leontine says that Cimon made money that he might spend
it, and spent it that he might he honored for it. And Critias, one of the thirty
tyrants, prays in his elegies that he may have:
the wealth of the Scopadae, the great-mindedness
of Cimon,
and the victories of Arcesilaus of Lacedaemon. Critias,
unknown
And yet we know that Lichas the Spartan became famous among the Hellenes for no
other reason than that he entertained the strangers at the boys' gymnastic festival;
but the generosity of Cimon surpassed even the hospitality and philanthropy of
the Athenians of olden time. For they--and their city is justly very proud of
it--spread abroad among the Hellenes the sowing of grain and the lustral uses
of spring waters, and taught mankind who knew it not the art of kindling fire.
But he made his home in the city a general public residence for his fellow citizens,
and on his estates in the country allowed even the stranger to take and use the
choicest of the ripened fruits, with all the fair things which the seasons bring.
Thus, in a certain fashion, he restored to human life the fabled communism of
the age of Cronus,--the golden age. Those who slanderously said that this was
flattery of the rabble and demagogic art in him, were refuted by the man's political
policy, which was aristocratic and Laconian. He actually opposed Themistocles
when he exalted the democracy unduly, as Aristides also did. Later on he took
hostile issue with Ephialtes, who, to please the people, tried to dethrone the
Council of the Areiopagus; and though he saw all the rest except Aristides and
Ephialtes filling their purses with the gains from their public services, he remained
unbought and unapproached by bribes, devoting all his powers to the state, without
recompense and in all purity, through to the end.
It is told, indeed, that one Rhoesaces, a Barbarian who had deserted
from the King, came to Athens with large moneys, and being set upon fiercely by
the public informers, fled for refuge to Cimon, and deposited at his door two
platters, one filled with silver, the other with golden Darics. Cimon, when he
saw them, smiled, and asked the man whether he preferred to have Cimon as his
hireling or his friend, and on his replying, "As my friend", "Well
then", said Cimon, "Take this money with thee and go thy way, for I
shall have the use of it when I want it if I am thy friend".
The allies continued to pay their assessments, but did not furnish
men and ships according to allotment, since they were soon weary of military service,
and had no need of war, but a great desire to till their land and live at their
ease. The Barbarians were gone and did not harass them, so they neither manned
their ships nor sent out soldiers. The rest of the Athenian generals tried to
force them to do this, and by prosecuting the delinquents and punishing them,
rendered their empire burdensome and vexatious. But Cimon took just the opposite
course when he was general, and brought no compulsion to bear on a single Hellene,
but accepted money from those who did not wish to go out on service, and ships
without crews, and so suffered the allies, caught with the bait of their own ease,
to stay at home and become tillers of the soil an unwarlike merchants instead
of warriors, and all through their foolish love of comfort. On the other hand,
he made great numbers of the Athenians man their ships, one crew relieving another,
and imposed on them the toil of his expeditions, and so in a little while, by
means of the very wages which they got from the allies, made them lords of their
own paymasters. For those who did no military service became used to fearing and
flattering those who were continually voyaging, and for ever under arms and training,
and practising, and so, before they knew it, they were tributary subjects instead
of allies.
And surely there was no one who humbled the Great King himself, and
reduced his haughty spirit, more than Cimon. For he did not let him go quietly
away from Hellas, but followed right at his heels, as it were, and before the
Barbarians had come to a halt and taken breath, he sacked and overthrew here,
or subverted and annexed to the Hellenes there, until Asia from Ionia to Pamphylia
was entirely cleared of Persian arms. Learning that the generals of the King were
lurking about Pamphylia with a great army and many ships, and wishing to make
them afraid to enter at all the sea to the west of the Chelidonian isles, he set
sail from Cnidus and Triopium (About 467 BC) with two hundred triremes. These
vessels had been from the beginning very well constructed for speed and maneuvering
by Themistocles; but Cimon now made them broader, and put bridges between their
decks, in order that with their numerous hoplites they might be more effective
in their onsets. Putting in at Phaselis, which was a Hellenic city, but refused
to admit his armament or even to abandon the King's cause, he ravaged its territory
and assaulted its walls. But the Chians, who formed part of his fleet and were
of old on friendly terms with the people of Phaselis, laboured to soften Cimon's
hostility, and at the same time, by shooting arrows over the walls with little
documents attached, they conveyed messages of their success to the men of Phaselis.
So finally Cimon made friends with them on condition that they should pay ten
talents and join him in his expedition against the Barbarians.
Now Ephorus says that Tithraustes was commander of the royal fleet,
and Pherendates of the infantry; but Callisthenes says that it was Ariomandes,
the son of Gobryas, who, as commander-in-chief of all the forces, lay at anchor
with the fleet off the mouth of the Eurymedon, and that he was not at all eager
to fight with the Hellenes, but was waiting for eighty Phoenician ships to sail
up from Cyprus. Wishing to anticipate their arrival, Cimon put out to sea, prepared
to force the fighting if his enemy should decline an engagement. At first the
enemy put into the river, that they might not be forced to fight; but when the
Athenians bore down on them there, they sailed out to meet them. They had six
hundred ships, according to Phanodemus, three hundred and fifty, according to
Ephorus. Whatever the number, nothing was achieved by them on the water which
was worthy of such a force, but they straightway put about and made for shore,
where the foremost of them abandoned their ships and fled for refuge to the infantry
which was drawn up near by; those who were overtaken were destroyed with their
ships. Whereby also it is plain that the Barbarian ships which went into action
were very numerous indeed, since, though many, of course, made their escape and
many were destroyed, still two hundred were captured by the Athenians.
When the enemy's land forces marched threateningly down to the sea,
Cimon thought it a vast undertaking to force a landing and lead his weary Hellenes
against an unwearied and many times more numerous foe. But he saw that his men
were exalted by the impetus and pride of their victory, and eager to come to close
quarters with the Barbarians, so he landed his hoplites still hot with the struggle
of the sea-fight, and they advanced to the attack with shouts and on the run.
The Persians stood firm and received the onset nobly, and a mighty battle ensued,
wherein there fell brave men of Athens, who were foremost in public office and
eminent. But after a long struggle the Athenians routed the Barbarians with slaughter
and then captured them and their camp, which was full of all sorts of treasure.
But Cimon, though like a powerful athlete he had brought down two
contests in one day, and though he had surpassed the victory of Salamis with an
infantry battle, and that of Plataea with a naval battle, still went on competing
with his own victories. Hearing that the eighty Phoenician triremes which were
too late for the battle had put in at Hydrus (Hydrus is the name in the MSS.,
but no such place is known. Syedra
is the most probable correction), he sailed thither with all speed, while their
commanders as yet knew nothing definite about the major force, but were still
in distrustful suspense. For this reason they were all the more panic-stricken
at his attack, and lost all their ships. Most of their crews were destroyed with
the ships. This exploit so humbled the purpose of the King that he made the terms
of that notorious peace, by which he was to keep away from the Hellenic sea-coast
as far as a horse could travel in a day, and was not to sail west of the Cyanean
and Chelidonian isles with armored ships of war.
And yet Callisthenes denies that the Barbarian made any such terms,
but says he really acted as he did through the fear which that victory inspired,
and kept so far aloof from Hellas that Pericles with fifty, and Ephialtes with
only thirty, ships sailed beyond the Chelidonian isles without encountering any
navy of the Barbarians. But in the decrees collected by Craterus there is a copy
of the treaty in its due place, as though it had actually been made. And they
say that the Athenians also built the altar of Peace to commemorate this event,
and paid distinguished honors to Callias as their ambassador.
By the sale of the captured spoils the people was enabled to meet
various financial demands, and especially it constructed the southern wall of
the Acropolis with the generous resources obtained from that expedition. And it
is said that, though the building of the long walls, called "legs",
was completed afterwards, yet their first foundations, where the work was obstructed
by swamps and marshes, were stayed up securely by Cimon, who dumped vast quantities
of rubble and heavy stones into the swamps, meeting the expenses himself. He was
the first to beautify the city with the so-called "liberal" and elegant
resorts which were so excessively popular a little later, by planting the market-place
with plane trees, and by converting the Academy from a waterless and arid spot
into a well watered grove, which he provided with clear running-tracks and shady
walks.
Now there were certain Persians who would not abandon the Chersonese,
but called in Thracians from the North to help them, despising Cimon, who had
sailed out from Athens with only a few triremes all told (466 BC). But he sallied
out against them with his four ships and captured their thirteen, drove out the
Persians, overwhelmed the Thracians, and turned the whole Chersonese over to his
city for settlement. And after this, when the Thasians were in revolt from Athens
465 BC), he defeated them in a sea-fight, captured thirty-three of their ships,
besieged and took their city, acquired their gold mines on the opposite mainland
for Athens, and took possession of the territory which the Thasians controlled
there.
From this base he had a good opportunity, as it was thought, to invade
Macedonia and cut off a great part of it, and because he would not consent to
do it, he was accused of having been bribed to this position by King Alexander,
and was actually prosecuted, his enemies forming a coalition against him (463
BC). In making his defence before his judges he said he was no proxenus of rich
Ionians and Thessalians, as others were, to be courted and paid for their services,
but rather of Lacedaemonians, whose temperate simplicity he lovingly imitated,
counting no wealth above it, but embellishing the city with the wealth which he
got from the enemy. In mentioning this famous trial Stesimbrotus says that Elpinice
came with a plea for Cimon to the house of Pericles, since he was the most ardent
accuser, and that he smiled and said, "Too old, too old, Elpinice, to meddle
with such business". But at the trial he was very gentle with Cimon, and
took the floor only once in accusation of him, as though it were a mere formality.
Well then, Cimon was acquitted at this trial. And during the remainder
of his political career, when he was at home, he mastered and constrained the
people in its onsets upon the nobles, and in its efforts to wrest all office and
power to itself; but when he sailed away again on military service (462 B.C. See
Plut. Cim. 17), the populace got completely beyond control. They confounded the
established political order of things and the ancestral practices which they had
formerly observed, and under the lead of Ephialtes they robbed the Council of
the Areiopagus of all but a few of the cases in its jurisdiction. They made themselves
masters of the courts of justice, and plunged the city into unmitigated democracy,
Pericles being now a man of power and espousing the cause of the populace. And
so when Cimon came back home, and in his indignation at the insults heaped upon
the reverend council, tried to recall again its jurisdiction and to revive the
aristocracy of the times of Cleisthenes, they banded together to denounce him,
and tried to inflame the people against him, renewing the old slanders about his
sister and accusing him of being a Spartan sympathizer. It was to these calumnies
that the famous and popular verses of Eupolis about Cimon had reference:
He was not base, but fond of wine and full of sloth,
and oft he'ld sleep in Lacedaemon, far from home,
And leave his Elpinice sleeping all alone. Eupolis,
unknown
But if, though full of sloth and given to tippling, he yet took so many cities
and won so many victories, it is clear that had he been sober and mindful of his
business, no Hellene either before or after him would have surpassed his exploits.
It is true indeed that he was from the first a philo-Laconian. He
actually named one of his twin sons Lacedaemonius, and the other Eleius,-- the
sons whom a woman of Cleitor bare him, as Stesimbrotus relates, wherefore Pericles
often reproached them with their maternal lineage. But Diodorus the Topographer
says that these, as well as the third of Cimon's sons, Thessalus, were born of
Isodice, the daughter of Euryptolemus, the son of Megacles. And he was looked
upon with favour by the Lacedaemonians, who soon were at enmity with Themistocles,
and therefore preferred that Cimon, young as he was, should have the more weight
and power in Athens. The Athenians were glad to see this at first, since they
reaped no slight advantage from the good will which the Spartans showed him. While
their empire was first growing, and they were busy making alliances, they were
not displeased that honor and favour should be shown to Cimon. He was the foremost
Hellenic statesman, dealing gently with the allies and acceptably with the Lacedaemonians.
But afterwards, when they became more powerful, and saw that Cimon was strongly
attached to the Spartans, they were displeased thereat. For on every occasion
he was prone to exalt Lacedaemon to the Athenians, especially when he had occasion
to chide or incite them. Then, as Stesimbrotus tells us, he would say, "But
the Lacedaemonians are not of such a sort". In this way he awakened the envy
and hatred of his fellow-citizens.
At any rate, the strongest charge against him arose as follows. When
Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, was in the fourth year of his reign at Sparta
(464 BC), a greater earthquake than any before reported rent the land of the Lacedaemonians
into many chasms, shook Taygetus so that sundry peaks were torn away, and demolished
the entire city with the exception of five houses. The rest were thrown down by
the earthquake. It is said that while the young men and youths were exercising
together in the interior of the colonnade, just a little before the earthquake,
a hare made its appearance, and the youths, all anointed as they were, in sport
dashed out and gave chase to it, but the young men remained behind, on whom the
gymnasium fell, and all perished together. Their tomb, even down to the present
day, they call Seismatias.
Archidamus at once comprehended from the danger at hand that which
was sure to follow, and as he saw the citizens trying to save the choicest valuables
out of their houses, ordered the trumpet to give the signal of an enemy's attack,
in order that they might flock to him at once under arms. This was all that saved
Sparta at that crisis. For the Helots hurriedly gathered from all the country
round about with intent to despatch the surviving Spartans. But finding them arrayed
in arms, they withdrew to their cities and waged open war, persuading many Perioeci
also so to do. The Messenians besides joined in this attack upon the Spartans.
Accordingly, the Lacedaemonians sent Pericleidas to Athens with request for aid,
and Aristophanes introduces him into a comedy as "sitting at the altars,
pale of face, in purple cloak, soliciting an army" (Aristoph. Lys. 1137).
But Ephialtes opposed the project, and besought the Athenians not to succour nor
restore a city which was their rival, but to let haughty Sparta lie to be trodden
under foot of men. Whereupon, as Critias says, Cimon made his country's increase
of less account than Sparta's interest, and persuaded the people to go forth to
her aid with many hoplites. And Ion actually mentions the phrase by which, more
than by anything else, Cimon prevailed upon the Athenians, exhorting them "not
to suffer Hellas to be crippled, nor their city to be robbed of its yoke-fellow".
After he had given aid to the Lacedaemonians, he was going back home
with his forces through the Isthmus of Corinth, when Lachartus upbraided him for
having introduced his army before he had conferred with the citizens. "People
who knock at doors", said he, "do not go in before the owner bids them";
to which Cimon replied, "And yet you Corinthians, O Lachartus, did not so
much as knock at the gates of Cleonae and Megara, but hewed them down and forced
your way in under arms, demanding that everything be opened up to the stronger".
Such was his boldness of speech to the Corinthian in an emergency, and he passed
on through with his forces.
Once more the Lacedaemonians summoned the Athenians to come to their
aid against the Messenians and Helots in Ithome, and the Athenians went, but their
dashing boldness awakened fear, and they were singled out from all the allies
and sent off as dangerous conspirators. They came back home in a rage, and at
once took open measures of hostility against the Laconizers, and above all against
Cimon. Laying hold of a trifling pretext, they ostracised him for ten years (461
BC). That was the period decreed in all cases of ostracism.
It was during this period that the Lacedaemonians, after freeing the
Delphians from the Phocians, encamped at Tanagra on their march back home (457
BC). Here the Athenians confronted them, bent on fighting their issue out, and
here Cimon came in arms, to join his own Oeneid tribe, eager to share with his
fellow-citizens in repelling the Lacedaemonians. But the Council of the Five Hundred
learned of this and was filled with fear, since Cimon's foes accused him of wishing
to throw the ranks into confusion, and then lead the Lacedaemonians in an attack
upon the city; so they forbade the generals to receive the man. As he went away
he besought Euthippus of Anaphlystus and his other comrades, all who were specially
charged with laconizing, to fight sturdily against the enemy, and by their deeds
of valor to dissipate the charge which their countrymen laid at their door. They
took his armour and set it in the midst of their company, supported one another
ardently in the fight, and fell, to the number of one hundred, leaving behind
them among the Athenians a great and yearning sense of their loss, and sorrow
for the unjust charges made against them. For this reason the Athenians did not
long abide by their displeasure against Cimon, partly because, as was natural,
they remembered his benefits, and partly because the turn of events favoured his
cause. For they were defeated at Tanagra in a great battle, and expected that
in the following spring-time an armed force of Peloponnesians would come against
them, and so they recalled Cimon from his exile. The decree which provided for
his return was formally proposed by Pericles. To such a degree in those days were
dissensions based on political differences of opinion, while personal feelings
were moderate, and easily recalled into conformity with the public weal. Even
ambition, that master passion, paid deference to the country's welfare.
Well then, as soon as Cimon returned from exile he stopped the war
and reconciled the rival cities. After peace was made 450BC), since he saw that
the Athenians were unable to keep quiet, but wished to be on the move and to wax
great by means of military expeditions; also because he wished that they should
not exasperate the Hellenes generally, nor by hovering around the islands and
the Peloponnesus with a large fleet bring down upon the city charges of intestine
war, and initial complaints from the allies, he manned two hundred triremes. [2]
His design was to make another expedition with them against Egypt and Cyprus.
He wished to keep the Athenians in constant training by their struggles with Barbarians,
and to give them the legitimate benefits of importing into Hellas the wealth taken
from their natural foes.
All things were now ready and the soldiery on the point of embarking,
when Cimon had a dream. He thought an angry bitch was baying at him, and that
mingled with its baying it uttered a human voice, saying:
Go thy way, for a friend shalt thou be both to me
and my puppies.
The vision being hard of interpretation, Astyphilus of Posidonia, an inspired
man and an intimate of Cimon's, told him that it signified his death. He analyzed
the vision thus: a dog is a foe of the man at whom it bays; to a foe, one cannot
be a friend any better than by dying; the mixture of speech indicates that the
enemy is the Mede, for the army of the Medes is a mixture of Hellenes and Barbarians.
After this vision, when Cimon had sacrificed to Dionysus and the seer was cutting
up the victim, swarms of ants took the blood as it congealed, brought it little
by little to Cimon, and enveloped his great toe therewith, he being unconscious
of their work for some time. Just about at the time when he noticed what they
were doing, the ministrant came and showed him the liver of his victim without
a head.
But since he could not get out of the expedition, he set sail, and
after detailing sixty of his ships to go to Egypt, with the rest he made again
for Cyprus. After defeating at sea the royal armament of Phoenician and Cilician
ships, he won over the cities round about, and then lay threatening the royal
enterprise in Egypt, and not in any trifling fashion,--nay, he had in mind the
dissolution of the King's entire supremacy, and all the more because he learned
that the reputation and power of Themistocles were great among the Barbarians,
who had promised the King that when the Hellenic war was set on foot he would
take command of it. [6] At any rate, it is said that it was most of all due to
Themistocles' despair of his Hellenic undertakings, since he could not eclipse
the good fortune and valor of Cimon, that he took his own life (Plut. Them. 31.4).
But Cimon, while he was projecting vast conflicts and holding his
naval forces in the vicinity of Cyprus, sent men to the shrine of Ammon to get
oracular answer from the god to some secret question. No one knows what they were
sent to ask, nor did the god vouchsafe them any response, but as soon as the enquirers
drew nigh, he bade them depart, saying that Cimon himself was already with him.
On hearing this, the enquirers went down to the sea-coast, and when they reached
the camp of the Hellenes, which was at that time on the confines of Egypt, they
learned that Cimon was dead, and on counting the days back to the utterance of
the oracle, they found that it was their commander's death which had been darkly
intimated, since he was already with the gods.
He died while besieging Citium, of sickness, as most say (Thuc. 1.112).
But some say it was of a wound which he got while fighting the Barbarians. As
he was dying he bade those about him to sail away at once and to conceal his death.
And so it came to pass that neither the enemy nor the allies understood what had
happened, and the force was brought back in safety "under the command of
Cimon", as Phanodemus says, "who had been dead for thirty days".
After his death no further brilliant exploit against the Barbarians
was performed by any general of the Hellenes, who were swayed by demagogues and
partisans of civil war, with none to hold a mediating hand between them, till
they actually clashed together in war. This afforded the cause of the King a respite,
but brought to pass an indescribable destruction of Hellenic power. It was not
until long afterwards (396-394 BC) that Agesilaus carried his arms into Asia and
prosecuted a brief war against the King's generals along the sea-coast. And even
he could perform no great and brilliant deeds, but was over- whelmed in his turn
by a flood of Hellenic disorders and seditions and swept away from a second empire.
So he withdrew, leaving in the midst of allied and friendly cities
the tax-gatherers of the Persians, not one of whose scribes, nay, nor so much
as a horse, had been seen within four hundred furlongs of the sea, as long as
Cimon was general.
That his remains were brought home to Attica, there is testimony in
the funeral monuments to this day called Cimonian. But the people of Citium also
pay honors to a certain tomb of Cimon, as Nausicrates the rhetorician says, because
in a time of pestilence and famine the god enjoined upon them not to neglect Cimon,
but to revere and honor him as a superior being. Such was the Greek leader.
This extract is from: Plutarch's Lives (ed. Bernadotte Perrin, 1914). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
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