Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Peripoltas the seer led Opheltas the king and the people under him down from Thessaly into Boeotia, and left behind him a family that was held in honor for many generations, the greater part of which settled in Chaeronea, the first city they took after driving out the barbarians. Now most of those descended from that stock, being by nature warlike and manly men, were used up and spent in the Persian invasions and the struggles against the Gauls, sparing themselves not at all; but there was left an orphan boy, bereft of both parents,
named Damon, with the surname Peripoltas, a young man who far surpassed his contemporaries both in bodily beauty and in loftiness of spirit, but was otherwise uneducated and harsh in character. A Roman officer of a cohort then wintering in Chaeronea fell in love with him, just as he was passing beyond boyhood, and when he could not persuade him by attempts and gifts, it was clear he would not refrain from violence, since our fatherland was at that time faring wretchedly and was disregarded because of its smallness and poverty. Fearing this, Damon,
and having made the very attempt itself a matter for anger, plotted against the man and gathered together some of his own age against him — not many, for the sake of secrecy, but all together sixteen in number; they smeared their faces with soot by night, and having drunk unmixed wine at daybreak, set upon the Roman while he offered sacrifice in the marketplace, and struck him down along with not a few of those attending him, then cleared them out of the city.
When a disturbance arose, the council of the Chaeroneans, coming together, condemned them to death; and this was the city's defense before the Romans. But that evening, when the magistrates had gathered for their customary common meal, Damon and his band forced their way into the hall, slit their throats, and once more fled the city.
It happened that around those very days Lucius Lucullus was passing by with a force on some errand. Halting his march and making inquiry into what had happened, which was still fresh, he found the city guilty of nothing, but rather itself wronged along with the rest; and taking up his soldiers, he led them away with him.
As for Damon, who was ravaging the countryside with robberies and raids and pressing upon the city, the citizens won him over with embassies and kindly decrees, and upon his return appointed him gymnasiarch; then, as he was anointing himself in the sweating-room, they destroyed him. And for a long time afterward, phantoms appearing in that place and groans being heard, as our fathers tell us, they walled up the doors of the sweating-room; and to this day those who live near the place believe that certain troubling sights and voices are carried from it.
Those descended from his family (for some still survive, especially around Stiris in Phocis, speaking with the Aeolic dialect) are called the 'Sooty Ones,' because Damon went out to the murder smeared with soot.
When the Orchomenians, being neighbors and rivals of the Chaeroneans, hired a Roman informer, who, bringing down the name of the city as though it were a single man, prosecuted for the murder of those slain by Damon, and the trial was before the governor of Macedonia (for the Romans did not yet send governors into Greece),
those speaking on behalf of the city called upon the testimony of Lucullus; and when the governor wrote to Lucullus, he testified to the truth, and so the city escaped the trial, though it had been in danger of the gravest consequences. Those, then, who were saved at that time set up a stone statue of Lucullus in the marketplace, beside the statue of Dionysus; and we, though separated from him by many generations, believe that the debt of gratitude extends even to us who now live,
and thinking a likeness far nobler than one that reproduces the body and the face to be one that displays the character and manner of a man, we shall take up, in this composition of Parallel Lives, the deeds of the man, setting forth the truth. For the gratitude of remembrance suffices; as for true testimony, not even he himself would have thought it fit to receive as payment a false and fabricated account composed on his behalf.
For just as we require those who paint beautiful likenesses full of much charm, if some small blemish attaches to them, neither to leave it out entirely nor to render it with excessive precision — for the one produces an ugly image, the other an unlike one — so, since it is difficult, or rather perhaps impossible, to display the life of a man as blameless and pure, we must fill out the likeness with the good points, as truth fills out a resemblance.
But the errors and calamities that run alongside men's actions, arising from some passion or from political necessity, we ought to regard rather as deficiencies of some virtue than as the wicked deeds of vice, and we must not be too eager or too elaborate in marking them down in our history, but should, as it were, feel shame on behalf of human nature, that it produces no character noble and unquestionable in its virtue with nothing pure about it.
Lucullus, then, as we consider the matter, seemed to us to be fit to be compared with Cimon. For both were warlike men, and brilliant against the barbarians, but mild in their political dealings, and above all gave their fatherlands respite from civil factions, each of them having set up trophies and won victories much celebrated.
For neither before Cimon among the Greeks nor before Lucullus among the Romans did anyone advance so far in war, setting aside the tales of Heracles and Dionysus, and whatever deed of Perseus against the Ethiopians, or of the Medes and Armenians, or of Jason, worthy of credence, has come down in memory from those times to the present.
It is common, too, in a way, that their generalship was in each case incomplete: each of them crushed his adversary, but neither destroyed him utterly. Most of all, the softness and lavishness in their receptions and acts of kindness, and the youthful, relaxed quality in their manner of living, may be seen alike in both. We pass over, perhaps, certain other similarities as well, which it is not difficult to gather from the narrative itself.
Cimon was the son of Miltiades, and his mother was Hegesipyle, by race a Thracian, daughter of Olorus the king, as is recorded in the poems of Archelaus and Melanthius written to Cimon himself. Wherefore also Thucydides the historian, being related by birth to the family of Cimon, had a father named Olorus, who traced the identity of name back to that ancestor, and possessed gold-mines in the region of Thrace.
And it is said that he [Olorus? — Thucydides' ancestor] died in Scapte Hyle (this is a place in Thrace), being murdered there, and his monument, his remains having been brought to Attica, is shown among the Cimonian tombs, beside the grave of Elpinice, the sister of Cimon. But Thucydides was of the deme Halimus, whereas the family of Miltiades belonged to Laciadae.
Miltiades, then, having been condemned to a fine of fifty talents and imprisoned for failure to pay it, died in the prison; and Cimon, left an utter youth together with his sister, who was still an unmarried girl, was at first held in low repute in the city and spoken of ill, as disorderly and a heavy drinker, and as resembling in nature his grandfather Cimon, who they say was called Coalemus [the Simpleton] for his foolishness.
Stesimbrotus of Thasos, who lived at about the same time as Cimon, says that he was taught neither music nor any other of the liberal accomplishments customary among the Greeks, that he was wholly without Attic cleverness and glibness of speech, and that there was in his character much that was noble and true, and that the shape of the man's soul was more Peloponnesian — plain, unadorned, good in the greatest matters, after the manner of the Euripidean Heracles; for this may fairly be added to what has been written by Stesimbrotus.
While still young he incurred the charge of being intimate with his sister. And indeed they say that Elpinice was not otherwise a woman of orderly conduct, but also went wrong with Polygnotus the painter; and for this reason, they say, in the portico then called the Peisianacteum, but now the Painted Stoa, while depicting the Trojan Women there, he gave Laodice the features of Elpinice.
Polygnotus was not one of the vulgar craftsmen, nor did he paint the stoa for hire, but for nothing, out of eagerness to honor the city, as the historians record and as Melanthius the poet says in this manner: 'at his own expense he adorned the temples of the gods and the Cecropian marketplace with the virtues of demigods.'
There are those who say that Elpinice lived with Cimon not secretly but openly as his wedded wife, since she lacked, because of poverty, a bridegroom worthy of her noble birth; but when Callias, one of the wealthy men at Athens, having fallen in love with her, came forward ready to pay off, on behalf of her father, the fine owed to the public treasury, she herself was persuaded, and Cimon gave Elpinice in marriage to Callias.
Nonetheless, Cimon appears altogether to have been susceptible to erotic entanglements with women. For Melanthius the poet mentions, in jesting elegiac verses addressed to Cimon, both an Asteria of Salaminian family and again a certain Mnestra, as women eagerly pursued by him.
It is clear too that Cimon was affected more passionately, and bore it ill when she died, in the case of Isodice, daughter of Euryptolemus, son of Megacles, who lived with him according to the laws as his lawful wife — if one must draw any inference from the elegiac verses written to him for the consolation of his grief, of which Panaetius the philosopher thinks Archelaus the natural philosopher was the author, conjecturing not unreasonably from the dates.
But in all other respects the character of Cimon was admirable and noble. For being inferior to Miltiades in neither daring nor to Themistocles in intelligence, he is agreed to have been more just than either, and while falling not the least short of their virtues in matters of war, he surpassed them by an immeasurable degree in the arts of politics, though he was still young and inexperienced in war.
For when, as the Medes were advancing, Themistocles was persuading the people to abandon the city and leave the countryside, and to place their arms in their ships before Salamis and fight the issue out by sea, while most men were struck with terror at the boldness of it, Cimon was seen first, going up through the Cerameicus to the acropolis with his companions in cheerful spirits, carrying in his hands a horse's bridle to dedicate to the goddess, as though the city at present needed nothing of cavalry strength, but rather of men to fight at sea.
And having dedicated the bridle, and taken one of the shields hanging about the temple, and having prayed to the goddess, he went down to the sea, becoming for not a few the beginning of courage. In appearance he was not to be found fault with, as Ion the poet says, but was tall, with thick and curling hair upon his head. Having shown himself brilliant and manly in the very struggle itself, he quickly gained repute in the city together with good will, many gathering about him and urging him now to think and act in a manner worthy of Marathon.
And when he set out upon a political career, the people gladly received him, and, being full of Themistocles, advanced him to the greatest honors and offices in the city, since he was well suited to and beloved by the many because of his mildness and simplicity. Not least did Aristides, son of Lysimachus, help him to grow, discerning the natural excellence in his character, and making of him, as it were, a rival set against the cleverness and boldness of Themistocles.
When, after the Medes had fled Greece, he was sent out as general -- the Athenians not yet holding command of the sea, but still following Pausanias and the Lacedaemonians -- he first of all, in his campaigns, always presented his fellow citizens as admirable in discipline and far surpassing everyone in eagerness.
Then, while Pausanias was secretly plotting betrayal with the foreigners and sending dispatches to the King, and was dealing harshly and arrogantly with the allies and committing many acts of foolish insolence through his power and pride, Cimon, by receiving the wronged parties gently and treating them with kindness, without anyone noticing took away the leadership of Greece from him -- not by arms, but by speech and character.
For most of the allies attached themselves to him and to Aristides, unable to bear the harshness and arrogance of Pausanias. And these men also brought the rest over to their side, and sent word to the ephors saying that, since Sparta was losing repute and Greece was being thrown into confusion, they should recall Pausanias.
It is said that a certain Byzantine maiden of distinguished parents, named Cleonice, was summoned by Pausanias for his own dishonor's sake; that her parents, under compulsion and fear, gave up the girl; and that she, having asked those before the chamber to take away the light, approaching the bed through darkness and silence while Pausanias was already asleep, stumbled and knocked over
the lamp-stand unintentionally; and that he, startled by the noise and drawing the dagger that lay beside him, as though some enemy were coming upon him, struck and cast down the maiden -- and that she, dying from the blow, would not let Pausanias rest, but a phantom of her, visiting him in his sleep at night, said in anger this heroic verse: 'Go forth to justice; insolence, indeed, is a great evil for men.' At this the allies, bearing it especially hard, together with Cimon besieged and drove him out.
And he, driven out of Byzantium and disturbed by the apparition, as is said, fled for refuge to Heraclea's oracle where the dead were consulted, and calling up the soul of Cleonice tried to beg off her anger. And she, appearing before him, told him his hardships would end soon after he reached Sparta -- hinting, it seems, at the death that awaited him there. This, then, is what has been recorded by many.
Cimon, now that the allies had already come over to him, sailed as general to Thrace, having learned that certain Persians of high rank and kinsmen of the King, holding the city of Eion on the river Strymon, were harassing the Greeks in that region.
First, then, he beat the Persians in open battle and penned them inside the city walls; then, by laying waste the Thracians above the Strymon, from whom their grain supply came, and guarding the whole country closely, he reduced those under siege to such want that Butes, the King's general, giving up all hope, set fire to the city and destroyed himself along with his friends and his treasure.
Having taken the city in this way, he gained nothing else of note, since most things were burned up along with the barbarians, but he handed over the territory, which was extremely fertile and beautiful, to the Athenians to settle. And the people allowed stone Herms to be set up in his honor, on the first of which is inscribed:
'Stouthearted indeed were those men too, who once against the sons of the Medes, by the streams of Strymon near Eion, bringing on burning hunger and chill war, were the first to find their enemies helpless.' On the second: 'To their leaders the Athenians gave this as reward, in return for good service and great benefits. Seeing this, anyone -- even in later times -- will be more willing to strive over the common good.'
On the third: 'Once from this city, together with the sons of Atreus, Menestheus led the way into the sacred Trojan plain -- he whom Homer once said came forth as the finest marshal of battle among the well-armored Danaans. Thus it is nothing unfitting for Athenians to be called marshals of war and manly valor.'
These verses, although nowhere do they reveal Cimon's name, seemed to the people of that time to hold an excess of honor. For neither Themistocles nor Miltiades obtained anything of the kind; but when Cimon himself once asked for a crown of wild olive, Sophanes of Decelea rose up in the middle of the assembly and spoke against it -- an ungracious remark, but one that pleased the people at the time: 'For,' he said, 'when you, Miltiades, have fought alone and defeated the barbarians, then you may claim to be honored alone too.'
Why then did they so warmly welcome Cimon's achievement? Perhaps because, while the other generals in their commands defended against the enemy so as to avoid suffering harm, this man was able also to do harm to them, by himself marching against their territory, and they gained additional land by taking Eion itself and settling Amphipolis?
They also settled Scyros after Cimon took it, for the following reason. The Dolopians inhabited the island, poor farmers of the land; and having plundered the sea from ancient times, they ended by not even sparing the foreign traders who sailed in and dealt with them, but seized and imprisoned some Thessalian merchants who had put in at Ctesium.
When these men escaped from their bonds and won a judgment against the city before the Amphictyonic council, the majority of the people were unwilling to pay the damages jointly, but demanded that those who held and had plundered the goods should give them back. Fearing this, those men sent word to Cimon, pressing him to sail over with his fleet and seize the city, which they themselves were prepared to hand over to him.
Having thus taken possession of the island, Cimon drove out the Dolopians and freed the Aegean; and learning that Theseus, son of Aegeus, of old, having fled from Athens to Scyros, had died there through treachery, out of fear, at the hands of King Lycomedes,
he was eager to find his tomb. For there was an oracle telling the Athenians to bring back the remains of Theseus to the city and to honor him fittingly as a hero, but they did not know where he lay, since the Scyrians would not admit it nor allow a search. Then, with much rivalry, the shrine was at last discovered, and Cimon, placing the bones aboard his own trireme and adorning everything else magnificently, brought them back to his own land after nearly four hundred years. For this the people held him in especially warm regard.
They also, in memory of him, set up as famous the judging of the tragedies that took place. For when Sophocles, still young, put on his first production, Apsephion the archon, since there was rivalry and partisanship among the spectators, did not have judges chosen by lot for the contest; but when Cimon, together with his fellow generals, came forward into the theater and made the customary libations to the god, he did not let them depart, but put them under oath and compelled them to sit and judge, being ten in number, one from each tribe.
The contest, then, because of the standing of the judges, exceeded even the rivalry itself. And when Sophocles won, it is said that Aeschylus, deeply distressed and bearing it heavily, spent not much time longer at Athens, and then, in anger, departed for Sicily, where he also died and is buried near Gela.
Ion says that he dined with Cimon, having come to Athens from Chios while still quite a youth, staying with Laomedon; and when the libations had been made, Cimon, being asked to sing, sang -- and when he had sung, those present praised him, not unpleasantly, as more accomplished than Themistocles; for they said that Themistocles used to claim he had not learned to sing nor to play the lyre, but did know how to make a city great and wealthy. From there,
as is natural at a drinking party, when the conversation turned to Cimon's own achievements and his greatest deeds were being recalled, Cimon himself related one stratagem of his own as the cleverest. When the allies, after taking many barbarian prisoners at Sestos and Byzantium, ordered Cimon to divide them up, he set the men apart on one side and their personal ornaments apart on the other, and they complained that the division was unequal.
So he told them to choose one of the two shares, and whichever they left behind, the Athenians would be content with. When Herophytus of Samos advised them to choose the Persians' goods rather than the Persians themselves, they themselves took the ornaments, and left the prisoners to the Athenians. And at the time Cimon went away seeming a ridiculous divider, since the allies were carrying off golden bracelets and collars and torques and robes and purple, while the Athenians got naked bodies, poorly trained for labor.
But a little later the friends and relatives of the captives, coming down from Phrygia and Lydia, ransomed each man for large sums, so that Cimon had provisions for four months for his ships, and besides that no small amount of gold accrued to the city from the ransoms.
Cimon, now well provided with resources for his generalship, which he seemed to have gained honorably from the enemy, spent it even more honorably on his fellow citizens. For he took down the fences of his fields, so that both foreigners and any citizens in need might take of the fruit without fear, and he provided at his own house each day a plain meal, ample enough for a great many, and any poor man who so desired could come in and take his sustenance without difficulty,
devoting himself only to public affairs. But as Aristotle says, it was not for all Athenians, but for his fellow demesmen, the men of Laciadae, that the meal was prepared for anyone who wished. Young men accompanied him, well dressed, familiar companions of his, each of whom, if any older citizen met Cimon poorly clothed, would exchange his own garment with him; and what took place appeared dignified.
The same young men, also carrying an abundance of coin, would come up to the respectable poor in the marketplace and silently drop small change into their hands. Of this Cratinus the comic poet seems to make mention in his Archilochi, in these lines:
'For I too used to hope, Metrobius the scribe, that with that godlike man, most hospitable and best of all the Panhellenes -- with Cimon, enjoying a rich old age, I would spend my whole life. But he has gone and left first.'
Further, Gorgias of Leontini says that Cimon acquired wealth in order to use it, and used it in order to be honored; and Critias, who was one of the Thirty, in his elegies prays: 'the wealth of the Scopadae, the magnanimity of Cimon, and the victories of Arcesilaus the Lacedaemonian.' And yet we know Lichas the Spartan to have become famous among the Greeks for nothing else than that he used to feast the strangers at the Gymnopaediae; yet Cimon's open-handedness went beyond even the time-honored Athenian tradition of hospitality and kindness.
For those men on whose account the city justly prides itself gave the seed of nourishment to the Greeks and taught men who needed it the kindling of fountain-waters and fire, while he, having declared his own house a common prytaneum for the citizens, and in the countryside providing the first-fruits of the ripe crops and all the fair things the seasons bring for strangers to use and take, in a manner brought back into life again that fellowship storied of the age of Cronus.
But those who slandered these acts as flattery of the mob and demagoguery were refuted by the rest of the man's policy, which was aristocratic and Laconian in character, seeing that he even opposed Themistocles together with Aristides when the latter was exalting democracy beyond what was fitting, and later he quarreled with Ephialtes when he was dissolving the council of the Areopagus to gratify the people,
and seeing that all the others except Aristides and Ephialtes were becoming tainted with public gains, he kept himself throughout his political life incorruptible and untouched by bribery, and acting and speaking in everything freely and purely to the end. It is said, at any rate, that a certain Rhoesaces, a barbarian who had revolted from the King, came to Athens with much money, and being harassed by the informers, fled for refuge to Cimon, and set beside his courtyard-gate two bowls, the one filled with silver darics, the other with gold; and Cimon, seeing them and smiling, asked the man
whether he preferred to have Cimon as a hireling or as a friend. And when the man said a friend, "Then," said Cimon, "take these away with you and go; for I shall make use of them whenever I need them, once I have become your friend."
But when the allies paid their tribute money but no longer furnished men and ships as had been assigned, having by now grown weary of the campaigns, and desiring no war at all but rather to farm their land and live in quiet, since the barbarians had withdrawn and were no longer troubling them, and so neither manned their ships nor sent out men, the other Athenian generals compelled them to do these things, and by bringing those who fell short to trial and punishing them made the Athenian rule burdensome and grievous;
but Cimon, taking the opposite course in his generalship, applied force to none of the Greeks, but took money from those unwilling to serve in the field, and empty ships, and let them, lured on by their leisure, waste their time about their own affairs, becoming farmers and men of business, unwarlike instead of warlike out of softness and folly, while he embarked many of the Athenians in turn and trained them by the campaigns, and in a short time, through the pay and money furnished by the allies, made them masters of the very men who supplied it.
For the allies, sailing continuously and always handling weapons and being maintained and trained, through their own abstention from service grew accustomed to fear and flatter, and before they knew it had become, instead of allies, tributary subjects and slaves.
And indeed it was Cimon above every other man who humbled and shrank the pride of the Great King. Once the barbarian had retreated from Greece, Cimon would not release him from his grasp, but, as though treading on his very heels, gave the enemy no chance to draw breath and rally, ravaging and subduing some places, detaching others and winning them to the Greek side, so that he stripped Persian power entirely from the coast of Asia, from Ionia clear to Pamphylia.
Learning that the King's generals, backed by a large army and a numerous fleet, were watching for him near Pamphylia, and wanting to strike such fear into them that they would not dare sail within the Chelidonian islands, he put out from Cnidus and Triopium leading two hundred triremes — vessels that Themistocles had originally equipped superbly for speed and quick handling, but which Cimon at that time widened further and fitted with a gangway across the decks, so that, bearing a larger complement of hoplites, they could close with the enemy in better fighting trim.
Sailing against the city of the Phaselites, who were Greeks but would not receive the fleet nor were willing to revolt from the King, he ravaged their land and assaulted their walls. But the Chians, sailing with him, being of old on friendly terms with the Phaselites, at once soothed Cimon and at the same time, shooting little letters attached to arrows over the walls, sent word to the Phaselites.
In the end he reconciled them, so that by giving ten talents they should follow along and join in the campaign against the barbarians. Ephorus says that Tithraustes commanded the King's ships and Pherendates the infantry, but Callisthenes says that Ariomandes son of Gobryas, being supreme commander of the force, lay at anchor with the ships by the Eurymedon, not eager to fight the Greeks, but awaiting eighty Phoenician ships sailing up from Cyprus.
Wishing to forestall these, Cimon put to sea, prepared to force battle if they should not willingly fight at sea. They at first, so as not to be forced, anchored within the river, but when the Athenians bore down upon them they sailed out against them, as Phanodemus records, with six hundred ships, or as Ephorus says, three hundred and fifty. In any case no deed worthy of such a force was performed by them upon the sea,
but at once the foremost turned toward the land and ran their ships ashore and fled for refuge to the infantry drawn up nearby, while those who were overtaken perished together with their ships. By this it is clear how very many were the ships manned by the barbarians, since, though many, as is likely, escaped and many were shattered, the Athenians nevertheless took two hundred captive.
When the infantry had come down to the sea, it seemed to Cimon a great task to force the landing and to lead the Greeks, weary as they were, against fresh troops many times their number; yet seeing them, by the strength and pride of their victory, elated and eager to close with the barbarians, he disembarked the hoplites, still hot from the struggle of the sea-battle, charging on with shouting and at a run.
When the Persians stood their ground and met them not ignobly, a fierce battle was joined, and men of the Athenians who were good and foremost and distinguished in rank fell. But after a long struggle they routed the barbarians and cut them down, then took both the men themselves and tents full of goods of every kind.
Cimon, like some formidable athlete who has won two bouts in a single day, having outdone the Salamis trophy with a land battle and the Plataea trophy with a battle at sea, piled a further triumph onto these: on learning that eighty Phoenician triremes, absent from the main engagement, had made harbor at Hydrus, he hurried his ships there at once, while the enemy commanders still had no clear word whatsoever of the larger defeat and remained uncertain and
in suspense; wherefore, being the more panic-stricken, they lost all their ships, and most of the men perished together with them. This deed so humbled the King's resolve that he agreed to that famous peace, by which he was always to keep a horse's course distant from the Greek sea, and not to sail within the Cyanean and Chelidonian islands with a warship of bronze beak.
And yet Callisthenes says the barbarian did not agree to these terms, but did so in fact out of fear of that defeat, and kept so far away from Greece that Pericles sailed with fifty ships and Ephialtes with only thirty beyond the Chelidonian islands, and no naval force of the barbarians met them at all.
But in the decrees which Craterus collected, copies of the treaty are set down as though it had actually been made. They say too that the Athenians for this reason set up an altar of Peace, and honored Callias, who had gone as envoy, in extraordinary fashion. When the captured spoils were sold, the people were strengthened in money along with other things, and from that campaign, having become prosperous, built the southern wall of the Acropolis.
It is said also that of the long walls, which they call the Legs, the building was completed later, but the first foundation, since the works fell upon marshy and waterlogged ground, was laid securely by means of Cimon, the marshes being pressed down with much gravel and heavy stones, he providing and giving the money for it.
He was the first to grace the city with what came to be called its refined and pleasant gathering-places, spots that not long after were held in remarkable affection: he set plane trees through the marketplace, and turned the Academy from a dry, parched tract into a well-irrigated grove, furnishing it with clean racecourses and shaded paths.
When some of the Persians refused to give up the Chersonese, and were even summoning Thracians from the interior to help, despising Cimon because he had put out from Athens with so few triremes, he attacked them with only four ships, captured thirteen of theirs, drove out the Persian garrison, subdued the Thracians, and brought the entire Chersonese under Athenian control.
After this, when the Thasians broke away from Athens, he beat them at sea, captured thirty-three ships, laid siege to and took their city, and won for the Athenians the mainland gold mines opposite together with the territory the Thasians had held. And though from that position it appeared a simple matter to push into Macedonia and seize a broad stretch of land, his refusal to do so brought him the accusation that King Alexander's gifts had bribed and won him over, and his enemies joined forces to bring him to trial.
Defending himself before the judges, he said that he acted as proxenos not of the Ionians nor of the Thessalians, wealthy as they were, as others did, in order to be courted and to receive gifts, but of the Lacedaemonians, imitating and loving their frugality and self-control, valuing no wealth above it, but taking pride in enriching the city from the enemy.
Stesimbrotus, recalling that trial, says that Elpinice, pleading on behalf of Cimon, came to the door of Pericles (for he was the most vehement of the accusers), and that he, smiling, said, "You are an old woman, Elpinice, an old woman, to be managing such great affairs"; yet that at the trial he was most gentle toward Cimon and rose to speak against the accusation only once, as if merely performing a formality.
So then he escaped that trial; but for the rest of his political career, whenever he was present he held the mastery and restrained the people from encroaching upon the best men and drawing all rule and power to itself; but when he had again sailed out on campaign, the many, being altogether let loose and confounding the established order of the constitution and the ancestral customs which they had formerly observed,
under the leadership of Ephialtes took away from the council of the Areopagus all its judgments except a few, and making themselves masters of the courts, plunged the city into unmixed democracy, Pericles too by now having power and holding the views of the many. Wherefore, when Cimon returned and was indignant at the dignity of the council being insulted, and tried again to recall the cases to it from above and to raise up the aristocracy that had existed under Cleisthenes, they cried out against him, banding together, and stirred up the people,
renewing those old charges against him concerning his sister and calling him a lover of Sparta. Hence the oft-quoted lines Eupolis wrote of Cimon, that he was not a bad man, yet fond of wine and idle, prone to nod off in Lacedaemon while Elpinice sat here quite alone. Yet if, idle and devoted to drink though he was, he still captured so many cities and carried off so many victories, then plainly, had he kept sober and applied himself, not a single Greek before him or since could have matched what he accomplished.
From the beginning he was a lover of Sparta: indeed, of his twin sons by his Cleitorian wife he gave one the name Lacedaemonius and called the other Eleius, as Stesimbrotus records; for which reason Pericles often reproached them over their mother's origins. Diodorus the Topographer, however, states that this pair, along with Thessalus, the third of Cimon's sons, were instead born of Isodice, daughter of Euryptolemus son of Megacles.
His influence grew because the Lacedaemonians, already at war with Themistocles, wished this young man to prevail and hold power at Athens instead. The Athenians at first were glad to enjoy no small benefit from the goodwill the Spartans bore him; for in the early years of their growing power and their meddling in the affairs of the alliance, they were not troubled by the honor and favor shown to Cimon.
For most of Greek affairs were managed through him, since he dealt gently with the allies but agreeably with the Lacedaemonians. But afterward, having become more powerful, and seeing that Cimon leaned toward the Spartans not lightly, they grew displeased. For he himself, in praising Lacedaemon on every occasion before the Athenians, and especially whenever he had occasion to find fault with them or provoke them, used to say, as Stesimbrotus reports, "But the Lacedaemonians are not like that."
From this he drew upon himself envy and a certain ill-will from the citizens. Now the accusation that prevailed most strongly against him arose in this way. During the fourth year that Archidamus son of Zeuxidamus held the Spartan throne, an earthquake struck greater than any remembered before it: the land of the Lacedaemonians was riven with many chasms, and certain peaks of Taygetus were shaken loose and broken off, and the city itself was entirely thrown down except for five houses—the earthquake leveled all the rest.
It is said that the ephebes and young men were exercising as a group inside the colonnade when, just before the earthquake struck, a hare came into view, and the young men, oiled as they were, ran out after it in sport and gave chase, while the ephebes who were left behind had the gymnasium collapse upon them and all died together. Their tomb they still call to this day the Seismatias.
Archidamus, quickly perceiving from the present danger the one still to come, and seeing the citizens trying to save their most valued possessions from their houses, ordered the trumpet sounded as though enemies were approaching, so that they might gather to him as quickly as possible under arms. This alone, in that moment, saved Sparta. For the helots came running together from the fields on every side, intending to seize those Spartans who had survived.
But finding them armed and drawn up in order, they withdrew to their cities and openly made war, persuading not a few of the perioikoi to join them, and the Messenians joining the Spartans in the attack together. So the Lacedaemonians sent Pericleidas to Athens to beg for aid—the man whom Aristophanes, mocking him in comedy, says sat pale at the altars in his scarlet cloak, begging for an army.
But when Ephialtes opposed it and protested that they should not help nor raise up a rival city against Athens, but should let Sparta's pride lie fallen and trampled, Critias says that Cimon, setting the advantage of Sparta above even the growth of his own country, persuaded the people to send out a large force of hoplites to Sparta's assistance. Ion, too, preserves the very speech with which he most moved the Athenians, urging them not to allow Greece to be made lame, nor their city to go yoked unevenly.
When, after helping the Lacedaemonians, he was withdrawing his army through Corinth, Lachartus brought a charge against him for leading his troops in before consulting with the citizens; for, he said, men who knock on another's door do not enter until the master bids them. And Cimon replied, "But you, Lachartus, did not knock on the gates of the Cleonaeans or the Megarians—you broke them down and forced your way in with arms, holding that all things must stand open to those with greater power." Thus he answered the Corinthian boldly, as the occasion demanded, and passed through with his army.
The Lacedaemonians once more summoned the Athenians to help against the Messenians and helots holding Ithome, yet once the Athenians arrived, Spartan fear of their daring and energy led them to send this one contingent of allies away, branding them agitators. The Athenians, departing in anger, now openly showed hostility toward those who favored Sparta, and, seizing upon a slight pretext, ostracized Cimon for ten years—for that was the fixed term appointed for all who were ostracized.
Meanwhile, as the Lacedaemonians were returning from freeing Delphi from the Phocians and encamped at Tanagra, the Athenians went out to give battle, and Cimon came under arms to his own tribe, the Oeneis, eager to fight alongside his fellow citizens against the Lacedaemonians.
But the Council of Five Hundred, hearing of this and afraid—since his enemies cried out that he wished to throw the phalanx into confusion and bring the Lacedaemonians against the city—forbade the generals to receive the man. And he went away, having begged Euthippus of Anaphlystus and his other companions, those most accused of favoring Sparta, to fight vigorously against the enemy and by their deeds clear themselves of the charge before the citizens.
They took his suit of armor and set it in their company; and standing together, fighting with all their hearts, a hundred strong, they fell, leaving the Athenians much longing for them and regret for the injustice with which they had been accused. From this the Athenians did not long remain angry at Cimon—partly, as was natural, remembering the good he had done them, and partly because circumstance itself lent a hand.
For, having been defeated in the great battle at Tanagra, and expecting an invasion by the Peloponnesians in the coming season, they recalled Cimon from exile; and he returned once the decree had been drafted for him by Pericles. So moderate were political differences then, and so temperate men's passions, ever recallable to the common good, that ambition, though it prevailed over all other feelings, yielded to the needs of the fatherland.
As soon as Cimon came back he brought the fighting to a close and restored harmony among the cities; and with peace now established, seeing that the Athenians could not remain still but wished to be active and to grow through military campaigns, and wishing that they should not vex the Greeks, nor, roaming about the islands or the Peloponnese with many ships, draw upon the city the beginnings of civil wars and complaints from the allies,
he manned two hundred triremes as though he were about to campaign again against Egypt and Cyprus—wishing at once to keep the Athenians in practice for their contests against the barbarians, and also that they might justly profit by bringing back to Greece the wealth of those who were their natural enemies. Now when all was prepared and the army was already at the ships, Cimon saw a dream.
He dreamed that an angry dog was barking at him, and that mixed in with the barking, it uttered, in a human voice: "Go on; for you shall be a friend to me and to my pups." Since the vision was hard to interpret, Astyphilus of Poseidonia, a man skilled in divination and a companion of Cimon, declared that the vision foretold his death, interpreting it thus: a dog is hostile to the man at whom it barks; and no one could become a greater friend to an enemy than by dying; and the mixture in the voice signified the Mede as the enemy.
For the Median host is made up jointly of Greeks and foreigners together. After this vision, when Cimon was sacrificing to Dionysus, the seer cut the victim open, and many ants, taking up the blood that was already clotting, carried it little by little to Cimon and plastered it around his big toe, going unnoticed for a long time. At the same moment Cimon happened to notice what was happening, and the sacrificer came up to show him the lobe of the liver, which had no head. But since there was no drawing back from the campaign, he sailed out, and of the ships he sent sixty to Egypt, while he sailed on with the rest.
And having defeated in a sea-battle the royal fleet of Phoenician and Cilician ships, he won back the cities round about and kept watch over the region of Egypt, planning nothing small, but the overthrow of the King's entire dominion—especially because he learned that Themistocles had great reputation and power among the barbarians, having promised the King that he would command the war against Greece whenever it should be stirred up.
Themistocles, indeed, is said to have died by his own choice, not least because he had given up hope of Greek affairs, seeing that he could not surpass Cimon's good fortune and valor. Cimon, meanwhile, elated by the great beginnings of his struggles, and keeping his fleet gathered near Cyprus, he dispatched envoys to the oracle of Ammon so they might question the god about some undisclosed affair; for no one knows the purpose for which they were sent,
nor did the god deliver any oracle to them, but as soon as they approached, he told the sacred envoys to go away again, for Cimon, he said, was already in his presence. Hearing this, the envoys went down to the sea; and arriving at the camp of the Greeks, which was then near Egypt, they learned that Cimon had died: and reckoning back the days to the oracle, they realized that the god's riddle had foretold the man's death, as one already among the gods.
He died while besieging Citium, as most say, of sickness; but some say from a wound he received while fighting against the barbarians. As he lay dying he instructed his companions to put to sea immediately and keep his death hidden; and so it happened that, with neither enemy nor allies aware of it, the fleet was brought home safe, seemingly still led by Cimon, according to Phanodemus, even though he had already been dead for thirty days.
After his death nothing further of note was accomplished against the barbarians by any general of the Greeks; instead, turned by demagogues and warmongers against one another, with no one standing between to restrain their hands, they crashed together into war, giving the King's affairs a breathing space while working unspeakable ruin upon the power of Greece.
Late, indeed, Agesilaus and his men, carrying their arms into Asia, engaged in a brief war against the King's generals along the coast; but they accomplished nothing brilliant or great, and were again drawn back, from a fresh source, into the factions and disturbances of Greece, and departed, leaving the King's tax-collectors stationed right among cities that were friendly allies—cities where, back when Cimon held command, not even a courier came down, nor was a horse seen within four hundred stadia of the sea.
That his remains were brought back to Attica is attested by the monuments still called to this day the Cimonian tombs; and the people of Citium likewise venerate a tomb they hold to be Cimon's, according to the orator Nausicrates, since during a season of plague and famine their god instructed them not to disregard Cimon, but rather to revere him with worship as though he were more than mortal. Such, then, was the man who led the Greeks.