Plutarch
46-119 A.C.E - Wrote in Greek
Cimon
Written 75 A.C.E.
Translated by John Dryden
Cimon
(died 449 B.C.E.)
By Plutarch
Peripoltas the prophet, having brought the King Opheltas, and those under
his command, from Thessaly into Boeotia, left there a family, which flourished
a long time after; the greater part of them inhabiting Chaeronea, the first
city out of which they expelled the barbarians. The descendants of this
race, being men of bold attempts and warlike habits, exposed themselves
to so many danger's in the invasions of the Mede, and in battles against
the Gauls, that at last they were almost wholly consumed.
There was left one orphan of this house, called Damon, surnamed
Peripoltas, in beauty and greatness of spirit surpassing all of his age,
but rude and undisciplined in temper. A Roman captain of a company that
wintered in Chaeronea became passionately fond of this youth, who was now
pretty nearly grown a man. And finding all his approaches, his gifts, his
entreaties, alike repulsed, he showed violent inclinations to assault Damon.
Our native Chaeronea was then in a distressed condition, too small and
too poor to meet with anything but neglect. Damon, being sensible of this,
and looking upon himself as injured already, resolved to inflict punishment.
Accordingly, he and sixteen of his companions conspired against the captain;
but that the design might be managed without any danger of being discovered,
they all daubed their faces at night with soot. Thus disguised and inflamed
with wine, they set upon him by break of day, as he was sacrificing in
the market-place; and having killed him, and several others that were with
him, they fled out of the city, which was extremely alarmed and troubled
at the murder. The council assembled immediately, and pronounced sentence
of death against Damon and his accomplices. This they did to justify the
city to the Romans. But that evening, as the magistrates were at supper
together, according to the custom, Damon and his confederates, breaking
into the hall, killed them, and then fled again out of the town. About
this time, Lucius Lucullus chanced to be passing that way with a body of
troops, upon some expedition, and this disaster having but recently happened,
he stayed to examine the matter. Upon inquiry, he found the city was in
no wise faulty, but rather that they themselves had suffered; therefore
he drew out the soldiers, and carried them away with him. Yet Damon continuing
to ravage the country all about, the citizens, by messages and decrees,
in appearance favourable, enticed him into the city, and upon his return,
made him Gymnasiarch; but afterwards as he was anointing himself in the
vapour baths, they set upon him and killed him. For a long while after
apparitions continuing to be seen, and groans to be heard in that place,
so our fathers have told us, they ordered the gates of the baths to be
built up; and even to this day those who live in the neighbourhood believe
that they sometimes see spectres and hear alarming sounds. The posterity
of Damon, of whom some still remain, mostly in Phocis, near the town of
Stiris, are called Asbolomeni, that is, in the Aeolian idiom, men daubed
with soot: because Damon was thus besmeared when he committed this
murder.
But there being a quarrel between the people of Chaeronea and the
Orchomenians, their neighbours, these latter hired an informer, a Roman,
to accuse the community of Chaeronea as if it had been a single person
of the murder of the Romans, of which only Damon and his companions were
guilty; accordingly, the process was commenced, and the cause pleaded before
the Praetor of Macedon, since the Romans as yet had not sent governors
into Greece.
The advocates who defended the inhabitants appealed to the testimony
of Lucullus, who, in answer to a letter the praetor wrote to him, returned
a true account of the matter-of-fact. By this means the town obtained its
acquittal, and escaped a most serious danger. The citizens, thus preserved,
erected a statue to Lucullus in the market-place, near that of the god
Bacchus.
We also have the same impressions of gratitude; and though removed
from the events by the distance of several generations, we yet feel the
obligation to extend to ourselves: and as we think an image of the character
and habits to be a greater honour than one merely representing the face
and the person, we will put Lucullus's life amongst our parallels of illustrious
men, and without swerving from the truth, will record his actions. The
commemoration will be itself a sufficient proof of our grateful feeling,
and he himself would not thank us, if in recompense for a service which
consisted in speaking the truth, we should abuse his memory with a false
and counterfeit narration. For as we would wish that a painter who is to
draw a beautiful face, in which there is yet some imperfection, should
neither wholly leave out, nor yet too pointedly express what is defective,
because this would deform it, and that spoil the resemblance; so since
it is hard, or indeed perhaps impossible, to show the life of a man wholly
free from blemish, in all that is excellent we must follow truth exactly,
and give it fully; any lapses or faults that occur, through human passions
or political necessities, we may regard rather as the shortcomings of some
particular virtue, than as the natural effects of vice; and may be content
without introducing them, curiously and officiously, into our narrative,
if it be but out of tenderness to the weakness of nature, which has never
succeeded in producing any human character so perfect in virtue as to be
pure from all admixture and open to no criticism. On considering with myself
to whom I should compare Lucullus I find none so exactly his parallel as
Cimon.
They were both valiant in war, and successful against the barbarians;
both gentle in political life, and more than any others gave their countrymen
a respite from civil troubles at home, while abroad each of them raised
trophies and gained famous victories. No Greek before Cimon, nor Roman
before Lucullus, ever carried the scene of war so far from their own country;
putting out of the question the acts of Bacchus and Hercules, and any exploit
of Perseus against the Ethiopians, Medes, and Armenians, or again of Jason,
of which any record that deserves credit can be said to have come down
to our days. Moreover in this they were alike, that they did not finish
the enterprises they undertook. They brought their enemies near their ruin,
but never entirely conquered them. There was yet a great conformity in
the free good-will and lavish abundance of their entertainments and general
hospitalities, and in the youthful laxity of their habits. Other points
of resemblance, which we have failed to notice, may be easily collected
from our narrative itself.
Cimon was the son of Miltiades and Hegesipyle, who was by birth
a Thracian, and daughter to the King Olorus, as appears from the poems
of Melanthius and Archelaus, written in praise of Cimon. By this means
the historian Thucydides was his kinsman by the mother's side; for his
father's name also, in remembrance of this common ancestor, was Olorus,
and he was the owner of the gold mines in Thrace, and met his death, it
is said, by violence, in Scapte Hyle, a district of Thrace; and his remains
having afterwards been brought into Attica, a monument is shown as his
among those of the family of Cimon, near the tomb of Elpinice, Cimon's
sister. But Thucydides was of the township of Halimus, and Miltiades and
his family were Laciadae. Miltiades, being condemned in a fine of fifty
talents of the state, and unable to pay it, was cast into prison, and there
died. Thus Cimon was left an orphan very young, with his sister Elpinice,
who was also young and unmarried. And at first he had but an indifferent
reputation, being looked upon as disorderly in his habits, fond of drinking,
and resembling his grandfather, also called Cimon, in character, whose
simplicity got him the surname of Coalemus. Stesimbrotus of Thasos, who
lived near about the same time with Cimon, reports of him that he had little
acquaintance either with music, or any of the other liberal studies and
accomplishments, then common among the Greeks; that he had nothing whatever
of the quickness and the ready speech of his countrymen in Attica; that
he had great nobleness and candour in his disposition, and in his character
in general resembled rather a native of Peloponnesus than of Athens; as
Euripides describes Hercules-
"----Rude
And unrefined, for great things well endued:" for this may fairly be
added to the character which Stesimbrotus has given of
him.
They accused him, in his younger years, of cohabiting with his
own sister Elpinice, who, indeed, otherwise had no very clear reputation,
but was reported to have been over-intimate with Polygnotus the painter;
and hence, when he painted the Trojan women in the porch, then called the
Plesianactium, and now the Poecile, he made Laodice a portrait of her.
Polygnotus was not an ordinary mechanic, nor was he paid for his work,
but out of a desire to please the Athenians painted the portico for nothing.
So it is stated by the historians, and in the following verses by the poet
Melanthius:-
"Wrought by his hand the deeds of heroes grace
At his own charge our temples and our place." Some affirm that Elpinice
lived with her brother, not secretly, but as his married wife, her poverty
excluding her from any suitable match. But afterwards, when Callias, one
of the richest men of Athens, fell in love with her, and proffered to pay
the fine the father was condemned in, if he could obtain the daughter in
marriage, with Elpinice's own consent, Cimon betrothed her to Callias.
There is no doubt but that Cimon was, in general, of an amorous temper.
For Melanthius, in his elegies, rallies him on his attachment for Asteria
of Salamis, and again for a certain Mnestra. And there can be no doubt
of his unusually passionate affection for his lawful wife Isodice, the
daughter of Euryptolemus, the son of Megacles; nor of his regret, even
to impatience, at her death, if any conclusion may be drawn from those
elegies of condolence, addressed to him upon his loss of her. The philosopher
Panaetius is of opinion that Archelaus, the writer on physics, was the
author of them, and indeed the time seems to favour that conjecture. All
the other points of Cimon's character were noble and good. He was as daring
as Miltiades, and not inferior to Themistocles in judgment, and was incomparably
more just and honest than either of them. Fully their equal in all military
virtues, in the ordinary duties of a citizen at home he was immeasurably
their superior. And this, too, when he was very young, his years not yet
strengthened by any experience. For when Themistocles, upon the Median
invasion, advised the Athenians to forsake their city and their country,
and to carry all their arms on shipboard and fight the enemy by sea, in
the straits of Salamis; when all the people stood amazed at the confidence
and rashness of this advice, Cimon was seen, the first of all men, passing
with a cheerful countenance through the Ceramicus, on his way with his
companions to the citadel, carrying a bridle in his hand to offer to the
goddess, intimating that there was no more need of horsemen now, but of
mariners. There, after he had paid his devotions to the goddess, and offered
up the bridle, he took down one of the bucklers that hung upon the walls
of the temple, and went down to the port; by this example giving confidence
to many of the citizens. He was also of a fairly handsome person, according
to the poet Ion, tall and large, and let his thick and curly hair grow
long. After he had acquitted himself gallantly in this battle of Salamis,
he obtained great repute among the Athenians, and was regarded with affection,
as well as admiration. He had many who followed after him, and bade him
aspire to actions not less famous than his father's battle of Marathon.
And when he came forward in political life, the people welcomed him gladly,
being now weary of Themistocles; in opposition to whom, and because of
the frankness and easiness of his temper, which was agreeable to every
one, they advanced Cimon to the highest employments in the government.
The man that contributed most to his promotion was Aristides, who early
discerned in his character his natural capacity, and purposely raised him,
that he might be a counterpoise to the craft and boldness of
Themistocles.
After the Medes had been driven out of Greece, Cimon was sent out
as an admiral, when the Athenians had not yet attained their dominion by
sea, but still followed Pausanias and the Lacedaemonians; and his fellow-citizens
under his command were highly distinguished, both for the excellence of
their discipline, and for their extraordinary zeal and readiness. And further,
perceiving that Pausanias was carrying on secret communications with the
barbarians, and writing letters to the King of Persia to betray Greece,
and puffed up with authority and success, was treating the allies haughtily,
and committing many wanton injustices, Cimon, taking this advantage, by
acts of kindness to those who were suffering wrong, and by his general
humane bearing, robbed him of the command of the Greeks, before he was
aware, not by arms, but by his mere language and character. The greatest
part of the allies, no longer able to endure the harshness and pride of
Pausanias, revolted from him to Cimon and Aristides, who accepted the duty,
and wrote to the Ephors of Sparta, desiring them to recall a man who was
causing dishonour to Sparta and trouble to Greece. They tell of Pausanias,
that when he was in Byzantium, he solicited a young lady of a noble family
in the city, whose name was Cleonice, to debauch her. Her parents, dreading
his cruelty, were forced to consent, and so abandoned their daughter to
his wishes. The daughter asked the servants outside the chamber to put
out all the lights; so that approaching silently and in the dark towards
his bed, she stumbled upon the lamp, which she overturned. Pausanias, who
was fallen asleep, awakened and, startled with the noise, thought an assassin
had taken that dead time of night to murder him, so that hastily snatching
up his poniard that lay by him, he struck the girl, who fell with the blow,
and died. After this, he never had rest, but was continually haunted by
her, and saw an apparition visiting him in his sleep, and addressing him
with these angry words:-
"Go on thy way, unto the evil end,
That doth on lust and violence attend." This was one of the chief occasions
of indignation against him among the confederates, who now, joining their
resentments and forces with Cimon's, besieged him in Byzantium. He escaped
out of their hands, and, continuing, as it is said, to be disturbed by
the apparition, fled to the oracle of the dead at Heraclea, raised the
ghost of Cleonice, and entreated her to be reconciled. Accordingly she
appeared to him, and answered that, as soon as he came to Sparta, he should
speedily be freed from all evils; obscurely foretelling, it would seem,
his imminent death. This story is related by many authors.
Cimon, strengthened with the accession of the allies, went as general
into Thrace. For he was told that some great men among the Persians, of
the king's kindred, being in possession of Eion, a city situated upon the
river Strymon, infested the neighbouring Greeks. First he defeated these
Persians in battle, and shut them up within the walls of their town. Then
he fell upon the Thracians of the country beyond the Strymon, because they
supplied Eion with victuals, and driving them entirely out of the country,
took possession of it as conqueror, by which means he reduced the besieged
to such straits, that Butes, who commanded there for the king, in desperation
set fire to the town, and burned himself, his goods, and all his relations,
in one common flame. By this means, Cimon got the town, but no great booty;
as the barbarians had not only consumed themselves in the fire, but the
richest of their effects. However, he put the country about into the hands
of the Athenians, a most advantageous and desirable situation for a settlement.
For this action, the people permitted him to erect the stone Mercuries,
upon the first of which was this inscription:-
"Of bold and patient spirit, too, were those,
Who, where the Strymon under Eion flows,
With famine and the sword, to utmost need,
Reduced at last the children of the Mede." Upon the second stood
this:-
"The Athenians to their leaders this reward
For great and useful service did accord;
Others hereafter shall, from their applause,
Learn to be valiant in their country's cause." And upon the third the
following:-
"With Atreus' sons, this city sent of yore
Divine Menestheus to the Trojan shore;
Of all the Greeks, so Homer's verses say,
The ablest man an army to array:
So old the title of her sons the name
Of chiefs and champions in the field to claim."
Though the name of Cimon is not mentioned in these inscriptions,
yet his contemporaries considered them to be the very highest honours to
him; as neither Miltiades nor Themistocles ever received the like. When
Miltiades claimed a garland, Sochares of Decelea stood up in the midst
of the assembly and opposed it, using words which, though ungracious, were
received with applause by the people: "When you have gained a victory by
yourself, Miltiades, then you may ask to triumph so too." What then induced
them so particularly to honour Cimon? Was it that under other commanders
they stood upon the defensive? but by his conduct, they not only attacked
their enemies, but invaded them in their own country, and acquired new
territory, becoming masters of Eion and Amphipolis, where they planted
colonies, as also they did in the isle of Scyros, which Cimon had taken
on the following occasion. The Dolopians were the inhabitants of this isle,
a people who neglected all husbandry, and had, for many generations, been
devoted to piracy; this they practised to that degree, that at last they
began to plunder foreigners that brought merchandise into their ports.
Some merchants of Thessaly, who had come to shore near to Ctesium, were
not only spoiled of their goods, but themselves put into confinement. These
men afterwards escaping from their prison, went and obtained sentence against
the Scyrians in a court of Amphictyons, and when the Scyrian people declined
to make public restitution, and called upon the individuals who had got
the plunder to give it up, these persons, in alarm, wrote to Cimon to succour
them, with his fleet, and declared themselves ready to deliver the town
into his hands. Cimon, by these means, got the town, expelled the Dolopian
pirates, and so opened the traffic of the Aegean sea. And, understanding
that the ancient Theseus, the son of Aegeus, when he fled from Athens and
took refuge in this isle, was here treacherously slain by King Lycomedes,
who feared him, Cimon endeavoured to find out where he was buried. For
an oracle had commanded the Athenians to bring home his ashes, and pay
him all due honours as a hero; but hitherto they had not been able to learn
where he was interred, as the people of Scyros dissembled the knowledge
of it, and were not willing to allow a search. But now, great inquiry being
made, with some difficulty he found out the tomb and carried the relics
into his own galley, and with great pomp and show brought them to Athens,
four hundred years, or thereabouts, after his expulsion. This act got Cimon
great favour with the people, one mark of which was the judgment, afterwards
so famous, upon the tragic poets. Sophocles, still a young man, had just
brought forward his first plays; opinions were much divided, and the spectators
had taken sides with some heat. So, to determine the case, Apsephion, who
was at that time archon, would not cast lots who should be judges; but
when Cimon and his brother commanders with him came into the theatre, after
they had performed the usual rites to the god of the festival, he would
not allow them to retire, but came forward and made them swear (being ten
in all, one from each tribe) the usual oath; and so being sworn judges,
he made them sit down to give sentence. The eagerness for victory grew
all the warmer from the ambition to get the suffrages of such honourable
judges. And the victory was at last adjudged to Sophocles, which Aeschylus
is said to have taken so ill, that he left Athens shortly after, and went
in anger to Sicily, where he died, and was buried near the city of
Gela.
Ion relates that when he was a young man, and recently come from
Chios to Athens, he chanced to sup with Cimon at Laomedon's house. After
supper, when they had, according to custom, poured out wine to the honour
of the gods, Cimon was desired by the company to give them a song, which
he did with sufficient success, and received the commendations of the company,
who remarked on his superiority to Themistocles, who, on a like occasion,
had declared he had never learnt to sing, nor to play, and only knew how
to make a city rich and powerful. After talking of things incident to such
entertainments, they entered upon the particulars of the several actions
for which Cimon had been famous. And when they were mentioning the most
signal, he told them they had omitted one, upon which he valued himself
most for address and good contrivance. He gave this account of it. When
the allies had taken a great number of the barbarians prisoners in Sestos
and Byzantium, they gave him the preference to divide the booty; he accordingly
put the prisoners in one lot, and the spoils of their rich attire and jewels
in the other. This the allies complained of as an unequal division; but
he gave them their choice to take which lot they would, for that the Athenians
should be content with that which they refused. Herophytus of Samos advised
them to take the ornaments for their share, and leave the slaves to the
Athenians; and Cimon went away, and was much laughed at for his ridiculous
division. For the allies carried away the golden bracelets, and armlets,
and collars, and purple robes, and the Athenians had only the naked bodies
of the captives, which they could make no advantage of, being unused to
labour. But a little while after, the friends and kinsmen of the prisoners
coming from Lydia and Phrygia, redeemed everyone his relations at a high
ransom; so that by this means Cimon got so much treasure that he maintained
his whole fleet of galleys with the money for four months; and yet there
was some left to lay up in the treasury at Athens.
Cimon now grew rich, and what he gained from the barbarians with
honour, he spent yet more honourably upon the citizens. For he pulled down
all the enclosures of his gardens and grounds, that strangers, and the
needy of his fellow-citizens, might gather of his fruits freely. At home
he kept a table, plain, but sufficient for a considerable number; to which
any poor townsman had free access, and so might support himself without
labour, with his whole time left free for public duties. Aristotle states,
however, that this reception did not extend to all the Athenians, but only
to his own fellow-townsmen, the Laciadae. Besides this, he always went
attended by two or three young companions, very well clad; and if he met
with an elderly citizen in a poor habit, one of these would change clothes
with the decayed citizen, which was looked upon as very nobly done. He
enjoined them, likewise, to carry a considerable quantity of coin about
them, which they were to convey silently into the hands of the better class
of poor men, as they stood by them in the market-place. This, Cratinus
the poet speaks of in one of his comedies, the Archilochi-
"For I, Metrobius too, the scrivener poor,
Of ease and comfort in my age secure
By Greece's noblest son in life's decline,
Cimon, the generous-hearted, the divine,
Well-fed and feasted hoped till death to be,
Death which, alas! has taken him ere me."
Gorgias the Leontine gives him this character, that he got riches
that he might use them, and used them that he might get honour by them.
And Critias, one of the thirty tyrants, makes it, in his elegies, his wish
to have-
"The Scopads' wealth, and Cimon's nobleness,
And King Agesilaus's success."
Lichas, we know, became famous in Greece, only because on the days
of the sports, when the young boys run naked, he used to entertain the
strangers that came to see these diversions. But Cimon's generosity outdid
all the old Athenian hospitality and good-nature. For though it is the
city's just boast that their forefathers taught the rest of Greece to sow
corn, and how to use springs of water, and to kindle fire, yet Cimon, by
keeping open house for his fellow-citizens, and giving travellers liberty
to eat the fruits which the several seasons produced in his land, seemed
to restore to the world that community of goods, which mythology says existed
in the reign of Saturn. Those who object to him, that he did this to be
popular and gain the applause of the vulgar, are confuted by the constant
tenor of the rest of his actions, which all tended to uphold the interests
of the nobility and the Spartan policy, of which he gave instances, when
together with Aristides he opposed Themistocles, who was advancing the
authority of the people beyond its just limits, and resisted Ephialtes,
who, to please the multitude, was for abolishing the jurisdiction of the
court of Areopagus. And when all of this time, except Aristides and Ephialtes,
enriched themselves out of the public money, he still kept his hands clean
and untainted, and to his last day never acted or spoke for his own private
gain or emolument. They tell us that Rhoesaces, a Persian, who had traitorously
revolted from the king his master, fled to Athens, and there, being harassed
by sycophants, who were still accusing him to the people, he applied himself
to Cimon for redress, and, to gain his favour, laid down in his doorway
two cups, the one full of gold and the other of silver Darics. Cimon smiled
and asked him whether he wished to have Cimon's hired service or his friendship.
He replied, his friendship. "If so," said he, "take away these pieces,
for, being your friend, when I shall have occasion for them, I will send
and ask for them."
The allies of the Athenians began now to be weary of war and military
service, willing to have repose, and to look after their husbandry and
traffic. For they saw their enemies driven out of the country, and did
not fear any new vexations from them. They still paid the tax they were
assessed at, but did not send men and galleys, as they had done before.
This the other Athenian generals wished to constrain them to, and by judicial
proceedings against defaulters, and penalties which they inflicted on them,
made the government uneasy, and even odious. But Cimon practised a contrary
method; he forced no man to go that was not willing, but of those that
desired to be excused from service he took money and vessels unmanned,
and let them yield to the temptation of staying at home, to attend to their
private business. Thus they lost their military habits and luxury, and
their own folly quickly changed them into unwarlike husbandmen and traders;
while Cimon, continually embarking large numbers of Athenians on board
his galleys, thoroughly disciplined them in his expeditions, and ere long
made them the lords of their own paymasters. The allies, whose indolence
maintained them, while they thus went sailing about everywhere, and incessantly
bearing arms and acquiring skill, began to fear and flatter them, and found
themselves after a while allies no longer, but unwittingly become tributaries
and slaves.
Nor did any man ever do more than Cimon did to humble the pride
of the Persian king. He was not content with getting rid of him out of
Greece; but following close at his heels, before the barbarians could take
breath and recover themselves, he was already at work, and what with his
devastations, and his forcible reduction of some places, and the revolts
and voluntary accession of others, in the end, from Ionia to Pamphylia,
all Asia was clear of Persian soldiers. Word being brought him that the
royal commanders were lying in wait upon the coast of Pamphylia with a
numerous land army and a large fleet, he determined to make the whole sea
on his side the Chelidonian islands so formidable to them that they should
never dare to show themselves in it; and setting off from Cnidos and the
Triopian headland with two hundred galleys, which had been originally built
with particular care by Themistocles, for speed and rapid evolutions, and
to which he now gave greater width and roomier decks along the sides to
move to and fro upon, so as to allow a great number of full-armed soldiers
to take part in the engagements and fight from them, he shaped his course
first of all against the town of Phaselis, which though inhabited by Greeks,
yet would not quit the interests of Persia, but denied his galleys entrance
into their port. Upon this he wasted the country, and drew up his army
to their very walls; but the soldiers of Chios, who were then serving under
him, being ancient friends to the Phaselites, endeavouring to propitiate
the general in their behalf, at the same time shot arrows into the town,
to which were fastened letters conveying intelligence. At length he concluded
peace with them, upon the conditions that they should pay down ten talents,
and follow him against the barbarians. Ephorus says the admiral of the
Persian fleet was Tithraustes, and the general of the land army Pherendates;
but Callisthenes is positive that Ariomandes, the son of Gobryas, had the
supreme command of all the forces. He lay waiting with the whole fleet
at the mouth of the river Eurymedon, with no design to fight, but expecting
a reinforcement of eighty Phoenician ships on their way from Cyprus. Cimon,
aware of this, put out to sea, resolved, if they would not fight a battle
willingly, to force them to it. The barbarians, seeing this, retired within
the mouth of the river to avoid being attacked; but when they saw the Athenians
come upon them, notwithstanding their retreat, they met them with six hundred
ships, as Phanodemus relates, but, according to Ephorus, only with three
hundred and fifty. However, they did nothing worthy such mighty forces,
but immediately turned the prows of their galleys toward the shore, where
those that came first threw themselves upon the land, and fled to their
army drawn up thereabout, while the rest perished with their vessel or
were taken. By this, one may guess at their number, for though a great
many escaped out of the fight, and a great many others were sunk, yet two
hundred galleys were taken by the Athenians.
When their land army drew toward the seaside, Cimon was in suspense
whether he should venture to try and force his way on shore; as he should
thus expose his Greeks, wearied with slaughter in the first engagement,
to the swords of the barbarians, who were all fresh men, and many times
their number. But seeing his men resolute, and flushed with victory, he
bade them land, though they were not yet cool from their first battle.
As soon as they touched ground, they set up a shout and ran upon the enemy,
who stood firm and sustained the first shock with great courage, so that
the fight was a hard one, and some principal men of the Athenians in rank
and courage were slain. At length, though with much ado, they routed the
barbarians, and killing some, took others prisoners, and plundered all
their tents and pavilions, which were full of rich spoil. Cimon, like a
skilled athlete at the games, having in one day carried off two victories
wherein he surpassed that of Salamis by sea and that of Plataea by land,
was encouraged to try for yet another success. News being brought that
the Phoenician succours, in number eighty sail, had come in sight at Hydrum,
he set off with all speed to find them, while they as yet had not received
any certain account of the larger fleet, and were in doubt what to think;
so that, thus surprised, they lost all their vessels and most of their
men with them. This success of Cimon so daunted the King of Persia that
he presently made that celebrated peace, by which he engaged that his armies
should come no nearer the Grecian sea than the length of a horse's course,
and that none of his galleys or vessels of war should appear between the
Cyanean and Chelidonian isles. Callisthenes, however, says that he did
not agree to any such articles, but that, upon the fear this victory gave
him, he did in reality thus act, and kept off so far from Greece, that
when Pericles with fifty and Ephialtes with thirty galleys cruised beyond
the Chelidonian isles, they did not discover one Persian vessel. But in
the collection which Craterus made of the public acts of the people, there
is a draft of this treaty given. And it is told, also, that at Athens they
erected the altar of Peace upon this occasion, and decreed particular honours
to Callias, who was employed as ambassador to procure the
treaty.
The people of Athens raised so much money from the spoils of this
war, which were publicly sold, that besides other expenses, and raising
the south wall of the citadel, they laid the foundation of the long walls,
not, indeed, finished till at a later time, which were called the Legs.
And the place where they built them being soft and marshy ground, they
were forced to sink great weights of stone and rubble to secure the foundation,
and did all this out of the money Cimon supplied them with. It was he,
likewise, who first embellished the upper city with those fine and ornamental
places of exercise and resort, which they afterwards so much frequented
and delighted in. He set the market-place with plane-trees; and the Academy,
which was before a bare, dry, and dirty spot, he converted into a well-watered
grove, with shady alleys to walk in, and open courses for
races.
When the Persians who had made themselves masters of the Chersonese,
so far from quitting it, called in the people of the interior of Thrace
to help them against Cimon, whom they despised for the smallness of his
forces, he set upon them with only four galleys, and took thirteen of theirs;
and having driven out the Persians, and subdued the Thracians, he made
the whole Chersonese the property of Athens. Next he attacked the people
of Thasos, who had revolted from the Athenians; and, having defeated them
in a fight at sea, where he took thirty-three of their vessels, he took
their town by siege, and acquired for the Athenians all the mines of gold
on the opposite coast, and the territory dependent on Thasos. This opened
him a fair passage into Macedon, so that he might, it was thought, have
acquired a good portion of that country; and because he neglected the opportunity,
he was suspected of corruption, and of having been bribed off by King Alexander.
So, by the combination of his adversaries, he was accused of being false
to his country. In his defence he told the judges that he had always shown
himself in his public life the friend, not, like other men, of rich Ionians
and Thessalians, to be courted, and to receive presents, but of the Lacedaemonians;
for as he admired, so he wished to imitate, the plainness of their habits,
their temperance, and simplicity of living, which he preferred to any sort
of riches: but that he always had been, and still was, proud to enrich
his country with the spoils of her enemies. Stesimbrotus, making mention
of this trial, states that Elpinice, in behalf of her brother, addressed
herself to Pericles, the most vehement of his accusers, to whom Pericles
answered, with a smile, "You are old, Elpinice, to meddle with affairs
of this nature." However, he proved the mildest of his prosecutors, and
rose up but once all the while, almost as a matter of form, to plead against
him. Cimon was acquitted.
In his public life after this he continued, whilst at home, to
control and restrain the common people, who would have trampled upon the
nobility. and drawn all the power and sovereignty to themselves. But when
he afterwards was sent out to war, the multitude broke loose, as it were,
and overthrew all the ancient laws and customs they had hitherto observed,
and, chiefly at the instigation of Ephialtes, withdrew the cognisance of
almost all causes from the Areopagus; so that all jurisdiction now being
transferred to them, the government was reduced to a perfect democracy,
and this by the help of Pericles, who was already powerful, and had pronounced
in favour of the common people. Cimon, when he returned, seeing the authority
of this great council so upset, was exceedingly troubled, and endeavoured
to remedy these disorders by bringing the courts of law to their former
state, and restoring the old aristocracy of the time of Clisthenes. This
the others declaimed against with all the vehemence possible, and began
to revive those stories concerning him and his sister, and cried out against
him as the partisan of the Lacedaemonians. To these calumnies the famous
verses of Eupolis the poet upon Cimon refer:-
"He was as good as others that one sees,
But he was fond of drinking and of ease;
And would at nights to Sparta often roam,
Leaving his sister desolate at home."
But if, though slothful and a drunkard, he could capture so many
towns and gain so many victories, certainly if he had been sober and minded
his business, there had been no Grecian commander, either before or after
him, that could have surpassed him for exploits of war.
He was, indeed, a favourer of the Lacedaemonians, even from his
youth, and he gave the names of Lacedaemonius and Eleus to two sons, twins,
whom he had, as Stesimbrotus says, by a woman of Clitorium, whence Pericles
often upbraided them with their mother's blood. But Diodorus the geographer
asserts that both these, and another son of Cimon's, whose name was Thessalus,
were born of Isodice, the daughter of Euryptolemus, the son of
Megacles.
However, this is certain, that Cimon was countenanced by the Lacedaemonians
in opposition to Themistocles, whom they disliked; and while he was yet
very young, they endeavoured to raise and increase his credit in Athens.
This the Athenians perceived at first with pleasure, and the favour the
Lacedaemonians showed him was in various ways advantageous to them and
their affairs; as at that time they were just rising to power, and were
occupied in winning the allies to their side. So they seemed not at all
offended with the honour and kindness shown to Cimon, who then had the
chief management of all the affairs of Greece, and was acceptable to the
Lacedaemonians, and courteous to the allies. But afterwards the Athenians,
grown more powerful, when they saw Cimon so entirely devoted to the Lacedaemonians,
began to be angry, for he would always in his speeches prefer them to the
Athenians, and upon every occasion, when he would reprimand them for a
fault, or incite them to emulation, he would exclaim, "The Lacedaemonians
would not do thus." This raised the discontent, and got him in some degree
the hatred of the citizens; but that which ministered chiefly to the accusation
against him fell out upon the following occasion.
In the fourth year of the reign of Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus,
King of Sparta, there happened in the country of Lacedaemon the greatest
earthquake that was known in the memory of man; the earth opened into chasms,
and the mountain Taygetus was so shaken, that some of the rocky points
of it fell down, and except five houses, all the town of Sparta was shattered
to pieces. They say that a little before any motion was perceived, as the
young men and the boys just grown up were exercising themselves together
in the middle of the portico, a hare, of a sudden, started out just by
them, which the young men, though all naked and daubed with oil, ran after
for sport. No sooner were they gone from the place, than the gymnasium
fell down upon the boys who had stayed behind, and killed them all. Their
tomb is to this day called Sismatias. Archidamus, by the present danger
made apprehensive of what might follow, and seeing the citizens intent
upon removing the most valuable of their goods out of their houses, commanded
an alarm to be sounded, as if an enemy were coming upon them, in order
that they should collect about him in a body, with arms. It was this alone
that saved Sparta at that time, for the Helots were got together from the
country about, with design to surprise the Spartans, and overpower those
whom the earthquake had spared. But finding them armed and well prepared,
they retired into the towns and openly made war with them, gaining over
a number of the Laconians of the country districts; while at the same time
the Messenians, also, made an attack upon the Spartans, who therefore despatched
Periclidas to Athens to solicit succours, of whom Aristophanes says in
mockery that he came and-
"In a red jacket, at the altars seated,
With a white face, for men and arms entreated."
This Ephialtes opposed, protesting that they ought not to raise
up or assist a city that was a rival to Athens; but that being down, it
were best to keep her so, and let the pride and arrogance of Sparta be
trodden under. But Cimon, as Critias says, preferring the safety of Lacedaemon
to the aggrandisement of his own country, so persuaded the people, that
he soon marched out with a large army to their relief. Ion records, also,
the most successful expression which he used to move the Athenians. "They
ought not to suffer Greece to be lamed, nor their own city to be deprived
of her yoke-fellow."
In his return from aiding the Lacedaemonians, he passed with his
army through the territory of Corinth; whereupon Lachartus reproached him
for bringing his army into the country without first asking leave of the
people. For he that knocks at another man's door ought not to enter the
house till the master gives him leave. "But you Corinthians, O Lachartus,"
said Cimon, "did not knock at the gates of the Cleonaeans and Megarians,
but broke them down, and entered by force, thinking that all places should
be open to the stronger." And having thus rallied the Corinthian, he passed
on with his army. Some time after this, the Lacedaemonians sent a second
time to desire succours of the Athenians against the Messenians and Helots,
who had seized upon Ithome. But when they came, fearing their boldness
and gallantry, of all that came to their assistance, they sent them only
back, alleging they were designing innovations. The Athenians returned
home, enraged at this usage, and vented their anger upon all those who
were favourers of the Lacedaemonians, and seizing some slight occasion,
they banished Cimon for ten years, which is the time prescribed to those
that are banished by the ostracism. In the meantime, the Lacedaemonians,
on their return after freeing Delphi from the Phocians, encamped their
army at Tanagra, whither the Athenians presently marched with design to
fight them.
Cimon, also, came thither armed, and ranged himself among those
of his own tribe which was the Oeneis, desirous of fighting with the rest
against the Spartans; but the council of five hundred being informed of
this, and frighted at it, his adversaries crying out he would disorder
the army, and bring the Lacedaemonians to Athens, commanded the officers
not to receive him. Wherefore Cimon left the army, conjuring Euthippus,
the Anaphlystian, and the rest of his companions, who were most suspected
as favouring the Lacedaemonians, to behave themselves bravely against their
enemies, and by their actions make their innocence evident to their countrymen.
These, being in all a hundred, took the arms of Cimon, and followed his
advice; and making a body by themselves, fought so desperately with the
enemy, that they were all cut off, leaving the Athenians deep regret for
the loss of such brave men, and repentance for having so unjustly suspected
them. Accordingly, they did not long retain their severity toward Cimon,
partly upon remembrance of his former services, and partly, perhaps, induced
by the juncture of the times. For being defeated at Tanagra in a great
battle, and fearing the Peloponnesians would come upon them at the opening
of the spring, they recalled Cimon by a decree, of which Pericles himself
was author. So reasonable were men's resentments in those times, and so
moderate their anger, that it always gave way to the public good. Even
ambition, the least governable of all human passions, could then yield
to the necessities of the state.
Cimon, as soon as he returned, put an end to the war, and reconciled
the two cities. Peace thus established, seeing the Athenians impatient
of being idle, and eager after the honour and aggrandisement of war, lest
they should set upon the Greeks themselves, or with so many ships cruising
about the isles and Peloponnesus they should give occasions to intestine
wars, or complaining of their allies against them, he equipped two hundred
galleys, with design to make an attempt upon Egypt and Cyprus; purposing,
by this means, to accustom the Athenians to fight against the barbarians,
and enrich themselves honestly by spoiling those who were the natural enemies
of Greece. But when all things were prepared, and the army ready to embark,
Cimon had this dream. It seemed to him that there was a furious bitch barking
at him, and mixed with the barking a kind of human voice uttered these
words:-
"Come on, for thou shalt shortly be,
A pleasure to my whelps and me." This dream was hard to interpret,
yet Astyphilus of Posidonia, a man skilled in divinations, and intimate
with Cimon, told him that his death was presaged by this vision, which
he thus explained. A dog is enemy to him he barks at; and one is always
most a pleasure to one's enemies when one is dead; the mixture of human
voice with barking signifies the Medes, for the army of the Medes is mixed
up of Greeks and barbarians. After this dream, as he was sacrificing to
Bacchus, and the priest cutting up the victim, a number of ants, taking
up the congealed particles of the blood, laid them about Cimon's great
toe. This was not observed for a good while, but at the very time when
Cimon spied it, the priest came and showed him the liver of the sacrifice
imperfect, wanting that part of it called the head. But he could not then
recede from the enterprise, so he set sail. Sixty of his ships he sent
toward Egypt; with the rest he went and fought the King of Persia's fleet,
composed of Phoenician and Cilician galleys, recovered all the cities thereabout,
and threatened Egypt; designing no less than the entire ruin of the Persian
empire. And the rather, for that he was informed Themistocles was in great
repute among the barbarians, having promised the king to lead his army,
whenever he should make war upon Greece. But Themistocles, it is said,
abandoning all hopes of compassing his designs, very much out of the despair
of overcoming the valour and good fortune of Cimon, died a voluntary death.
Cimon, intent on great designs, which he was now to enter upon, keeping
his navy about the isle of Cyprus, sent messengers to consult the oracle
of Jupiter Ammon upon some secret matter. For it is not known about what
they were sent, and the god would give them no answer, but commanded them
to return again, for that Cimon was already with him. Hearing this, they
returned to sea, and as soon as they came to the Grecian army, which was
then about Egypt, they understood that Cimon was dead; and computing the
time of the oracle, they found that his death had been signified, he being
then already with the gods.
He died, some say, of sickness, while besieging Citium, in Cyprus;
according to others, of a wound he received in a skirmish with the barbarians.
When he perceived he should die he commanded those under his charge to
return, and by no means to let the news of his death be known by the way;
this they did with such secrecy that they all came home safe, and neither
their enemies nor the allies knew what had happened. Thus, as Phanodemus
relates, the Grecian army was, as it were, conducted by Cimon thirty days
after he was dead. But after his death there was not one commander among
the Greeks that did anything considerable against the barbarians, and instead
of uniting against their common enemies, the popular leaders and partisans
of war animated them against one another to that degree, that none could
interpose their good offices to reconcile them. And while, by their mutual
discord, they ruined the power of Greece, they gave the Persians time to
recover breath, and repair all their losses. It is true, indeed, Agesilaus
carried the arms of Greece into Asia, but it was a long time after; there
were, indeed, some brief appearances of a war against the king's lieutenants
in the maritime provinces, but they all quickly vanished; before he could
perform anything of moment, he was recalled by fresh civil dissensions
and disturbances at home. So that he was forced to leave the Persian king's
officers to impose what tribute they pleased on the Greek cities in Asia,
the confederates and allies of the Lacedaemonians. Whereas, in the time
of Cimon, not so much as a letter-carrier, or a single horseman, was ever
seen to come within four hundred furlongs of the sea.
The monuments, called Cimonian to this day, in Athens, show that
his remains were conveyed home, yet the inhabitants of the city Citium
pay particular honour to a certain tomb which they call the tomb of Cimon,
according to Nausicrates the rhetorician, who states that in a time of
famine, when the crops of their land all failed, they sent to the oracle,
which commanded them not to forget Cimon, but give him the honours of a
superior being. Such was the Greek commander.
THE END
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