Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
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 favor 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 everyone, 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
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 dishonor 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 toward 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 neighboring 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 honors 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 honor
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 practiced 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
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 succor 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 endeavored to find out
where he was buried. For an oracle had commanded the Athenians to
bring home his ashes, and pay him all due honors 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 favor 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 theater, 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 honorable 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 honor 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