Cimon
Cimon (in Greek Κίμων / Kímôn ), born v. 510, dead v. 450 - 449 in front of Citium, statesman and Athenian Strategist .
Biography
It is the son of Miltiade and Thrace, Hégésipylé, girl of a king Thrace of the name of Oloros. It thus belongs to the one of the more aristocratic big families of Athens. According to some, it owes its high stature, its hair in undergrowth and its slowness of mind at its origins thraces. After a noisy youth, where Cimon trails a reputation of drinker and of discharged, it is distinguished with Salamine and starts its political career shortly after 480. It is sufficiently important in 479 to belong to the embassy that Athens sent to Sparte.
He is strategist on several occasions, for the first time in 478. Cimon has at the same time of the popular support but also the support of the noble big families whose weight remained important in the campaigns. This support is due, known as Aristote in the Constitution of Athens (XXVII, 3), with its generosities, comparable with those of a Roman owner with regard to his customers:
“Cimon, which had a princely fortune ( tyrannikên ousian , literally “fortune of Tyran”), initially discharged magnificiently public Liturgie S and moreover maintained much people of sound dème: each one of Lakiades could come each day to find it and obtain from him what to suffice for its existence; moreover, none of its properties had of fence, afun that which wanted could benefit from the fruits. ”
Partisan of the development of the Athenian Empire, it does not consider necessary the rupture with Sparte. He thinks on the contrary that alliance Spartan can counterbalance the development of the democratic ideas to which he is hostile. It is in that he is opposed to Thémistocle.
It helps Aristide the Juste to obtain that the Greeks of minor Asia and the islands rather make allegiance in Athens than in Sparte, and controls almost all military operations of the Ligue of Délos of 477 with 473. It obliges Pausanias to leave Byzance (477), seizes Eion (476), conquers valley of Strymon in Thrace (475), then island of Skyros (475), he drives out the pirates who hold to ransom the Aegean Sea and triumphantly brings back the supposed bones of Thésée, that one said buried to Skyros.
It contributes, towards 472 - 471 with the Ostracisme of Thémistocle, and becomes after the death of Aristide the Juste in 467, the chief of the aristocratic party. Its popularity is, at this time, with its roof in Athens where its generosities, its excesses and also its humanity are appreciated.
The greatest military success of Cimon was the defeat of the fleet Perse with the mouth of Eurymédon (468?). It seizes approximately 200 vessels of the enemy fleet directed by Tithrautès then, having unloaded its infantry, it completely demolishes the enemy army directed by Phérendates. Having learned the arrival from a fleet of reinforcement, it leaves to its research and seizes all the enemy ships. Following this victory, it imposes to king Perses Artaxerxès I {{er}} a peace treaty which recognizes the freedom of the Greeks of Asia Mineure and prohibited to the Persian ships the access to this area.
The preponderance of Athens and military operations without end weary some allied which go until the secession like Naxos in 470 and Thasos in 465. In 463, after a 2 year old seat, reduced Cimon Thasos.
With the spoils of all its campaigns, it will embellish Athens by completing the Long Walls and the citadel. At the time of its return to Athens in 463, Cimon is shown by Périclès and Éphialtès not to have taken more severe measurements, but he is discharged.
In 462, he persuades the Athenians to entrust an army to him in order to come to assistance of Sparte, which must face a revolt of the Hilote S; but Sparte, which is wary of Athens, refuses its assistance. This snub discredits all the partisans of Sparte and involves the fall of Cimon the more so as the capacities of the Aréopage, his principal support, were reduced by the reforms of Éphialtès in its absence. On its return in 461 he claims the abrogation of measurements of Ephialtès but he is struck of Ostracisme.
Pointed out towards 451 by Périclès, Cimon directs a last campaign against Persians in order to take again Cyprus, after a first victory in Cilicie over Mégabaze, of which it seizes and where it dies v. 450 - 449 by making the seat of Citium, today Larnaka.
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