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
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 labor. But a little
while after, the friends and kinsmen of the prisoners coming from
Lydia and Phrygia, redeemed every one 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
honor, he spent yet more honorably 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 labor, 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 marketplace.
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 honor 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 travelers 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 his 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 favor, 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 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
practiced 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, their
enemies driven out of the country, 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 then, 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 this 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, endeavoring 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 vessels, 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 succors, 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 honors 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 afterward 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 defense 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 cognizance 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
favor of the common people. Cimon, when he returned, seeing the
authority of this great council so upset, was exceedingly troubled,
and endeavored 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 favorer 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 endeavored to raise and increase
his credit in Athens. This the Athenians perceived at first with
pleasure, and the favor 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 honor and
kindness showed 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
dispatched Periclidas to Athens to solicit succors, 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 aggrandizement 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; where upon 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
succors 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 favorers 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 mean
time, 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 favoring 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 honor and aggrandizement
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 complaints 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 to 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 be 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 valor 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 honor 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 honors of a superior being. Such was the Greek commander.