Cimon

In this way he awakened the envy and hatred of his fellow-citizens. At any rate, the strongest charge against him arose as follows. When Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, was in the fourth year of his reign at Sparta,[*]( 464 B.C.) a greater earthquake than any before reported rent the land of the Lacedaemonians into many chasms, shook Taygetus so that sundry peaks were torn away, and demolished the entire city with the exception of five houses. The rest were thrown down by the earthquake.

It is said that while the young men and youths were exercising together in the interior of the colonnade, just a little before the earthquake, a hare made its appearance, and the youths, all anointed as they were, in sport dashed out and gave chase to it, but the young men remained behind, on whom the gymnasium fell, and all perished together. Their tomb, even down to the present day, they call Seismatias.

Archidamus at once comprehended from the danger at hand that which was sure to follow, and as he saw the citizens trying to save the choicest valuables out of their houses, ordered the trumpet to give the signal of an enemy’s attack, in order that they might flock to him at once under arms. This was all that saved Sparta at that crisis. For the Helots hurriedly gathered from all the country round about with intent to despatch the surviving Spartans.

But finding them arrayed in arms, they withdrew to their cities and waged open war, persuading many Perioeci also so to do. The Messenians besides joined in this attack upon the Spartans. Accordingly, the Lacedaemonians sent Pericleidas to Athens with request for aid, and Aristophanes introduces him into a comedy as sitting at the altars, pale of face, in purple cloak, soliciting an army.[*](Aristoph. Lys. 1137 ff.)

But Ephialtes opposed the project, and besought the Athenians not to succour nor restore a city which was their rival, but to let haughty Sparta lie to be trodden under foot of men. Whereupon, as Critias says, Cimon made his country’s increase of less account than Sparta’s interest, and persuaded the people to go forth to her aid with many hoplites. And Ion actually mentions the phrase by which, more than by anything else, Cimon prevailed upon the Athenians, exhorting them not to suffer Hellas to be crippled, nor their city to be robbed of its yoke-fellow.

After he had given aid to the Lacedaemonians, he was going back home with his forces through the Isthmus of Corinth, when Lachartus upbraided him for having introduced his army before he had conferred with the citizens. People who knock at doors, said he, do not go in before the owner bids them; to which Cimon replied, And yet you Corinthians, O Lachartus, did not so much as knock at the gates of Cleonae and Megara, but hewed them down and forced your way in under arms, demanding that everything be opened up to the stronger. Such was his boldness of speech to the Corinthian in an emergency, and he passed on through with his forces.

Once more the Lacedaemonians summoned the Athenians to come to their aid against the Messenians and Helots in Ithome, and the Athenians went, but their dashing boldness awakened fear, and they were singled out from all the allies and sent off as dangerous conspirators. They came back home in a rage, and at once took open measures of hostility against the Laconizers, and above all against Cimon. Laying hold of a trifling pretext, they ostracised him for ten years.[*]( 461 B.C.) That was the period decreed in all cases of ostracism.

It was during this period that the Lacedaemonians, after freeing the Delphians from the Phocians, encamped at Tanagra on their march back home.[*]( 457 B.C.) Here the Athenians confronted them, bent on fighting their issue out, and here Cimon came in arms, to join his own Oeneid tribe, eager to share with his fellow-citizens in repelling the Lacedaemonians.

But the Council of the Five Hundred learned of this and was filled with fear, since Cimon’s foes accused him of wishing to throw the ranks into confusion, and then lead the Lacedaemonians in an attack upon the city; so they forbade the generals to receive the man. As he went away he besought Euthippus of Anaphlystus and his other comrades, all who were specially charged with laconizing, to fight sturdily against the enemy, and by their deeds of valor to dissipate the charge which their countrymen laid at their door.