Cimon

Driven from Byzantium, and still harassed by the phantom, as the story goes, he had recourse to the ghost-oracle of Heracleia, and summoning up the spirit of Cleonice, besought her to forgo her wrath. She came into his presence and said that he would soon cease from his troubles on coming to Sparta, thus darkly intimating, as it seems, his impending death. At any rate, this tale is told by many.

But Cimon, now that the allies had attached themselves to him, took command of them and sailed to Thrace,[*]( 476-475 B.C.) for he heard that men of rank among the Persians and kinsmen of the King held possession of Eion, a city on the banks of the Strymon, and were harassing the Hellenes in that vicinity.

First he defeated the Persians themselves in battle and shut them up in the city; then he expelled from their homes above the Strymon the Thracians from whom the Persians had been getting provisions, put the whole country under guard, and brought the besieged to such straits that Butes, the King’s general, gave up the struggle, set fire to the city, and destroyed with it his family, his treasures, and himself.

And so it was that though Cimon took the city, he gained no other memorable advantage thereby, since most of its treasures had been burned up with the Barbarians; but the surrounding territory was very fertile and fair, and this he turned over to the Athenians for occupation. Wherefore the people permitted him to dedicate the stone Hermae, on the first of which is the inscription:—

1. Valorous-hearted as well were they who at Eion fighting,
2. Facing the sons of the Medes, Strymon’s current beside,
3. Fiery famine arrayed, and gore-flecked Ares, against them,
4. Thus first finding for foes that grim exit,—despair;

1. Unto their leaders reward by Athenians thus hath been given;
2. Benefits won such return, valorous deeds of the brave.
3. All the more strong at the sight will the men of the future be eager,
4. Fighting for commonwealth, war’s dread strife to maintain;

and on the third:—

1. With the Atridae of old, from this our city, Menestheus
2. Led his men to the plain Trojan called and divine.
3. He, once Homer asserted, among well-armoured Achaeans,
4. Marshaller was of the fight, best of them all who had come.
5. Thus there is naught unseemly in giving that name to Athenians;
6. Marshallers they both of war and of the vigor of men.

Although these inscriptions nowhere mentioned Cimon by name, his contemporaries held them to be a surpassing honor for him. Neither Themistocles nor Miltiades achieved any such, nay, when the latter asked for a crown of olive merely, Sophanes the Deceleian rose up in the midst of the assembly and protested. His speech was ungracious, but it pleased the people of that day. When, said he, thou hast fought out alone a victory over the Barbarians, then demand to be honored alone.

Why, then, were the people so excessively pleased with the achievement of Cimon? Perhaps it was because when the others were their generals they were trying to repel their enemies and so avert disaster; but when he led them they were enabled to ravage the land of their enemies with incursions of their own, and acquired fresh territories for settlement, not only Eion itself, but also Amphipolis.

They settled Scyros too, which Cimon seized for the following reason. Dolopians were living on the island, but they were poor tillers of the soil. So they practised piracy on the high sea from of old, and finally did not withhold their hands even from those who put into their ports and had dealings with them, but robbed some Thessalian merchants who had cast anchor at Ctesium, and threw them into prison.