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Vocabulary for the aftermath of the Persian Wars and Classical Culture
Peloponnesian League: alliance between Sparta and other city-states in the
Peloponnesus beginning in the 6th century into the 4th century. It would be
the chief rival of Athens in the 5h century
Trireme: means "with three banks of oars" or “three rower,” was an
ancient vessel and a type of galley that was used by the ancient maritime
civilizations of the Mediterranean, especially the Phoenicians, ancient
Greeks and Romans.
Delos: island in the Aegean Sea and home to the Athenian treasury during
the beginning of the Delian League
Delian League: founded in 478 BC, was an association of Greek city-states
under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the
Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea. It lasted
until 404 BC
Cimon: Athenian statesman and general who played an active part in
building up the Athenian empire in the period following the Greco-Persian
Wars and whose conservatism and policy of friendship with Sparta were
opposed to the policy of Pericles.
Pericles: Athenian statesman whose leadership contributed to Athens'
political and cultural supremacy in Greece; he ordered the construction of
the Parthenon (died in 429 BC)
Stoa: walkway or portico, commonly for public use
Agora: marketplace
Acropolis: hilltop
Parthenon: Athens’s temple to Athena located on the top of the Acropolis
Doric: classical order of architecture characterized by a sturdy fluted
column and a thick square abacus resting on a rounded molding.
Ionic: classical architecture characterized by a scroll-like design on the
capital
Corinthian: characterized by slender fluted columns and elaborate capitals
decorated with acanthus leaves and scrolls
Entasis: the optical illusion used by the Greeks in which a column would
bow out making it look like it was straight from a distance
Pediments: the sculptures placed in the triangular enclave of the roof of a
Greek temple
Frieze: the relief sculptures carved into the Parthenon’s exterior wall of the
cella
Cimon
GREEK STATESMAN AND GENERAL
BORN c. 510 BCE
DIED c. 451 BCE
Cimon, (born c. 510 BC—died c. 451, Cyprus), Athenian statesman
and general who played an active part in building up the Athenian empire in
the period following the Greco-Persian Wars and whose conservatism and
policy of friendship with Sparta were opposed to the policy of Pericles. His
greatest military victory was the defeat of a Persian fleet (manned by
Phoenicians) at the mouth of the River Eurymedon in Pamphylia in 466 BC.
Cimon was the son of Miltiades, of an aristocratic Athenian family, and a
Thracian princess. Miltiades, who defeated the Persians in the Battle of
Marathon (490), died in disgrace the next year, unable to pay a large fine
imposed on him for allegedly misconducting a subsequent operation; but
Cimon, after arranging the marriage of his sister to the richest man in
Athens, was able to discharge the debt. His conspicuous valour in the
victorious sea fight with the Persians at Salamis (480) led soon to his
election as strategus—one of Athens’ 10 annual war ministers and generals—
and he was apparently reelected every year until his ostracism in 461. In
478 he helped the Athenian statesman and general Aristides to secure the
transference from Sparta to Athens of the leadership of the Greek maritime
states, which had been recently liberated from Persia, and he became the
principal commander of the Delian League thus formed.
He first expelled from Byzantium the Spartan general Pausanias, who had
been dismissed on suspicion of treasonable dealings with Persia, and he
drove the Persians from most of their strongholds on the Thracian coast.
Next he subdued the pirates of the island of Scyros and replaced them with
Athenian settlers and transported back to Athens in triumph the supposed
remains of Theseus, the ancient king of Athens, who was said to have been
buried there. Cimon gained his greatest victory (c. 466) when, as leader of
an allied fleet of 200 ships, he routed the much larger Phoenician fleet near
the mouth of the River Eurymedon in Pamphylia and subsequently defeated
the King’s forces on land, thus gravely weakening Persian control over the
eastern Mediterranean.
Cimon now returned to the Aegean and drove the Persians out of
the Thracian Chersonese (Gallipoli). When the rich island of Thasos seceded
from the Delian League, Cimon defeated the Thasians at sea, and after a
blockade of two years, they surrendered to him (463). Back in Athens,
however, he was charged by Pericles and other democratic politicians with
having been bribed not to attack the King of Macedonia (who may have been
suspected of covertly helping the Thasian rebels).
BRITANNICA STORIES
Though Cimon was acquitted, his star was no longer in the ascendant. The
aristocratic faction, which he led, was losing influence; its support rested
on the well-to-do citizens who fought as hoplites (heavy armed infantry)
and who admired the conservative land power of Sparta. Cimon was
personally popular because of his victories and because he spent the wealth
those victories brought him on the adornment of the city and the
entertainment of the citizens. But the victories were achieved mainly by the
fleet, which was manned by the poorer Athenians, who were less well
disposed toward Sparta. Elated by their successes and beginning to feel
their power, the sailors looked to other leaders, Ephialtes and Pericles, who
shared their distrust of Sparta and promised them a larger share in the
government.
Those new leaders soon came into their own. When, in 462, the Spartans
were vainly endeavouring to reduce the mountain stronghold of Mt. Ithome
in Messenia, where a large force of rebellious helots (state-owned serfs)
had taken refuge, they asked all their erstwhile allies of the Persian wars,
including the Athenians, to help. Cimon urged compliance, comparing
Athens and Sparta to a yoke of oxen working together for the good of
Greece. Although Ephialtes maintained that Sparta was Athens’ rival for
power and should be left to fend for herself, Cimon’s view prevailed, and he
himself led 4,000 hoplites to Mount Ithome. But after an attempt to storm
the place had failed, the Spartans began to wonder if they could trust the
Athenians not to take the helot side and, retaining their other allies, sent
Cimon and his men home. This insulting rebuff caused the immediate
collapse of Cimon’s popularity at Athens: at the next opportunity an
ostracism, or vote for the exile of the most unpopular citizen, was held;
Cimon headed the poll and had to leave Athens for 10 years (461).
The end of his ascendancy was marked by democratic reforms and the
renunciation of the alliance with Sparta. Soon the two states were at war. In
457 their land armies met at Tanagra in Boeotia. Cimon presented himself to
the Athenian generals and begged leave to fight in the ranks but was
refused. He adjured his personal followers, suspected like him of favouring
the Spartans, to fight bravely, and they all perished in the battle.Perhaps
this caused a revulsion of feeling. At any event, Pericles himself proposed
and obtained an abbreviation of Cimon’s exile. On his return he worked for
peace with Sparta. When, eventually, peace came (451), he was allowed to
lead a big, new naval expedition against Persia, despite the disastrous
failure of the previous Greek enterprise in Egypt (459–454). He took 200
ships to Cyprus, detaching 60 to help the Egyptian nationalists, but during
the siege of the Phoenician city of Citium, he died of sickness or a wound.
Cimon was tall and handsome, open and affable in manner, and
straightforward in action, a natural leader and perhaps the best general
Athens ever had. He married twice: a woman from Arcadia, and then
Isodice, of the noble Athenian family of the Alcmaeonids. Of his six sons,
three were named after the peoples of Sparta, Elis, and Thessaly, whose
interests he represented at Athens. He was no less determined than Pericles
to maintain Athenian naval supremacy in the Aegean but differed from him
in upholding the leadership of Sparta on the Greek mainland.