Kimon

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Kimon (disambiguation) .

Bust of Kimons in Larnaka , Cyprus

Kimon ( Greek Κίμων Kímōn ; * around 510 BC in Athens ; † 449 BC before Kition in Cyprus ) was an Athenian politician and general, son of Miltiades , the victor of the Battle of Marathon , and the Hegesipyle , one Daughter of the Thracian prince Oloros . His grandfather, a three-time Olympic champion with the four-team, was also called Kimon .

Kimon came from the ancient Philaids . When his father in 489 BC After he died without paying the penalty for his defeat (during a campaign against the island of Paros ), the atimia passed to his son Kimon. It was only when the rich Kallias, out of love for Kimon's half-sister, the beautiful Elpinike , paid the fine that Kimon entered into all civil rights again.

Already at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. BC Kimon fought gloriously with. He was the leading politician of Athens in the years after the Persian Wars and a strategist for years (holder of the state general office), so that the period of the 470s and 460s was named after him as the "Kimonic Era". As a strategist, he successfully carried out large naval projects of the Delisch-Attic League against the Persians ; he was instrumental in the victory of the Athenians in the battle of Eurymedon on the south coast of Asia Minor (around 466 BC). Kimon drew 462 BC. BC - responding to a request for help from the Spartans, who were still allied with Athens, against insurgent helots - with an army in the direction of Sparta , but was sent back by the same for fear of a democratization of Sparta, which led to a dissolution of the agreement on arms aid that had existed since 481 and in further consequence led to the open clashes of the Peloponnesian War . The Athenians also felt humiliated. In 461 BC The "Spartan friend" was banished from Athens by an ostracism ( ostracism ) after he wanted to reverse the reforms of the Ephialtes . When he around 451 BC When he returned to BC, he reached a provisional armistice with Sparta. He died in Cyprus while besieging the city of Kition . He was followed by Pericles , who, like Kleisthenes, came from the Alkmeonids .

swell

• Cornelius Nepos : Cimon ( Latin and German translation )
• Plutarch : Kimon ( English translation ). German translation z. B .: The great Greeks and Romans. Double biographies. From the Greek by Eduard Eyth. Wunderkammer Verlag, Neu-Isenburg 2008.

literature

• Elke Stein-Hölkeskamp : Kimon and the Athenian democracy. In: Hermes . Volume 127, 1999, pp. 145-164.
• Michael Steinbrecher: The Delisch-Attic Sea League and the Athenian-Spartan Relations in the Kimonic Era (approx. 478 / 7-462 / 1). Stuttgart 1985.
• Manuel Tröster : Cimone come benefattore panellenico e campione di concordia. Una proiezione di Plutarco? In: Rivista storica dell'antichità . Volume 44, 2014, pp. 9-28.
• Matteo Zaccarini: The Lame Hegemony. Cimon of Athens and the Failure of Panhellenism, ca. 478-450 BC. Bononia University Press, Bologna 2017, ISBN 978-88-6923-241-1 .