by John R. Hale
Athenians inherited many myths from the remote past, but when current developments, such as the rise of the navy, seemed to cry out for mythical precedents, they readily invented new ones. Cimon abetted the process. Among the creative artists whom he patronized was a genealogist and mythographer named Pherecydes. He had already traced Cimon’s family tree back to the hero Ajax of Salamis. Now Pherecydes rewrote the Theseus myth. In this exciting new account, a desperate Theseus rushes back to the harbor near Knossos after killing the Minotaur and ensures a safe escape by ramming the hulls of the Cretan ships so that they cannot pursue him. A later mythographer named Demon improved the tale by transforming the Minotaur into a Cretan general named Taurus and claiming that Theseus defeated him in a naval battle—the first naval battle in Athenian history!—at the mouth of the harbor. Thus Theseus metamorphosed into a true naval hero, with exploits that foreshadowed naval warfare of Cimon’s own day.
ATHENIAN TROOP CARRIER
In addition to the bones, Athens laid claim to a second tangible relic of Theseus. The little triakontor called the Delias was the city’s oldest ship. Each spring it conveyed a sacred embassy to Delos, birthplace of Apollo, where the Athenians and other Ionian Greeks honored their ancestral god at a sort of family reunion. In one of the earliest recorded acts of historic preservation, the city’s carpenters continually replaced worn-out or rotting timbers in the sacred galley with new wood. The Delias had the typical design of an Iron Age galley, complete with ram, but that did not prevent the Athenians from identifying it as the very same vessel in which Theseus had voyaged to slay the Minotaur. It was another relic, another link in a chain that bound Athens to an imagined heroic past.
THE MYTHICAL VOYAGES OF THESEUS
THE DELIAN LEAGU, Founded 4780477 n.c.
One of the paintings that decorated Theseus’ temple was the creation of an Athenian artist named Mikon. The mythical scene showed Theseus deep under the sea, surrounded by tritons and dolphins. The goddess Amphitrite, queen of the sea, was handing a crown to the young hero while Athena stood by as witness. Other additions to Theseus’ myth enhanced his role in Athenian history. It was said that during his kingship Theseus had unified Attica, established the first democratic assembly, encouraged the immigration of resident aliens, and stood as champion to the poor and oppressed, even to slaves. Thus the primeval founder of the city’s sea power also became the originator of Athenian liberty, unity, and democracy.
Meanwhile Themistocles, the real founder of the navy, was still very much alive. The powerful clans of Attica had united against him in the Assembly, and his personal reputation suffered from a smear campaign that accused him of corruption and treason. In an attempt to restore his standing and to counter Cimon’s mythmaking, Themistocles sponsored the production of a new tragedy by the playwright Phrynichus. The play, Phoenician Women, recounted the battle of Salamis as a tragedy seen from the Persian point of view. In the opening scene a eunuch of the Persian court spoke a soliloquy while arranging cushions in the council chamber of the royal palace. A chorus of wailing women, the grieving widows of Xerxes’ Phoenician mariners, lamented their fate. Themistocles thus reminded his fellow citizens of his own role in humbling the Persians at sea. He also presented the story of Salamis on a stage that was usually dominated by tales of gods and heroes, thus elevating it to the realms of epic and myth.
Phrynichus’ play sank almost without trace, and Themistocles’ political career shared its fate. Two years after the performance of Phoenician Women, the Athenians voted to ostracize him. Ostracism did not always mean the end of a man’s political career: Xanthippus and Aristides had both succeeded in regaining power after returning to Athens from ostracism. But no such happy future awaited Themistocles. Midway through his ten-year banishment, vengeful Spartans and envious Athenians stirred up accusations against him that led to formal criminal charges of treason. The Assembly summoned Themistocles back to Athens to stand trial.
Rather than face a jury of his fickle fellow citizens, Themistocles fled over land and sea, pursued by Athenian officials across the Peloponnese and then to Corcyra, eastward through the mountains of northern Greece to Macedon, and finally by ship to the territory of the Persian Empire, the only haven where he could feel safe from the long arm of the Athenian law. To save his life, Themistocles surrendered himself to the Great King. The victor of Salamis and father of Athenian naval power thus ended his days as a trophy of a Persian monarch, whom he served as a semicaptive governor of a few Greek cities in Asia Minor.
Themistocles died an outlaw, still under a charge of treason. His children were therefore refused permission to bring his bones back to Athens. No monument was raised or funeral oration spoken in his native land. Many years passed before an Athenian finally wrote a proper eulogy for the founder of the navy: “It was he who first ventured to tell the Athenians that their future was on the sea. Thus he at once began to join in laying the foundations of their empire.” The writer was Thucydides, a historian born within a few years of Themistocles’ death. “He was particularly remarkable at looking into the future and seeing there the hidden possibilities for good or evil. To sum him up in a few words, it may be said that through force of genius and speed of action this man was supreme at doing precisely the right thing at precisely the right moment.”
With Themistocles gone, Cimon dominated Athenian affairs unchallenged. Year after year he held the generalship, campaigning with the fleet during the summer months and keeping open house for distinguished visitors and common citizens alike when he came home from the wars. Despite his easy sociability, Cimon cherished his own ambitious vision of his city’s future. And his model, strange to say, was Sparta.
Alone among the Greeks, Spartan citizens remained in a perpetual state of military readiness throughout their adult lives. In order to control hostile helots and other subject peoples, Spartans of all ranks right up to the kings had become permanently militarized. Their constant training made them the most feared fighting force in the Greek world. Cimon admired the Spartans without reserve: he even named one of his twin sons Lacedaemonius or “The Spartan.” He also perceived in Sparta a way of life—the city as armed camp—that the Athenians would have to emulate if they meant to remain leaders of the Delian League.
Under Cimon’s charismatic leadership, Athenian society became “navalized” from top to bottom. Before Salamis, citizens of the lowest census class, the thetes, had never been compelled to train for military service at all. Now they took to the sea in thousands every spring, pulling the oars or learning the craft of lookouts, coxswains, or steersmen. The hoplites were also brought into the rotation, serving as marines on the triremes or transported overseas to fight on foreign soil. The richest Athenian citizens joined the naval effort as trierarchs—the commanders and financial sponsors of the triremes.
To make the process of navalization complete, it became customary for the Athenians to choose as political leaders, not lawgivers or orators, but generals. Though power rested ultimately with the popular Assembly, executive authority at Athens was in the hands of ten annually elected generals or strategoi. They were true general officers, overseeing all matters pertaining to war: the navy, the army, the fortifications, and at times even diplomacy. At the controversial dramatic festival when young Sophocles first competed against Aeschylus, the generals led by Cimon even served as judges in the theater.
Ten generals were elected each year, one from each Attic tribe. Themistocles had been elected by his fellow citizens of the fourth tribe, Leontis; Xanthippus and Pericles by the fifth tribe, Akamantis; and Cimon by the sixth tribe, Oineus. These men, like Miltiades before them, had brought immense prestige to the generalship, and it was only through military or naval command that an ambitious citizen could be sure of gaining influence in Athens. Thus a political “rule by generals” was established that was to endure for a century.
While Athens and its navy prospered, enthusiasm for the alliance began to ebb here and there among the
member states. For some, the endless running war with the Persians seemed an unreasonable burden. No Persian ships had been seen in the Aegean for years. The outcome of this discontent was a reluctance to serve or contribute in the timely, enthusiastic manner that Athens expected and that their oaths required.
Some Athenian generals handled the recalcitrant allies harshly, but Cimon took a different tack. He was always friendly and encouraged allied cities to choose the kind of contribution that best suited them. Most voluntarily withdrew from active service in the annual naval campaigns and turned the empty hulls of their triremes over to Athens; from that time forward they paid a tribute of silver each year to the allied treasury. Cimon was affable where his colleagues were severe, but in both cases the result was the same. As campaigning seasons came and went, the tradition of military service and competence waned among the allies, while growing ever stronger in Athens.
Keeping the alliance together and the treasury filled required an iron will. Almost from the beginning the Athenians found it necessary to wage war not only on the Persian Empire but also on other Greeks. Their argument was a simple one: all those who reaped the benefits of the Athenian alliance—freedom of the seas and freedom from Persian aggression—should join and contribute. Some islands and cities were forced to join against their will. Others, such as the rich island of Naxos, tried to withdraw from the alliance after a number of years, only to have the allied fleet descend upon their shores, blockade their port, and treat them as dangerous rebels. The Athenians took full advantage of these conflicts. On Skyros they expelled the original piratical inhabitants and resettled the island with colonists drawn from Athens’ own booming population. On Thasos the Athenians fought with their allies for control of local mines. By the end of the war the islanders were forced to surrender both their fleet and their mining rights to Athens. The annual yield was a staggering eighty silver talents.
Some Athenians were undoubtedly troubled by these brutal campaigns against fellow Greeks, the very people whose liberty they had pledged to defend. A new threat in the eastern Mediterranean, however, seemed to justify the strong measures that kept the alliance unified. Fourteen years after Salamis the Persians began to assemble another huge fleet and army for a new expedition against the Greeks. Xerxes could no longer ignore the successes of the Delian League and the erosion of his western frontier. He would mount a Persian naval offensive to check the advance of the Athenians and their allies. Rousing himself temporarily from his preoccupation with harem intrigues, Xerxes gave the word. The mustering point for men and ships was to be a plain beside the Eurymedon River, on the southern coast of Asia Minor.
To forestall a Persian advance into the Aegean, Cimon assembled the allied fleet at the southwestern cape of Asia Minor near the ancient Greek city of Cnidus, sacred to Aphrodite. He intended to carry an army of fighting men in his triremes and decided to modify the vessels so that the troops could fight more easily from the decks during any naval battle that might lie ahead. Thanks to painstaking maintenance, many triremes from Themistocles’ shipbuilding campaign were still in service. Their light, open construction made them fast and maneuverable, but they were ill adapted for carrying large numbers of troops. Under Cimon’s instructions, the shipwrights spanned the hulls with overall decking across the tops of the rowing frames. Now a full complement of rowers could ply their oars below deck, while dozens of hoplites and javelin throwers could be accommodated above.
When the alterations had been made, Cimon started eastward for the Eurymedon River with an Athenian and allied fleet of 250 triremes. After cruising through the turquoise-blue waters off Caria and Lycia, the fleet skirted the little chain of Chelidonian Islands and passed beyond the realm of Athenian influence. Ahead of them loomed the mysterious mountain of the Chimera, home to a mythical fire-breathing monster, where by night mysterious flames could be seen spouting from the rocky heights. Learning that the Persians at the Eurymedon were expecting a fleet of reinforcements any day, Cimon prepared for an immediate attack. After capturing the city of Phaselis, the allied fleet crossed the Gulf of Antalya and camped for the night within striking distance of the Persian base.
Xerxes’ fleet was moored at the mouth of the Eurymedon River, a broad stream fed by the melting snows of the Taurus Mountains. The Great King had appointed his own son Tithraustes as admiral. While he was still awaiting the arrival of reinforcements, the horizon suddenly filled with the black hulls and white spray of an approaching fleet: not friendly Phoenicians but Greeks. In a panic, the admiral first ordered his Cyprian and Cilician triremes to crowd into the river mouth for safety. Realizing that the fleet was now forced into a trap of his own making, Tithraustes reversed his decision and ordered all the ships to sea. So the hundreds of vessels rowed out into open water and formed a battle line.
As the leading ships in the two fleets collided, the shock proved too much for the inexperienced Persians. Most turned and dashed for shore. The Greeks chased them into the shallows. The first Persian crews to reach land spilled out of their vessels and ran. Piling up hull against hull, the entire mass of ships fell prey to their attackers. By one estimate Cimon captured two hundred triremes over and above the vessels that escaped or sank.
Meanwhile the Persians had marshaled their army and marched down to the beach. Cimon’s men were hot and tired from their struggle across the ships’ decks, but the hoplites made it clear that they were ready for more. At Cimon’s command the Greeks jumped down onto the sand and ran toward the Persians, just as an earlier Athenian army had followed Cimon’s father Miltiades across the plain at Marathon. Now Cimon’s foresight in bringing as many troops as possible reaped its reward. Little by little the Greeks gained ground, and in the end the battle became a rout. The Athenians and their allies pursued the Persians all the way back to their camp. The haul of booty from the pavilions and baggage train was immense.
In Cimon’s eyes, however, the fight was not over. Leaving some troops at the camp to guard the plunder, he ordered the rest back to the ships, rallied the crews, and rowed east in search of the last remnant of Persian naval power, the eighty ships from Phoenicia. Cimon moved so quickly that he outstripped the news of his victory at the Eurymedon. He caught the unsuspecting Phoenicians at sea and captured or destroyed them all.
When the Athenian fleet arrived back at the Piraeus, towing the captured enemy triremes behind their own, the city gave Cimon a hero’s welcome. His achievement that summer rivaled the victory at Salamis and in some ways surpassed it. Cimon had carried the fight against the Great King through Persian waters and onto Persian soil. He had performed the unparalleled feat of winning two battles on the same day, one at sea and another on land. And while a large part of Xerxes’ royal navy had survived Salamis, Cimon’s destruction of the Persian fleet had been complete. Sweetest of all, none of the credit had to be shared with the Spartans or other Peloponnesians.
Xerxes did not long survive the humiliation of his army and fleet at the Eurymedon River. That winter Persian ministers assassinated the king in his own palace. Xerxes’ son Artaxerxes succeeded to the throne. The new Great King was an able administrator but not a conqueror. His reign began a period of conservative retrenchment in place of perennial wars and expansion.
With the treasure won during the campaign, Cimon and the Athenians beautified their city as never before. In the Agora they planted majestic plane trees with rich green foliage and spreading boughs dappled white and brown. The deep shade gave the once-barren market and civic center the airy coolness of a royal Persian pleasure park. Also in the Agora a new colonnaded portico or stoa was built to house paintings of historic Athenian battles: the world’s first public art museum. The painted stoa became a popular gathering place and ultimately gave rise to the term “Stoics” for a school of philosophers who met under its colonnade.
On the Acropolis engineers and masons raised a magnificent buttressed wall to fortify the south slope of the rock and uphold a broad flat terrace on the summit,
fit site for a future temple. At the Academy or grove of Akademos outside the city walls, Cimon improved the training grounds for Athens’ young athletes with aqueducts, fountains, shady groves, and running tracks. At the Piraeus a new temple was erected to honor a divine hero just added to the Athenian pantheon. His name was Eurymedon.
Appropriating Themistocles’ naval vision, Cimon began the task of joining Athens to the sea with long walls. Ultimately these massive fortifications would run from the city gates right down to the Piraeus and the beach at Phaleron, almost four miles away. Cimon paid for the foundations, laying down tons of rubble in marshy areas between the city and the sea.
The Persians had razed Athens to the ground, but within two decades the city was reborn. Xerxes’ attempt to crush the Athenians had the paradoxical effect of spurring them to new heights of achievement. Cimon presided over the transformation of a small city-state into the leader of a mighty maritime league. The astonishing transformation of character in the ordinary Athenian was an outcome that he had not foreseen. The city was becoming a vast urban stage decorated with sumptuous scenery, and the men of the demos, veterans of many successful campaigns at sea, were at last ready to take the direction of the drama into their own hands.
CHAPTER 7
Boundless Ambition [462-446 B.C.]
I assert that the poor and the common people are right to prevail against the well-born and the rich, since it is the common people who propel the ships and empower the city.
