Cimon was an ancient Athenian general and statesman. He lived around the 5th century BC. He was a son of the great Miltiades. He fought against the Persians in the battle of Salamis in 480 BC and shared with Aristides the chief command of the fleet sent to Asia to deliver the Greek colonies from the Persian yoke.
The return of Aristides to Athens soon after left Cimon at the head of the whole naval force of Greece. He distinguished himself by his achievements in Thrace, having defeated the Persians by the Strymon, and made himself master of the country. He conquered the pirate-island of Scyros, subdued all the cities on the coast of Asia Minor, pursued the Persian fleet up the Eurymedon, destroyed more than 200 of their ships, and then, having landed, on the same day entirely defeated their army in 469 BC. He employed the spoil which he had taken in the embellishment of Athens, and in 463 reduced the revolted Thasians; but the popular leaders, beginning to fear his power, charged him on his return with having been corrupted by the King of Macedon. The charge was dropped, but when Cimon's policy of friendship to the Lacedaemonians ended in the latter insulting the troops sent by Athens to their aid, his opponents secured his banishment.
He retired into Boeotia, and his request to be allowed to fight with the Athenians against the Lacedaemonians in 457 at Tanagra was refused by the suspicious generals. Eventually Cimon was recalled at the instance of Pericles to conclude a peace with Lacedaemon. He died shortly after, in 449, while besieging Citium in Cyprus. Research Cimon
In Greek mythology Atalanta was a famous huntress of Arcadia. She was to be married only to someone who could outrun her in a race, the consequence of failure being death. One of her suitors obtained from Aphrodite three golden apples, which he threw behind him, one after another, as he ran. Atalanta stopped to pick them up, and was not unwillingly defeated. There was another Atalanta belonging to Boeotia, who cannot very well be distinguished, the same stories being told about both. Research Atalanta
In Greek mythology, Cadmus was the son of Agenor, king of Phoenicia, and the brother of Europa. He settled in Thrace and then in Boeotia where he founded the ancient city of Cadmeia. He gave the Greeks an alphabet. Research Cadmus
Attica was a state of ancient Greece, the capital of which, Athens, was once the first city in the world. The territory was triangular in shape, with Cape Sunium (Colonna) as its apex and the ranges of Mounts Cithasron and Parnes as its base. On the north these ranges separated it from Boeotia;
on the west it was bounded by Megaris and the Saronic Gulf; on the east by the AEgean. Its most marked physical divisions consisted of the highlands, midland district, and coast district, with the two famous plains of Eleusis and of Athens. The Cephissus and Ilissus, though small, were its chief streams; its principal hills, Cithseron, Parnes, Hymettus, Pentelicus, and Laurium. Its soil has probably undergone considerable deterioration, but was fertile in fruits, and especially of the olive and fig. These are still cultivated as well as the vine and cereals, but Attica is better suited for pasture than tillage. According to tradition the earliest inhabitants of Attica lived in a savage manner until the time of Cecrops, who came, in 1550 BC, with a colony from Egypt, taught them all the essentials of civilization, and founded Athens. One of Cecrops' descendants founded eleven other cities in the regions round, and there followed a period of mutual hostility. To Theseus is assigned the honour of uniting these cities in a confederacy, with Athens as the capital, thus forming the Attic state. After the death of Codrus, in 1068 BC, the monarchy was abolished, and the government vested in archons elected by the nobility, at first for life, in 752 BC for ten years, and in 683 BC for one year only. The severe constitution of Draco was succeeded in 594 by the milder code of Solon, the democratic elements of which, after the brief tyranny of the Pisistratids, were emphasized and developed by Clisthenes. He divided the people into ten classes, and made the senate consist of 500 persons, establishing as the government an oligarchy modified by popular control. Then came the splendid era of the Persian War, which elevated Athens to the summit of fame.
Miltiades at Marathon and Themistocles at Salamis conquered the Persians by land and by sea. The chief external danger being removed the rights of the people were enlarged; the archons and other magistrates were chosen from all classes without distinction. The period from the Persian War to the time of Alexander (500 BC to 336 BC) was most remarkable for the development of the Athenian constitution. Attica appears to have contained a territory of nearly 850 square miles, with some 500,000 inhabitants, 360,000 of whom were slaves, while the inhabitants of the city numbered 180,000. Cimon and Pericles (444 BC) raised Athens to its point of greatest splendour, though under the latter began the Peloponnesian War, which ended with the conquest of Athens by the Lacedaemonians. The succeeding tyranny of the Thirty, under the protection of a Spartan garrison, was overthrown by Thrasybulus, with a temporary partial restoration of the power of Athens; but the battle of Cheronaea (338 BC) made Attica, in common with the rest of Greece, a dependency of Macedon. The attempts at revolt after the death of Alexander were crushed, and in 260 BC Attica was still under the sway of Antigonus Gonatas, the Macedonian king. A period of freedom under the shelter of the Achaean League then ensued, but their support of Mithridates led in 146 BC to the subjugation of the Grecian states by Rome. After the division of the Roman Empire Attica belonged to the empire of the East until in 396 AD it was conquered by Alaric the Goth and the country devastated. Attica is now a region of Greece comprising Athens and the district around it.
Abbreviations
Research Cimon
