Cimon's Dismissal, Ephialtes' Revolution and the Peloponnesian Wars Cole, John R Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1974; 15, 4; ProQuest pg. 369

Cimon's Dismissal, Ephialtes' 
Revolution and the Peloponnesian 

Wars 
John R. Cole 

THE YEAR 462 B.C. may have marked the most acute crisis in what 
Bengtson calls "the decisive turning point in the internal and 
external histories" of Sparta and Athens.1 We lack the authori­

tative historical source to state from antiquity the case for 462 that 
Herodotus states for 480 or Thucydides for 431. But ancient histori­
cal tradition does suggest the unique concatenation of three calamities 
in 462. First in the tradition, at Sparta the earthquake of 464 and the 
subsequent helot rebellion shook the state to its very foundations, so 
that proud Sparta had to come as suppliant to Athens. Second, at 
Athens the <revolution' of Ephialtes overthrew Areopagite oligarchy 
and established Periclean democracy, hardly less calamitous an 
event in surviving accounts. Third, between Sparta and Athens 
opened the decisive rift, the <dismissal' of Cimon from Ithome by 
<fearful' Spartans, followed by his ostracism, the reversal of alliances, 
and the first of the Peloponnesian wars. 

The severity of these calamities was not doubted in antiquity. But 
our sources on the first two are uncritical enough and removed enough 
in time to encourage a measure of skepticism among moderns. Dio­
dorns, Plutarch and Pausanias are open to question, as is Aristotle. 
But on the third calamity, Thucydides has always seemed critical 
enough and close enough to command assent. It is my purpose to 
encourage a measure of skepticism concerning Thucydides' account 
of the <dismissal' of Cimon, the one event of this most crucial year 
that our best and earliest source emphasized. The one calamity that 
Thucydides seems to have ignored in his text, Ephialtes' <revolution', 
seems to have preceded Cimon's <dismissal', suggesting the hypothesis 
that this departure may have been far more the political decision of a 
Cimon anxious to return to Athens than the military decision of a 

1 H. Bengston, Griechische Geschichte' (Munich 1969) 190. 

369 



370 elMON'S DISMISSAL, EPHIAL TES' REVOLUTION 

Sparta fearful that Cimon's forces might combine with rebellious 
helots. 

The tradition of 'dismissal' established in Thucydides 1.102 is the 
immediate issue. But behind the immediate issue lie questions of the 
gravity of Sparta's helot problem, the development of Athenian 
democracy, the origins of the Peloponnesian wars, and the credibility 
of Thucydidean history. The hypothesis suggests that the calamities 
of 462 may have been so inextricably intertwined that the investigation 
of Cimon's 'dismissal' demands, first, a reappraisal of the seriousness 
of the earthquake and rebellion at Sparta and of the aid sent from 
Athens; second, a reexamination of the chronology of 'revolution' at 
Athens and 'dismissal' from Ithome; third, a reconsideration of the 
relationship between constitutional changes and foreign policies; and 
fourth, a respectful if not quite reverent reassessment of the Thucyd­
idean narrative of the Pentecontaetia at its most crucial point. 

Catastrophes at Sparta and Aid from Athens 
Thucydidean 'dismissal' has not received the vigorously critical 

treatment it deserves, but eminent scholars have pointed the way in 
passing remarks, Bury's "strange indeed," Ehrenberg's "remarkable," 
and most recently de Ste. Croix's "extraordinary" and "unparal­
leled."2 Such remarks have been inspired by the peculiar story of 
Sparta, at the time of her greatest need, dispatching her strongest ally, 
without the slightest known provocation, thus initiating the gravest 
Hellenic wars. Sparta is said to have acted so irrationally because 
of the force of 'fear'. While no one would dismiss Thucydidean as­
sertion lightly, this story seems open to question, and first on con­
siderations of the seriousness of the Spartan crisis and the nature of 
Cimon's relief force. 

For the severity of the earthquake of 464 our fullest accounts are 
those of Diodorus, who reports 20,000 Lacedaemonians killed and the 
city leveled (11.63), and Plutarch, who specifies particularly heavy 
losses among the young men and leaves exactly five houses standing 
(Cim. 16.4-5). The trouble is that these fullest accounts may be too full 
statistically and anecdotally. Late accounts of the helot rebellion may 
suffer from a similarly unhistorical inflation, and Plutarchian stories 

2 J. B. Bury, History of Greece8 (London 1951) 344. V. Ehrenberg, From Solon to Socrates 
(London 1968) 198. G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca 1972) 
179. 



JOHN R. COLE 371 

of Archidamus' heroics, which saved the city from the helots, may be 
no more surely founded than his story of the providential hare, which 
saved the younger boys from collapsing buildings (Cim. 16.5-7). How­
ever, there are two more fragmentary but probably more reliable 
bits of evidence in the best fifth-century sources. Herodotus reports 
that three hundred Spartans fell in battle along with their com­
mander, Aeimnestus, the slayer of Mardonius at Plataea (9.64). And 
Thucydides reports that the rebellion was not finally ended until the 
besieged Messenians were offered terms "in the tenth year" (1.103.1). 
If these early accounts may be trusted, they speak for themselves 
concerning the severity of the crisis. But even if they may seem suspi­
ciously reminiscent of losses in the Persian War or the duration of the 
Trojan War, they would then suggest that in contemporary or nearly 
contemporary judgement, the rebellion was comparable to the great­
est wars. 

Perhaps the most conclusive evidence on the historicity of the 
natural and social catastrophes at Sparta may be drawn from the 
record of her participation in the first Peloponnesian war. Athens 
provoked the former hegemon by her continued alliance with Megara 
against Corinth, by her conquest and imperial incorporation of Aegina 
and by her military and political domination of Boeotia. The Delian 
League became more and more the Athenian Empire, and a land 
empire was added. In further outrages the Athenians sailed boldly 
around the Peloponnesus, raided Laconia and burned the Spartan 
dockyards. But the gravest provocation must have been the settle­
ment of rebellious Messenians at Naupactus under Athenian pro­
tection, after terms of capitulation had rewarded rebellion with 
freedom. Opportunity for Spartan response would seem particularly 
good when, according to Thucydides (1.104, 109-10), two hundred 
Athenian and allied ships were sent to Egypt, even better when of 
these and another fifty sent in relief only a few returned. This aston­
ishing loss bears instructive comparison with the rather better­
attested figures for the Sicilian Expedition.3 

Given provocation and opportunity, Sparta hardly responded. We 
know that just 300 Peloponnesians were available for the relief of 
Aegina and that these troops had to be taken from their duty at 
Corinth and Epidaurus, where their loss was quickly felt (Thuc. 
1.105-06). We also know that in 457 a sizable Peloponnesian army, 

3 R. Meiggs, The Athenian Empire (Oxford 1972) 92-185. 



·372 elMON'S DISMISSAL, EPHIAL TES' REVOLUTION 

including 1500 Lacedaemonians, slipped north across the Gulf of 
Corinth to compel the Phocians to make peace with the northern 
Dorians-a bold show of force, to be sure. That they fought and won 
at Tanagra is true, but it may be more significant that this battle was 
forced on reluctant Spartans by bolder Athenians who blocked their 
way home (Thuc. 1.107-08). Apparently, this was the only Spartan 
military response to the Athenians until 446, when an army marched 
north under Pleistoanax and then returned to the Peloponnesus with­
out once having leveled a spear in combat (Thuc. 1.114). 

Ancients and moderns have struggled for explanations. Ancients 
suggested Athenian bribes as the explanation for this last failure to 
fight, and bribes there may have been (Plut. Per. 22-23). But Persian 
money spent in quantity on the other side had been insufficient to 
move the Spartans in the previous decade (Thuc. 1.109.2). The most 
recent explanation for the failure of Sparta to fight is that the control 
of the Megarid and its mountain passes by the Athenians was enough 
to discourage Spartan invasions such as those familiar in the later 
Peloponnesian War.' But this explanation does not account for the 
meagerness of Spartan aid to Aegina or for the failure to mount a 
major campaign against Argos. And it does not explain the prompt 
return of the Spartans after Tanagra, when they administered only a 
passing rebuke to Megara, or their sudden turn-about a decade later. 
That the Athenians maintained geopolitical control of the Megarid 
for most of the first Peloponnesian war may not have been so sub­
stantial a check on Spartan military activity as the material, social, 
demographic and psychological effects of the great earthquake and 
the helot rebellion. It took almost a generation for these effects to 
wear off enough for the Spartans to make war in 431, and there is 
social and demographic evidence for damage lasting even after that. Ii 
The generally catastrophic picture sketched in the accounts of Dio­
dorus and Plutarch should be accepted. However many bodies and 
houses fell in fact, Sparta had good reason to fear when helots rose in 
rebellion. 

But was there any reason to fear the Athenian relief force? We are 
asked by the received tradition to believe that the Spartans of their 
own volition would dismiss a sizable, experienced and loyal force 
under the leadership of a remarkably sympathetic commander. The 

, de See. Croix, op.at. (supra n.2) 190-96. 
I See de Ste. Croix, op.at. (supra n.2) 331-32 for references. 



JOHN R. COLE 373 

size of the Athenian force, 4,000 hoplites, comes from Aristophanes 
(Lys. 1137-46). Some exaggeration must be allowed for in this account 
of the army "which saved the whole of Sparta," surely a surprising 
assessment if we accept only the one abortive mission described by 
Thucydides.6 But the historian himself speaks of "considerable force" 
(1.102.1). The expertise of this force can perhaps be overemphasized. 
Thucydides carefully speaks of "reputed" skill in siegecraft (1.102.2), 
and the general incapacity of Greek siegecraft is well known.? But 
Athens had had particular successes against fortified camps after the 
battles ofPlataea and Mycale (Hdt. 9.70, 102), and after hardening and 
enheartening victories at the Eurymedon, Athenians under Cimon 
had succeeded in the long and difficult siege of Thasos, a major place 
with permanent fortifications (Thuc. 1.101). The Athenians were ex­
perienced. Nor is the loyalty of this friend in need questioned in 
surviving accounts. Thucydides reports their indignation at a treat­
ment that was undeserved, but, even in their anger at the apparent 
rebuke of 'dismissal', they did not give conspiratorial substance to the 
alleged Spartan 'fear' (1.102). Cimon went far beyond soldierly loyalty 
to philolaconian identity. His remarkable sympathy is shown in his 
rhetoric, urging Athenians to labor with the "yoke-fellow." He was 
the Spartan proxenus at Athens, and he named his own son Lacedae­
monius (Plut. Cim. 16). Such was the size, experience, loyalty and 
leadership of the force' dismissed' from Ithome. 

The story of dismissal is indeed "strange" and "remarkable," 
"unparalleled ... in the whole of Greek history." The search for a 
parallel in modern history leads toward such fantasies as a Churchill 
dismissing an Eisenhower in 1942 or 1943, or a Ky dismissing a West­
moreland in 1965 or 1966. From such modern fantasy we must turn 
back to ancient history, and to Athens, not Sparta. 

Ephialtes' 'Revolution' and Cimon's 'Dismissal' 
It may be taken as established that both 'revolution' and 'dismissal' 

fall in the archon year 462/1. But there has been no resolution to the 
question of whether Ephialtes' 'revolution' took place when Cimon 
was conveniently absent at Ithome, or whether it came later, when he 
returned shamefully 'dismissed', his politics discredited. Scholarly 

6 The case for two missions rests on Pluto Cim. 16-17, discussed below. 
, G. B. Grundy, Thucydides and the History of his Agel I (Oxford 1948) 282-98. A. W. 

Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides I (Oxford 1945) 16-19. 



374 CIMON'S DISMISSAL, EPI-llAL TES' REVOLUTION 

difference of opinion on the subject goes back to Meyer and Beloch 
respectively. Recent students of war origins divide, Kagan with Meyer 
and de Ste. Croix with Beloch.8 The state of the question is well enough 
represented by the equivocation in Gomme's "Ephialtes" in OCD2, a 
not unreasonable position, given the inconclusiveness of the debate 
so energetically carried out over the chronology of Ithome,9 a debate 
that could work largely with Thucydides, while that over the revo­
lution of Ephialtes must work largely with Plutarch. The trouble is 
that neither of the preferred sources, Thucydides or Aristotle, so much 
as mentions the crucial event considered by the other. Gomme 
complains that we have been "scurvily" treated by our sources.lO He 
is right, but the case of 462 is not hopeless. 

Plutarch's Cimon 14 ends with the reduction of Thasos and the 
apparently unsuccessful prosecution of Cimon on his return by 
Pericles and others. Chapter 15 then asserts that Cimon continued to 
foil the democrats, "but only for as long as he was at Athens:" 

The next time that he sailed away on an expedition, the people broke 
loose from all control. They overthrew the established order of the 
constitution and the ancestral customs which they had always ob­
served up to that moment, and following Ephialtes' lead they 
deprived the Council of the Areopagus of all but a few of the cases 
which had been under its jurisdiction. They took control of the 
courts of justice and transformed the city into an unmitigated de­
mocracy ... (Cim. 15.2) 

According to Plutarch, Cimon then returned from his unspecified 
expedition, offended by the attack on the Areopagus, and attempted 
to reestablish the former order. But he was harried by accusations of 
unnatural fondness for his wine, his sister and his Sparta. Cimon 16 

breaks any chronological line to digress on Cimon's philolaconism, 
the great earthquake, the Spartan appeal and the debate with Ephial­
tes, ending in the dispatch of a "first" expedition. Cimon 17 begins 
with the Lachartus anecdote concerning Cimon's return through 
Corinthian territory, then narrates a second Spartan appeal and a 
"second" expedition, recognizably that of Thucydides 1.102. Cimon 
is "dismissed" and then returns to be ostracized. 

8 D. Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca 1969) 73 n.56; de Ste. Croix, 
op.cit. (supra n.2) 179 n.43. 

• R. A. McNeal, "Historical Methods and Thucydides 1.103.1," HistoTia 19 (1970) 3~25. 
10 Gomme, op.cit. (supra n.7) 53. 



JOHN R. COLE 375 

The crux is Cimon 15.2. If the unspecified expedition refers to that 
sent to Ithome and if it can withstand the challenges of internal 
criticism and external evidence, then it stands as our only authority 
and should be accepted. Beloch's attack on the passage and on the 
priority of <revolution' to <dismissal' has been followed with slight 
differences of emphasis by Walker and Jacoby. But this attack has 
failed, as Hignett has argued.ll I shall attempt to develop and to 
strengthen the argument against Beloch in order to establish the 
priority of Ephialtes' reforms to Cimon's <dismissal'. 

Most specifically, Beloch argues that the sea-borne expedition of 
15.2 cannot refer to the !thorne expedition, because «it is explicitly 
attested that Cimon took the land route (Cim. 17.1)." But this ap­
parently damning contradiction cannot hold on either end. 17.1 ex­
plicitly attests a land return from the first of two alleged expeditions. 
Cimon 17 would allow for a sea-borne departure, and so would Cimon 
16, even regarding the two reports as a doublet for one historical 
expedition. Moreover, «sailed away" cannot carry decisive weight. 
"Plutarch or his source may have changed a general word for cam­
paigning into a more specific one, adopted because most Athenian 
expeditions were sea-borne."12 

More generally, Beloch argues that such efforts to save Cimon 15.2 

show too much respect for Plutarch. In chapters 15-17 especially, «a 
hopeless confusion rules."13 But this confusion has been overempha­
sized. Cimon 15-17 follows a ring structure familiar to students of 
Greek literature. This ring structure, along with an apparently minor 
thematic continuity and the need to rely on different authorities for 
different parts of his account, may combine to confuse Plutarch's own 
historical understanding. But before rejecting the text we do have, we 
should try to understand it on its own terms. Rather than being 
hopelessly confused historically, Plutarch's account is perfectly clear 
morally .. The question is not, "What happened at !thome?" It is 
rather, "How did the good man and his fellow good men fall?" 

Cimon 15 follows the account of democrats-against-the-hero from 
the previous chapter, but now these attacks are successful. Expedition, 
<revolution' and return to the domestic fray follow chronologically 

11 C. Higoett, A History of the Athenian Constitution (Oxford 1952) 337-41. 
12 J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte 11.2 (Strassburg 1916) 197. Meiggs, op.cit. (supra 0.3) 890.3. 
13 Beloch, op.cit. (supra 0.12) 197-98. E. M. Walker, CAR V (1927) 467. F. Jacoby, FGrHist 

IIIb (Suppl.) 2.369. 



376 elMON'S DISMISSAL. EPI-llAL TES' REVOLUTION 

enough. But charges of philolaconism invite an explanatory digre'ision 
on that morally interesting point (16.1-4). And this digression in turn 
invites further digression on the Spartan troubles (16.4-7). from which 
we return ring-wise with Cimon's philolaconian rhetoric, now not a 
matter of comic jibes but of particular excellence, given the need of 
the friend (16.7-8). All might have been well, if one rhetorical success 
related to the expedition had not suggested another, the exchange 
with Lachartus (17.1). This anecdote is a return story. After telling 
the return story, the Thucydidean account of what happened to the 
expedition at Ithome becomes a second expedition for Plutarch (17.2). 
Had he been willing to displace or dispense with Lachartus, we might 
have had only one historical expedition and a very proper literary 
construction for Cimon 15-17.2. ABCBA, in which A represents suc­
cessful attacks on Cimon (15 and 17.2), B represents his philolaconism 
(16.1-4 and 16.7-8), and C represents Spartan troubles (16.4-7). 

This history interests Plutarch as the occasion for exhibiting Cimon's 
best qualities in the defense of the good men and their order at Sparta 
as well as at Athens, and for explaining the success of mean-spirited 
attacks first behind the back and then below the belt. Plutarch con­
centrates on the hero and pays disproportionate attention to successful 
rhetorical exchanges before narrating the failures of dismissal and 
ostracism. Lachartus belongs chronologically between Thucydidean 
dismissal and the ostracism that Thucydides did not record. We who 
are used to reading orderly narrative in chronological lines may 
experience some confusion when confronted with Plutarch's thematic 
continuities and moralistic rings. The result is that even an attentive 
student of this life can find three expeditions, one per chapter,14 
whereas there was much more probably oniyone historically, to which 
three references are made. Cimon 15.2 does refer to the expedition to 
Ithome. Plutarch is confused historically, but not hopelessly, and he is 
not at all confused morally. Beloch commands the last word, although 
I shall address it against his own argument. Having complained that 
"we respect Plutarch too much," he adds a fully justified after­
thought, U ••• and his authorities perhaps too little."15 The authority 
for Cimon 15.2 cannot be rejected because of Plutarch's doublet in 
16-17. 

Beloch's most emphatic arguments are based on evidence external 

U w. von Uxkull-Gyllenband, Plutarch und die griechische Bwgraphie (Stuttgart 1927) 71-73. 
16 Beloch, loe.at. (supra n.12). ' 



JOHN R. COLE 377 

to Plutarch's life. These arguments against Cimon 15.2 involve esti­
mates of the position of Cimon and of the Areopagus before' dismissal' 
and judgements concerning the function of ostracism. First, Beloch 
stresses that the hero himself was "at the height of his power" after 
his court-defense in 463 and his successful rhetoric in 462. "It is there­
fore completely out of the question" that Ephialtes could have "over­
turned" the Areopagus before the shock of" dismissal."16 But estimates 
of Cimon's prior position should include such matters as the hor­
rendous failure of the colonists in Thrace (Thuc. 1.100.3), the rebellion 
of Thasos and the length of the siege (Thuc. 1.100-01), the accusation 
on Cimon's return (Plut. Cim. 14.2-3), the reported prosecutions of 
Areopagites (Arist. Ath.Pol. 25.2), and Ephialtes' resistance in the 
Assembly (Cim. 16.8). Less easily datable but perhaps more damaging 
may have been such personal attacks as Cimon 15.4. Second, Beloch 
and after him Walker argue that the Areopagus would be the least 
favorable ground for any democratic challenge before 'dismissal' 
discredited the oppositionP But the Areopagus of 462, after archons 
had been allotted for about a generation, may in fact have been much 
weaker politically than Aristotle suggests (Ath.Pol. 22.5, 23.1-2, 25.1). 
Even if the Aristotelian interpretation of 462 is more substantial than 
many critics suggest,18 we can see lines of attack open for Ephialtes, 
reputed for "incorruptibility and loyalty to the constitution" (Ath.Pol. 
25.1). The Areopagus is said to have lost "prerogatives which it 
recently had acquired" (25.2). If it is fair to term Ephialtes a 'revolu­
tionary', perhaps we should use the word in the retrospective sense 
most common in early modern Europe. Third, Beloch and after him 
both Walker and Jacoby argue that revolution must come after 
Cimon's ostracism, let alone his dismissal, because this ostracism 
would be beside the point if major issues of policy and leadership were 
already decided.19 This variant of the argument from Cimon's pre­
sumed strength risks serious anachronisms. And it ignores the valid 
function of ostracism in Cimon's case after 'revolution', 'dismissal' 
and return; the determined opponent of changes voted by the demos 
had to cease his opposition. 

18 Beloch, op.cit. (supra n.1Z) 197-98. 
17 Walker, op.cit. (supra n.13) 468. 
18 J. Day and M. Chambers, Aristotle's History of Athenian Democracy (Berkeley 1962) 

120-35, 183-86. 
19 Beloch, op.cit. (supra n.12) 197-98. Walker, op.cit. (supra n.13) 68-71. Jacoby, op.cit. 

(supra n.13) 369-70. 



378 eIMON'S DISMISSAL, EPHIAL TES' REVOLUTION 

It is necessary to reemphasize the political opportunity opened for 
Ephialtes by the physical absence of Cimon and the hoplites, perhaps 
about a fifth of the entire hoplite census at a time when there may 
have been a near balance between hoplite and thetic citizens at Athens. 
Without them, Athens was a more democratic city politically, 
probably enough to facilitate changes toward democracy institution­
ally. But this democracy was probably more factional than ideologi­
cal, and Cimon could be expected to resist vigorously changes made 
in his absence and against his interest.20 

Beloch is left with the suggestive argument that "a change of 
constitution was something that took time even at Athens, and could 
not be played through overnight in a theatrical manner. Cimon was 
in the near vicinity and could have returned at a moment's notice." 
Hignett counters that the general of an expedition voted by the 
Athenian Assembly could not simply "throw up his command and 
return to Athens before the expedition was over, however much the 
political situation might call for his presence there."21 Beloch's argu­
ment is political; Hignett's response is constitutional, but there are 
also political problems related to Cimon's return from his expedition. 
Here both Beloch's and Hignett's arguments can and probably should 
be maintained. Cimon would indeed desire to come home on report 
of fundamental political changes of whatever sort, but he could not 
legally do so before the expedition was over. Of course, there are 
more ways than victory or defeat to end an expedition. Dismissal is 
one. 

Cimon's and Sparta's Responses to Ephialtes' 
'Revolution' 

Dismissal in anything like the traditional, Thucydidean interpre­
tation is highly improbable. Athenians who only wanted to stay were 
not cast out by Spartans who only wanted them to go. From Athenian 
affairs we have motivation enough for Cimon's return. But to get 
home, constitutionally and politically, Cimon needed to be sent home. 
The general was under orders, orders he or his close friends had 
moved, orders voted in the Assembly. He tried for victory with the 

20 Hignett, op.cit. (supra n.ll) 341. A. W. Gomme, The Population of Athens in the Fifth and 
Fourth Centuries B.C. (Oxford 1933) 25-26. W. R. Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth Century 
Athens (Princeton 1971) passim. 

21 Beloch, loe.cit. (supra n.12). Hignett, op.cit. (supra n.ll) 338-39. 



JOHN R. COLE 379 

assault reported by Thucydides (1.102.3), but his hoplites were less 
well equipped to take a mountain stronghold further fortified with 
walls than they had been to take pallisaded Persian camps on level 
ground.22 Dismissal could have seemed a good enough solution to 
Cimon's difficulty, however badly it turned out on his return. For 
Cimon's friends, it would seem to satisfy international political 
responsibilities as well as domestic political interests. For Ephiahes 
and Cimon's enemies, it would seem to satisfy the policy of malign 
nonintervention advocated against the expedition in the first place. 
For the expeditionary force, it would seem to satisfy the frustrations 
of men supporting an alien ally against a stubborn enemy in a remote 
and uncongenial location. The clever man of Plutarchian tradition, 
who could gull even greedy Spartans over the spoils of earlier battles 
(Cim. 9), who could persuade even independent Greeks to become 
tributary allies of their own free will (Cim. 11) and who could bring 
the bones of Theseus back to Athens with a straight face (Cim. 8.5-6), 
this man would seem to have devised a way out of his own expedition 
in a way that would satisfactorily defy criticism. 

Thucydides' explanation is that the Athenians were "dismissed" 
above all else for the Spartan "fear" of their "audacity" and "fickle­
ness," in the well-chosen words of the Smith translation. The ancient 
historian applies the contrast of national characters drawn in the 
speech of the Corinthians that precedes the narrative of the Pente­
contaetia; he finds in the past an explanation related to the "real 
cause" of the contemporary war. Thucydides' mind is fixed on the 
relations of states, but his words may be misread as veiled references 
to internal politics.23 LSJ translate V€OTEp07TOtLa (Thuc. 1.102) as 'inno­
vation' or 'revolution', with this passage as their reference, VEOTEP07TOLOC 

(1.70) as 'innovating' or 'revolutionary', again with Thucydides' pas­
sage as the primary reference. The same term that describes the ever­
active but constitutionally and politically stable Athens of the 430's 
is used to describe the supposedly frightening quality of the city in 
462. Ionian restlessness as shown in foreign policies comes much closer 
to Thucydides' meaning than revolutionary radicalism as shown in 
domestic politics. 

To suppose that Spartan 'oligarchs' took fright because 'democrats' 
had taken certain powers from the Athenian Areopagus is to risk 

U Pace Gomme, op.cit. (supra n.7) 301-02. D. Fimmen, "Ithome," RE 18 (1916) 2305ff. 
13 Hignett, op.cit. (supra n.ll) 196-97, cf 341. 



380 CIMON'S DISMISSAL. EPHIAL TES' REVOLUTION 

anachronistic error. There is no good evidence of such partisan organi­
zation and ideological consciousness at this time in Athens,24 let alone 
Sparta. It is true that repeated Spartan expeditions in the late sixth 
century seem to show an interest in Athenian politics, but the nature 
of that interest should not be mistaken. In fairly rapid succession they 
at least attempted to establish in power the r democrat' Cleisthenes, 
the roligarch' Isagoras, and the rtyrant' Hippias. These expeditions 
suggest relative indifference to later political classifications or even to 
Athenian constitutional history itself. The Spartan interest at the time 
of Cleomenes was to have an obliging Athens, not an oligarchical 
Athens as such. And the Spartans' own intended intervention on 
behalf of Hippias at the far right can be described by Herodotus with 
the term vE6TEPOV (5.93). 

Sparta does not seem to have been overly concerned about the 
distribution of powers among the Athenian Areopagus, Ecclesia, 
Boule and dicasteries, a generalization that holds for times less 
troubled in the Peloponnesus and certainly for 462, with such great 
problems of her own so close at hand. Nevertheless, Sparta would 
have been interested in keeping Athenian politics in friendly hands 
like Cimon's-and in keeping arms like Cimon's friendly. Therefore, 
on Cimon's presumed urging, it would probably have been seen by 
Sparta to be in her own interests formally to dismiss Cimon with his 
force, so that the general could attempt to regain the leadership that 
had been so valuable in dispatching the expedition in the first place, 
leadership now threatened by the Ephialtes who had argued against 
that expedition. An Assembly led by Ephialtes might recall the force 
with little hope of return. Especially if the siege promised to be long 
even with the Athenians, as it was without them, it would have made 
very good sense for the Spartans to release Cimon once the assault 
had failed, perhaps with an unpublicized understanding about return. 

But, however successfully rdismissed', Cimon failed on his return. 
How? Thucydides suggests that the Athenians were so offended at 
their dismissal that they reversed their alliances immediately on 
returning home. The loose identification of the hoplite force with the 
Athenian citizen body and/or Assembly may represent more wishful 
thinking of the later aristocrat than the political analysis of a well­
informed historian. And the picture of citizen-soldiers somewhat 
grudgingly and quite angrily going home should be set against 

1& Connor, op.cit. (supra n.lO) 63 n.54. 



JOHN R. COLE 381 

Herodotus' last view of the more heroic generation who fought 
Xerxes (9.117). Cimon's hop lites were not the whole state, nor would 
they have been of one mind themselves. Cimon's problems on his 
return may well have involved his hoplites and their anger at dis" 
missal, but they must also have involved political rivalries and the 
constitutional reforms. Failures in foreign policy might still prove to 
be the readiest sticks with which to beat Cimon and even the Areop­
agites. In particular, the tradition of Sparta's promise to aid rebellious 
Thasos against Athens and Cimon seems to be more mud slung after 
the fact of the historical assistance to Sparta against her rebellious 
helots, than critical inquiry into what would have happened if Posei­
don had not providentially shaken Sparta and saved Athens (Thuc. 
1.101). "Stupid" Cimon actually went to the assistance of his "traitor­
ous" ally, that was the point. And then he was "dismissed" by the 
doubly perfidious Spartans, so full of treason themselves that they 
suspected good Athenians. "Stupid" Cimon. He now found himself 
dismissed from his own city. 

Thucydides' Apparent Mistake 
All this is against • dismissal' in any sense other than departure 

initiated by Cimon and only responsively authorized by Sparta. What 
then is for the tradition of dismissal initiated by a fearful Sparta? The 
answer is short-Thucydides. Other sources that seem to corroborate 
the story from later antiquity signify at most that there was no known 
tradition against it. The decisive argument has been Thucydides' 
authority. But even Thucydides could make mistakes, and there are 
good reasons to suspect that 1.102.3 may be one. 

Even Gomme, that spirited champion of Thucydides, has empha­
sized the inadequacies of the account of the Pentecontaetia. He finds 
it "scrappy," chronologically imprecise, bare in its narrative and 
remarkable for its omissions. These objections are well taken, but 
Gomme's own conclusion is tendentious and apologetic: "The ex­
cursus is an early essay ... " Other scholars have dated the narrative 
after 404, since Thucydides purports to correct the Atthis of Hellanicus 
(1.97.2).25 But even a date before exile still leaves at least three full 

2S Gomme, op.cit. (supra n.7) 361-413, Meiggs, op.cit. (supra n.3) 444-46, Grundy, op.cit. 
(supra n.7) 1441-45, can represent the traditional presumption oflate composition shared 
by Finley and others on the basis of 1.97.2. Adcock, Hammond and others support the 
earlier date. 



382 elMaN'S DISMISSAL, EPI-llAL TES' REVOLUTION 

decades and the outbreaks of two Peloponnesian wars between 
Thucydides and the events of 462. And a date after 404 widens the gap 
to six decades, the last two of them full of disasters for the historian 
and his city. Whether partisan or not, distortions in the minds and 
mouths of oral sources must have complicated any attempt to reach 
a critical understanding of the origins of the earlier conflict. 

The remoteness of time is compounded by a remoteness of place. 
Thucydides' boast to have particular familiarity with Spartan affairs 
must be interpreted in light of the more general and much grosser 
ignorance of his readers. The boast is followed not long after by a 
complaint concerning Spartan secretiveness (5.26.5, 74.2). If Thucyd­
ides as a maturing historian and exiled general found accurate 
knowledge of contemporary Sparta difficult, we may judge that such 
knowledge of the Sparta of 462 was even more difficult to find and 
even more uncertain when found. With the known exception of 
Archidamus, the members of the Gerousia in 462 can be presumed 
dead by any time of Thucydides' writing. Accurate knowledge of the 
decision to dismiss could not have been very general even at Sparta, 
given the circumstances, and it is difficult to imagine the interview 
with an Athenian general in which the unlikely Spartan of the war­
time years with such knowledge would converse freely about the 
fears of the 460' s. 

Sparta in the 460's remains as remote for us as it is because it was 
already so remote for Thucydides. But the problems go beyond his 
sources to his own mind. The narrative of the Pentecontaetia has a 
particular purpose. It is a digression to explain the fearful growth of 
Athenian power and the origins of the Archidamian War.26 'Dis­
missal' is at the epicenter of Athenian power and Spartan fear, but 
the epicenter is eccentric by the attraction of the closer and more 
massive conflict. The dangers of anachronism should be obvious in 
any attempt to substantiate an analysis of the origins of one war by 
looking back to a previous war between antagonists at very different 
stages in their developments. 

More personal factors may also help to explain Thucydides' ap­
parent failure to investigate traditions of Cimon's expedition critically. 
Thucydides the historian was probably related to the great Cimon. 
Both maternal and paternal relationships have been suggested, and 
both have been questioned, but the evidence for at least the paternal 

16 J. H. Finley, Thucydides (Cambridge [Mass.] 1942) 79-81, 135-38. 



JOHN R. COLE 383 

relationship seems strong.27 In retrospect, Thucydides cannot have 
had much sympathy for the expedition of 462, given his particular 
acceptance of the Spartan 'promise' to Thasos and his more general 
acceptance of the inevitability of war between the great powers. But 
there is no sign of a willingness to entertain the possibility that for 
purposes of political self-interest against what may have been or at 
least seemed Periclean reforms, Cimon was responsible for the dis­
missal so directly related to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian wars. 

Most deeply, perhaps, Thucydides' own military career matched 
Cimon's in its ending if nothing else. For all his military accomplish­
ments, Cimon was cast out by an ungrateful demos. And whatever his 
military accomplishments, Thucydides, too, was exiled, equally un­
fairly in his own eyes. The aristocratic general maintained a proper 
reserve, but the hurt was real, as is shown by a careful reading of the 
account of the fall of Amphipolis and by a critical evaluation of the 
rhetorical glorification of the good old Periclean days and of the 
pitiless exposure of the varied ills that followed Pericles' death and 
his own downfall. We may speculate that, especially after exile, 
Thucydides would not be psychologically predisposed to investigate 
critically the story of the earlier general who had also suffered ap­
parently undeserved rejection. 

Speculation has nothing to do with what may be the decisive 
limitation of Thucydides as the historian of 462. This is that Thucyd­
ides pays no attention to the internal politics of Athens. If we depend­
ed only on his work, we would not know even the name of 
Ephialtes, nor would we know of any political changes in 462/1. 
Perhaps more startlingly, we would not know of Cimon's trial on 
the return from Thasos, of his ostracism on the return from Ithome, 
or of his apparently premature return from ostracism. We would 
know nothing of Pericles' political reforms of the 450's or rivalries of 
the 440's. The point need not be labored,28 but the consequences 
for Thucydides' understanding of the high politics, statesmanship 
and war that do concern him must be faced squarely. Any attempt 
to understand the relationships of states without inquiry into their 
internal affairs is hazardous, and it may be doomed to failure. 

In attempting to reconstruct the origins of the Peloponnesian wars, 

17 O. LU5chnat, "Thukydides der Historiker," RE Suppl. 12 (1970) 1087-91. J. K. 
Davies, Athenian Propertied Families 600-300 B.C. (Oxford 1971) 232-36. 

28 Gomme, op.cit. (supra n.7) 361ff. 



384 eIMON'S DISMISSAL, EPI-llAL TES' REVOLUTION 

Thucydides may have been partially blinded by his remoteness in 
time and place from Ithome, his singleness of purpose in demon­
strating Spartan <fear', his particular familial and professional re­
lationships with Cimon, and his general indifference to Athenian 
political life and development in the earlier period. There are limits 
to what we may expect even of Thucydides and, probably more 
importantly, distinctions that we must respect within Thucydides. 
Verifiable and presumably verified facts must not be confused with 
unverified because unverifiable inferences. Cimon's <dismissal', no 
cause given except for the simple untruth that Sparta «had no further 
need of them," and the Athenian reaction, suspicious and angry dis­
belief, were probably verifiable and presumably verified facts. But it 
does not seem that the cause that Thucydides or his informants in­
ferred was either verified or verifiable. Spartan fear of ever-active 
Athenians combining with rebellious helots was not expressed at the 
time, this according to Thucydides' own text. But Athenian suspicion 
and anger at this dismissal were voiced, again according to Thucydides, 
who says that these feelings led to the reversal of alliances without 
mentioning the ostracism of Cimon (1.102). 

The Spartan fear in question was a fact, but it was a fact of the 420's, 
the years of Pylos and Cleon. Athenian success on Sphacteria sent 
Spartan prisoners to Athens, where Thucydides could have learned 
from them or from envoys sent on their behalf: 

As for the Lacedaemonians, they had never before experienced 
predatory warfare of this kind, and therefore, when the helots began 
to desert and there was reason to fear that the revolutionary move­
ment might gain still greater headway in their territory, they were 
uneasy, and, in spite of their desire not to betray their alarm to the 
Athenians, kept sending envoys to them in the endeavor to recover 
Pylos and the prisoners. (4.41.3) 

Thucydides' expressed theory is that the past should be studied in 
order that we may be able to understand the future, which will re­
semble it. But in the case of Cimon's dismissal, an event at the most 
crucial juncture of the internal histories of Athens and Sparta with 
their external relations, the great historian seems to have worked 
backward and anachronistically, inferring the past from what he knew 
of its future, his present. The Spartans probably were afraid in 462,. 
but this historical fear was significantly different from that of 425 and 



JOHN R. COLE 385 

424. Insofar as we can judge, it was a fear of helots shaken into massive 
rebellion by the earthquake, with Cimon's presence a great security. 
The Spartans' first concern was order at home, but they also desired a 
sympathetic Athens, that is, an Athens in which amon's position was 
assured. This desire, itself secondary, was related to their first concern. 
Cimon's own first concern was the restoration of his own position, 
itself threatened by what we call the 'revolution' of Ephialtes. His 
departure from Ithome without any political motive of his own was 
probably no more than agreed-upon fiction in 462. 'Dismissal' might 
more recently have been challenged as such had it not been for the 
unrivaled authority of Thucydides, whose factual narrative is so good 
that we uncritically accept it even with its inferences, which become 
part of our 'factual' narratives. 

BATES COLLBGB 

June, 1974