The careers and significance of Themistocles, Pausanias, and Cimon, including the naval policy, the long walls, the regent's medism, the campaigns at Eurymedon and Thasos, and the ostracism of 461 BC

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to outline the careers and significance of three major personalities of the period 500 to 440 BC: Themistocles (the architect of Athenian naval power and Salamis), Pausanias (the Spartan regent who won Plataea and fell into medism), and Cimon (the Athenian aristocrat whose campaigns built the Delian League and whose ostracism in 461 BC marked a turning point).

The answer

Themistocles (around 524 to 459 BC)

Themistocles son of Neocles, of the deme Phrearrhioi, was born around 524 BC. His family was modest by Athenian aristocratic standards.

Early career. Archon (chief annual magistrate) in 493/2 BC. He began the fortification of Piraeus and recognised it as Athens's future naval base.

Marathon (490 BC). Probably one of the ten strategoi (generals); junior to Miltiades. The Plutarch tradition records his ambition: "the trophy of Miltiades will not let me sleep."

Ostracism of rivals (480s BC). A series of ostracisms removed Themistocles's political rivals: Hipparchus son of Charmus (487 BC), Megacles the Alcmaeonid (486 BC), Xanthippus (484 BC), and finally Aristides (482 BC). Aristides was recalled for Salamis.

The naval policy (483/2 BC). A new vein of silver at Laurion in southern Attica produced a windfall of 100 talents annually. Themistocles persuaded the Athenian Assembly to spend it on 200 triremes, framed as preparation for the war with Aegina but in reality for the Persian war.

Salamis (480 BC). The strategic architect of the Hellenic League position at Salamis and the tactical victor through the Sicinnus stratagem. See greek-world-xerxes-invasion for detail.

The walls of Athens (478 BC). After Salamis the Spartans urged Athens not to rebuild its walls, framing it as a panhellenic concern that walls could be used by an enemy. Themistocles travelled to Sparta as ambassador and delayed the Spartan response while Athenian women, children, and slaves rebuilt the walls behind him (Thucydides 1.89 to 93). He revealed the fait accompli once the walls were defensible.

The Piraeus. Themistocles also fortified the Piraeus as Athens's naval base. The deep-water harbours at Cantharus, Zea, and Munychia replaced the open beach at Phaleron.

Ostracism (around 471 BC). Athenian politics turned against Themistocles. He was accused of arrogance and of accepting bribes. The Assembly ostracised him.

Exile in Persia. Themistocles took refuge in Argos and then, when condemned for medism in absentia (around 466 BC, on the same case that involved Pausanias), fled through Corcyra, Epirus, and Macedonia to Persia. The new king Artaxerxes I received him and granted him the cities of Magnesia, Lampsacus, and Myus for his support, on the understanding that he would assist Persia against Greece. Themistocles died at Magnesia around 459 BC. The tradition (Plutarch, Themistocles 31) reports that he committed suicide rather than march against Greece; Thucydides (1.138) records death from illness.

Significance. Themistocles created the institutional and physical basis of fifth-century Athenian power: the fleet, the walls, the Piraeus, the strategic alignment against Sparta. Thucydides (1.138) calls him "the man of all his contemporaries the most outstanding in natural intelligence."

Pausanias (died around 470 BC)

Pausanias son of Cleombrotus was a Spartan of the Agiad royal house. He served as regent for his cousin Pleistarchus, the young son of King Leonidas.

Plataea (August 479 BC). Pausanias commanded the Hellenic League army at Plataea, the largest Greek army ever assembled, and won the decisive land battle of the Persian Wars. Herodotus (9.64) writes that he won "the most splendid victory of any man we know."

Byzantium (478 BC). Pausanias led the Hellenic League fleet to Cyprus and then to Byzantium, which he captured. At Byzantium his behaviour changed. He adopted Persian dress, Persian guards, and Persian table customs. He released Persian prisoners. He sent a secret letter to Xerxes through Gongylus of Eretria offering to marry Xerxes's daughter and bring Greece under Persian alliance. Xerxes responded favourably.

Recall and trial (478 BC). The ephors recalled Pausanias after allied complaints. He was tried for treason. The major charge (the Xerxes letter) was not yet provable; he was acquitted on the main charge and convicted of minor offences.

Return to Byzantium privately. Pausanias returned to Byzantium without official commission and continued his correspondence.

The second recall. Spartan agents arranged for one of Pausanias's messengers to open his letter to Persia. The letter ordered the messenger's death on delivery. The messenger turned it over to the ephors.

The helot conspiracy. Pausanias also corresponded with the helots, offering them freedom and citizenship in exchange for support against Sparta. The ephors needed direct proof: they planted an informant. When Pausanias admitted treason, the ephors moved to arrest him.

The death (around 470 BC). Pausanias took refuge in the temple of Athena Chalkioikos on the Spartan acropolis. The ephors walled up the doorway. His own mother, Theano, brought the first brick. Pausanias starved. He was carried out alive only to die at once; the Spartans, fearing pollution, performed expiation under instructions from Delphi.

Significance. Pausanias's fall confirmed Sparta's withdrawal from the eastern Aegean and opened the way for the Delian League under Athens. His medism became a Spartan precedent that would later fall on Themistocles.

Cimon (around 510 to 450 BC)

Cimon son of Miltiades, of the deme Lakiadai, was born around 510 BC. His father had won Marathon. His mother Hegesipyle was a Thracian princess. He inherited substantial wealth and a public debt of 50 talents from his father's later prosecution.

Early career. Cimon fought at Salamis as a young man. He paid off his father's debt with the help of Callias the wealthy. He was elected strategos from around 478 BC and dominated the office for two decades.

Campaigns. See greek-world-delian-league-foundation for detail. Eion (476 BC), Scyros (around 475 BC), Naxos (around 470 BC), Eurymedon (around 466 BC), Thasos (465 to 463 BC). The Eurymedon double victory was the high point.

Political character. Cimon was an aristocrat, a philolaconian (he named his son Lacedaemonius after Sparta), and a conservative on Athenian internal politics. He supported the privileges of the Areopagus and opposed the radical democrats. His wealth funded public benefactions: he planted the Academy grove, built the long stoa in the agora, and supported veterans of Marathon.

The earthquake relief (462 BC). A great earthquake struck Sparta around 464 BC, killing many citizens. The helots revolted and seized Mount Ithome in Messenia. Sparta appealed for allied help. Cimon persuaded the Athenian Assembly, against the opposition of Ephialtes, to send 4,000 hoplites to Sparta. The expedition arrived but the Spartans, suspicious of Athenian intentions, dismissed the Athenian force alone of all the allies. Plutarch (Cimon 17) calls this "the great quarrel" between Athens and Sparta.

The ostracism (461 BC). The dismissal at Ithome discredited Cimon's philolaconian policy. Ephialtes and Pericles pushed through the reforms of the Areopagus in 462 BC. Cimon attempted to reverse them and was ostracised in 461 BC.

Recall (around 451 BC). After the first Athenian setbacks in the First Peloponnesian War, Cimon was recalled. He may have negotiated the Five Years' Truce with Sparta in 451 BC.

Death at Cyprus (around 450 BC). Cimon commanded a Delian League expedition of 200 triremes against Persian Cyprus around 450 BC. He died during the siege of Citium (some sources say of illness, others of a wound). The expedition won a final naval and land victory at Salamis-in-Cyprus before withdrawing. The Peace of Callias (around 449 BC) followed within a year.

Significance. Cimon built the early Delian League's military reach and shaped its institutional habits. His ostracism in 461 BC marks the turning point at which Athens chose democracy and rivalry with Sparta over conservative oligarchy and alliance with Sparta.

The interactions

The three careers are linked. Themistocles and Cimon were rivals in the 470s and 460s BC: the naval policy versus the Cimonian alliance, the democratic versus the aristocratic Athens. The fall of Pausanias and Themistocles was a paired event; both were prosecuted for medism in the late 470s and 460s BC. Cimon's ostracism in 461 BC opened the way for Pericles and the radical democracy.

The sources

Thucydides 1.89 to 138. The major source for Themistocles, Pausanias, and the period.

Herodotus 7 to 9. For Themistocles at Salamis and Pausanias at Plataea.

Plutarch, Themistocles, Aristides, and Cimon. Later lives but drawing on lost authors (Stesimbrotus, Ion of Chios).

Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 23 to 27. Brief political summary.

Aeschylus, Persians (472 BC). Performed when Themistocles was still in Athens; the political background is contemporary.

Inscriptions. Ostraka from the agora (thousands of names from Themistocles, Cimon, Pericles); the Athenian Tribute Lists.

Historiography

Russell Meiggs, The Athenian Empire (1972). Standard reconstruction.

A. R. Burn, Persia and the Greeks (1962). Themistocles-centred narrative.

P. J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (1981). Detailed commentary on the political history.

Anton Powell, Athens and Sparta (3rd ed., 2016). Comparative treatment.

How to read a source on this topic

Section IV sources on personalities typically include extracts from Thucydides 1, Plutarch, or ostraka. Three reading habits.

First, watch the moral framing. Plutarch organises lives around character; Thucydides around action. Reconstruct the careers from the action, not the character labels.

Second, integrate the personalities with the institutions. Themistocles's naval policy presupposed the Athenian Assembly; Cimon's campaigns presupposed the Delian League; Pausanias's fall presupposed the Spartan ephoralty.

Third, follow the ostraka. The literal physical record of ostracisms is the most direct evidence we have of mid-fifth-century Athenian politics.

Common exam traps

Confusing Pausanias the regent with Pausanias the travel writer. The regent died around 470 BC; the travel writer flourished in the second century AD.

Treating Themistocles and Aristides as opposites. They were rivals but allies at Salamis.

Underestimating Cimon. He was the single most successful Athenian general of his generation; his ostracism in 461 BC, not his campaigns, is the point about him.

Forgetting that all three died abroad. Themistocles in Magnesia, Pausanias in a walled-up temple, Cimon at Citium. Public service did not always end at home.

In one sentence

Themistocles (around 524 to 459 BC, the architect of Athenian naval power at Salamis and of the walls of Athens and Piraeus, ostracised around 471 BC, condemned for medism, and dying as Persian governor of Magnesia), Pausanias (died around 470 BC, the Spartan regent who won Plataea in 479 BC but fell into medism at Byzantium, was recalled and walled up in the temple of Athena Chalkioikos), and Cimon (around 510 to 450 BC, the philolaconian Athenian aristocrat whose campaigns at Eion, Naxos, Eurymedon, and Thasos built the Delian League's reach, who was ostracised in 461 BC after the dismissal at Ithome, and who died at Citium on Cyprus around 450 BC) shaped the political map of the Greek world between the Persian Wars and the rise of Pericles.