According to Plutarch, the wealthy Callias took advantage of this situation by proposing to pay Cimon's debts for Elpinice's hand in marriage.
As the head of his household, he also had to look after his sister or half-sister Elpinice. Cimon inherited this debt and, according to Diodorus, some of his father's unserved prison sentence in order to obtain his body for burial. As Miltiades could not afford to pay this amount, he was put in jail, where he died in 489 BC. While Cimon was a young man, his father was fined 50 talents after an accusation of treason by the Athenian state. His father was the celebrated Athenian general Miltiades and his mother was Hegesipyle, daughter of the Thracian king Olorus and a relative of the historian Thucydides. His grandfather was Cimon Coalemos, who won three Olympic victories with his four-horse chariot and was assassinated by the sons of Peisistratus. He was a member of the Philaidae clan, from the deme of Laciadae (Lakiadai). Cimon also led the Athenian aristocratic party against Pericles and opposed the democratic revolution of Ephialtes seeking to retain aristocratic party control over Athenian institutions.Ĭimon was born into Athenian nobility in 510 BC. For this participation in pro-Spartan policy, he has often been called a laconist. As a result, he was dismissed and ostracized from Athens in 461 BC however, he was recalled from his exile before the end of his ten-year ostracism to broker a five-year peace treaty in 451 BC between Sparta and Athens. In 462 BC, he led an unsuccessful expedition to support the Spartans during the helot uprisings. One of Cimon's greatest exploits was his destruction of a Persian fleet and army at the Battle of the Eurymedon river in 466 BC. Cimon became a celebrated military hero and was elected to the rank of strategos after fighting in the Battle of Salamis. Cimon played a key role in creating the powerful Athenian maritime empire following the failure of the Persian invasion of Greece by Xerxes I in 480–479 BC. He was the son of Miltiades, the victor of the Battle of Marathon. 510 – 450 BC) or Kimon ( / ˈ k aɪ m ə n/ Greek: Κίμων, Kimōn) was an Athenian statesman and general in mid-5th century BC Greece.