Now there were certain Persians who would not abandon the Chersonese, but called in Thracians from the North to help them, despising Cimon, who had sailed out from Athens with only a few triremes all told.1 But he sallied out against them with his four ships and captured their thirteen, drove out the Persians, overwhelmed the Thracians, and turned the whole Chersonese over to his city for settlement. [2] And after this, when the Thasians were in revolt from Athens,2 he defeated them in a sea-fight, captured thirty-three of their ships, besieged and took their city, acquired their gold mines on the opposite mainland for Athens, and took possession of the territory which the Thasians controlled there.
From this base he had a good opportunity, as it was thought, to invade Macedonia and cut off a great part of it, and because he would not consent to do it, he was accused of having been bribed to this position by King Alexander, and was actually prosecuted, his enemies forming a coalition against him.3 [3] In making his defence before his judges he said he was no proxenus of rich Ionians and Thessalians, as others were, to be courted and paid for their services, but rather of Lacedaemonians, whose temperate simplicity he lovingly imitated, counting no wealth above it, but embellishing the city with the wealth which he got from the enemy. [4] In mentioning this famous trial Stesimbrotus says that Elpinice came with a plea for Cimon to the house of Pericles, since he was the most ardent accuser, and that he smiled and said, ‘Too old, too old, Elpinice, to meddle with such business.’ But at the trial he was very gentle with Cimon, and took the floor only once in accusation of him, as though it were a mere formality.
