News update 29/04/2022 3
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Apr 29, 2022, 9:52:26 AM4/29/22
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The transfer of hegemony in the maritime alliance to the Athenians changed the plans of Pausanias, who managed to justify himself from the accusations raised against him in Sparta, where he enjoyed general respect and had great connections. On a trireme, loaned to him by the city of Hermione in Argolis, he returned to Byzantium the next summer (477 BC), and undertook this on his own initiative. Nevertheless, Gongil surrendered Byzantium to him, Sestos also fell into his hands, and thus the passage to Pontus was again under his control. He began to lead a life in an oriental style and rule like the Persian satraps.
The Lacedaemonians did not object to the actions of Pausanias, but the Athenians decided to take up arms against him. Despite his youth, they entrusted the command of this expedition to Kimon, who thus began his brilliant military career. He took Sestos and laid siege to Byzantium, which he forced to surrender in 476 BC. e.
Pausanias went to Columns in Troas, from where he continued his relations with Xerxes, who gave him large estates in those places to his trusted Gongil. It can be assumed that the Persians deliberately kept Pausanias for several years, preventing his ardent ambition from unfolding, until he was again summoned to Sparta, where reliable news of his actions were received.
He set off, still hoping, surprisingly, for his influence and connections. Upon arrival, he was immediately arrested on charges of conspiracy, but then released again for lack of evidence. Finally, in 472 BC. e. one of the ephors, who was at enmity with him, managed to find evidence of his relations with Xerxes and the preparation of an uprising of the helots. Pausanias took refuge in one of the temples, was locked up there and starved to death.
After the conquest of Sestos and Byzantium and their accession to the maritime alliance, Cimon undertook the conquest of the Thracian cities, which were in Persian hands. He began with Eion, which occupied an important position at the mouth of the river Strymon. Having defeated the army of the city, he surrounded the latter, intending to take it by starvation. But the brave commandant of the city of Bogis, not wanting to give up, burned all the survivors, all the treasures and, finally, himself on a specially prepared fire. The Athenians decided to keep this important point forever and landed 10,000 settlers (Cleruchs) there, who were subsequently killed by the Thracians during a campaign inland.
Following the conquest of Aion, in the autumn of 476 BC. e. other cities on the Thracian coast and the Thracian Chersonese also passed into the hands of Cimon, up to Doriska, which defended as stubbornly as Eion. Then Cimon took the rocky island of Skyros, inhabited by its indigenous inhabitants - the Doloperns, who were engaged in sea robbery. They were sold into slavery, and the island was settled by Athenian colonists.
From Skyros, Kimon took to Athens the remains of the epic hero Theseus, who was credited with uniting the disparate Attic tribes into one state, found there. By this act, he aroused great joy among the Athenians and finally endeared them to him. From the Greek cities of the Thracian coast and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace lying in front of it, as well as from the islands of Skyros, Paparetos, Skiathos and others lying near Cape Sepias, the fourth department of the maritime union was formed - Thracian, stretching from Metona in the Pagasean Gulf to Enos at the mouth Gebra (Maritsa).
Thanks to the creation of the maritime alliance and the strengthening of its power, Aristides and Cimon, as people of action, became the most influential and respected in Athens, while the influence of Themistocles began to decrease.
After the establishment of the maritime alliance, the Lacedaemonians began to strive to form a counterbalance to the rapidly growing power of Athens, for which they made an attempt to extend their influence to northern Greece. They intended to conquer the Aleuad tribe that lived in Larissa in Thessaly, which at one time called on Xerxes to march against the Greeks. In the spring of 476, Sparta sent through the Pagasean Gulf by sea, liberated thanks to the Athenian fleet, its troops to Pagasea under the leadership of King Leotechides. From Pagasea, the troops marched across completely flat terrain as far as Larissa, drove out the tyrant there and could have conquered Thessaly if Leotechida had not been bribed by the aleuades, after which he returned back. He was convicted of bribery, tried, and he managed to avoid execution only thanks to his flight.
The army sailed back to the Peloponnese the following summer. The campaign was unsuccessful, although the Lacedaemonians tried to use it to acquire a leading role in the Delphic amphictonia, which could give them an advantage over central Greece. They almost managed to achieve this by introducing a proposal to exclude the Thessalians, Thebans and other tribes who supported the Persians from Amphictonia, but the far-sighted Themistocles, as the representative of Athens, saw in this proposal harm to his country and tried to ensure that it was not accepted. This, no doubt, further increased Sparta's hatred of Themistocles, and she made every effort to harm him and, unfortunately, found support in Athens in this.
The creation and maintenance of the fleet required a lot of money and entailed a complete change in the forms of government in a democratic direction. The brilliant successes of Themistocles, who had no connections among the aristocracy, and especially the Salamis victory, created for him a lot of enemies and envious people among this aristocracy, who sympathized with Lacedaemon.
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