Cimon was a major political figure in the new league: a member of the Philaidae clan, son of Miltiades the Younger; allied to the Alcmaeonidae by his marriage to Isodice, the grand- daughter of Megacles (2); while his sister was married to Callias (1), from one of the wealthiest families in Athens.
Cimon served at Salamis and on a mission to Sparta in 479 BC. As strategos, he commanded most of the league’s operations until 463 BC. During this period he and Aristides drove the Spartans out of Byzantium. In the winter of 476/5 BC he captured Eion on the River Strymon from the Persian general Boges. In 475 BC he conquered the island of Scyros and drove out the pirates who were based there. On his return to Athens he brought the ‘bones’ of its mythological founder Theseus.
Carystus, at the south end of Euboea and on the route from the Hellespont to Athens, had supported the Persians in 480 BC. Considered as being too important for its neutrality to be tolerated, it was attacked and forced to join the league (472 BC). Naxos, which had revolted because it felt that the league had lost its purpose, was taken by siege (469 BC).
In c.467 BC the Persians based a large army and a fleet in Pamphylia. Cimon’s fleet sailed along the coast to Phaselis and faced the Persian base on the Eurymedon River. The Persians withdrew their fleet into the basin of the river to avoid an engagement at sea. Cimon advanced into the basin and at first contact the Persian ships fled towards the shore. Some were sunk, some captured, and others were beached. The Persian army came down the beach to cover the survivors. Cimon forced a landing – the Athenian triremes at this time were built broader in the beam to be able to carry more marines – and his hoplites charged the Persian infantry. The enemy was broken and the camp was taken. Cimon then sailed to destroy a Phoenician squadron off Cyprus. In total, two hundred enemy vessels were sunk in action or captured intact. Soon after this battle, Cimon cleared the Persians out of Thracian Chersonese and won the peninsula for Athens.
In 465 BC, Thasos the wealthiest island in the north Aegean seceded from the league. Simon defeated the Thasian fleet and landed troops on the island. After several victories his troops invested the town in the summer of 464 BC. Thasos capitulated in 463 BC and was ordered to surrender her fleet, dismantle her walls, pay Athens a large indemnity and to surrender her gold mine at Scapte Hyle on the Thracian coast.
Late in 465 BC ten thousand settlers of Athenians and the allies were sent to capture Ennea Hodoi (‘Nine Ways’), later known as Amphipolis, in Thrace, about five kilometres from the north Aegean coast. The town was at the junction of a number of roads and controlled the passage from east to west across the Strymon River. They gained Ennea Hodoi, but in early 464 BC they advanced inland where they were cut off at Drabescus, a town of the Edonians, by assembled Thracians, and slaughtered to a man. The whole enterprise was a failure.In 463 BC on his return from Thasos, Cimon was prosecuted for accepting bribes from Alexander-I (r.c.498-454 BC) to abstain from attacking Macedonia; he was acquitted. In 462 BC he promoted and led an expedition to support the Spartans during the helot uprisings; in 461 BC was ostracized for his misjudgement. He was recalled to broker a five-year peace treaty between Sparta and Athens. He was killed during a siege on the Persian stronghold of Citium on Cyprus.
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