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Isocrates (Isoc. 15).
Aristotle (Aristot. Ath. Pol.).
 
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Athens.
Athens.

In the early 5th century BCE Athens became increasingly more democratic as the older institutions, which were dominated by the wealthy, lost power to newer institutions that were in the hands of the People. This change was not welcomed by everyone, and even a hundred years later, an aristocratic Athenian like Isocrates could complain of how, after the Persian Wars, “the city grew powerful and seized the empire of the Greeks, and our fathers, growing more self-assured than was proper for them, began to look with disfavor on those good men and true who had made Athens great, envying them their power, and growing to look instead to men who were low-born and full of insolence” (Isoc. 15.316). When he outlines the history of the government of Athens, Aristotle notes that at this critical point in the history of the democracy, the leadership of the People was held by Ephialtes, while the wealthy Athenians followed Cimon (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 28.2).

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Aristotle (Aristot. Ath. Pol.).
Plutarch (Plut. Cim.).
 
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Attica.

Cimon’s deme, the district in Attica where he was registered as a citizen, was Laciadae (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 27.3), and he was of the tribe (φυλή) Oineis (Plut. Cim. 17.3-6).

Read about the evidence
Herodotus (Hdt.).
Aristotle (Aristot. Ath. Pol.).
Plutarch (Plut. Cim.).
Demosthenes (Dem. 13).
Andocides (Andoc. 4).
 
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Thrace.
Paros.
Olympia.

Cimon’s father was Miltiades, a famous Athenian, and his mother was Hegesipyle, who was not an Athenian but the daughter of Olorus, king of Thrace (Plut. Cim. 4.1; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 26.1; Hdt. 6.39.2). The family was very wealthy. His father, Miltiades, had been general on a failed military expedition to Paros in 490 or 489 BCE (source for date: Rhodes, 324-325), and had been fined for that failure. When Miltiades died, his son Cimon paid the fine, which was 50 talents, a vast sum of money (Hdt. 6.136.3; Plut. Cim. 4.4). Aristotle says that Cimon “had an estate large enough for a tyrant,” but adds this comment on his reputation for generosity: “anyone of the Laciadae who liked could come to his house every day and have a moderate supply, and also all his farms were unfenced, to enable anyone who liked to avail himself of the harvest.” (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 27.2-3; Plutarch tells the same story at Plut. Cim. 10.1 -2). Demosthenes, writing in the 4th century BCE, suggests that Cimon had a reputation for modesty, citing him as an example of how, in the “old days” of the early 5th century, the houses of wealthy and famous Athenians were no different from those of ordinary citizens (Dem. 13.29). It is possible that Cimon had also been a victor in the games at Olympia (Andoc. 4.33).

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