Cimon

Cimon was the son of Miltiades, an Athenian general, and made his name fighting at Salamis in 480 BC during the Second Persian invasion. Elected strategos, he helped form the Delian League in 478 BC and led its early campaigns, smashing a Persian fleet and army at the Eurymedon river in 466 BC and crushing Thasos when it tried to break away in 465–463 BC — the moment the League became an empire. An aristocrat and Sparta's man in Athens, he convinced the Assembly in 462 BC to send 4,000 hoplites to help Sparta suppress a helot revolt; the Spartans refused the aid and sent them back, a public sn…