Note 678 — Chapter XXXVI · FROM THE IONIC REVOLT TO THE BATTLE OF MARATHON. (continued 2)

Cornelius Nepos, Miltiadês, c. 7; and Kimon, c. 1; Plutarch, Kimon, c. 4; Diodorus, Fragment. lib. x. All these authors probably drew from the same original fountain; perhaps Ephorus (see Marx, ad Ephori Fragmenta, p. 212); but we have no means of determining. Respecting the alleged imprisonment of Kimon, however, they must have copied from different authorities, for their statements are all different. Diodorus states, that Kimon put himself voluntarily into prison after his father had died there, because he was not permitted on any other condition to obtain the body of his deceased father for burial. Cornelius Nepos affirms that he was imprisoned, as being legally liable to the state for the unpaid fine of his father. Lastly, Plutarch does not represent him as having been put into prison at all. Many of the Latin writers follow the statement of Diodorus: see the citations in Bos’s note on the above passage of Cornelius Nepos.

There can be no hesitation in adopting the account of Plutarch as the true one. Kimon neither was, nor could be, in prison, by the Attic law, for an unpaid fine of his father; but after his father’s death, he became liable for the fine, in this sense,—that he remained disfranchised (ἄτιμος) and excluded from his rights as a citizen, until the fine was paid: see Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat. c. 46, p. 762, R.