New Light on Old Walls: The Murals of the Theseion

Less than two years after the brilliant victories of Plataiai and Mykale, the Athenians and their Ionian kinsfolk, grown weary of the arrogance of Pausanias the king, declined to serve further under Spartan command and in effect withdrew from the Grand Alliance. Instead, they formed an association of their own, centred upon the shrine of all Ionians at Delos, and swore to fight the Mede till iron should float. The date, 478/7 B.C., is contained in the Aristotelian Ἀθηναίων Πολιτϵία, and it is to be trusted. The first military action of the new alliance was to besiege and take Eion upon the Strymon, a Persian fort, its second the capture and resettlement of the island of Skyros, a nest of Dolopian pirates. In both campaigns the allied commander was Kimon. The siege of Eion is dated to the archonship of Phaidon, that is to the year 476/5; and the capture of Skyros followed an oracle which the Athenians had received in this same archonship. The god had commanded them to recover the bones of Theseus and to watch over them in honour among themselves. Driven from Athens by Menestheus the Erechtheid pretender, Theseus had gone to Skyros and there met his death at the hands of King Lykomedes.