Philaidae

Some years before 566 BC, a member of the Philaid clan, Hippocleides, was a suitor for the hand of Agariste, the daughter of the influential tyrant of Sicyon, Cleisthenes.

Meanwhile a Philaid called Cimon Coalemos, ('coalemos' meaning simpleton), won the prestigious Olympic chariot race three times in succession during the rule of Pisistratid tyrants.

He survived a prosecution for tyranny and when the Persians landed at Marathon in 490 BC Miltiades, as one of ten generals (strategoi) played the major part in winning the battle for Athens.

However the expedition was ill-fated as Miltiades failed to capture the city of Paros and fell off a wall during the siege operations and arrived back in Athens with gangrene in his leg.

After the Greek victories over Persia at Salamis, Plataea and Mycale in 480-479 BC the Athenians soon took the lead in launching an offensive against Persian forces in the Aegean region.

After clearing pirates from the island of Scyros and putting down a rebellion on Naxos Cimon in 466 BC launched a bold attack on large Persian land and naval forces gathering at the Eurymedon River in Pamphylia.

In c.462 BC Cimon encouraged the Athenians to send military aid to the Spartans who were trying to put down a major revolt by the Helots in the wake of an earthquake which had heavily damaged Sparta.

But the conservative Spartans became worried by the revolutionary democratic spirit of the Athenian troops and sent Cimon and his army back home to Athens.

Thucydides, son of Melesias, the leader of the anti-Periclean conservative party during the 440s BC, was a relative of Cimon and a member of the Philaid clan.