Freed from fighting in Greece, the Athenians sent a fleet of two hundred ships, under Cimon, to campaign in Cyprus. Citium in southeast Cyprus was besieged, but food shortage and Cimon’s death caused a general retreat northeastwards to Salamis. They were attacked by a Persian force of Cyprians, Phoenicians and Cilicians. The Athenians defeated this force by both land and sea then sailed back to Greece.
After Xerxes’ invasion in 479 BC the Persians had continually lost territory and by 450 BC they were ready to make peace. In 449 BC Callias (supposedly?) negotiated the ‘Peace of Callias’ ending hostilities between Athens and Persia. The treaty gave autonomy to the Ionian states, prohibited the establishment of Persian satrapies elsewhere on the Aegean coast, and prohibited Persian ships from the Aegean. Athens was not to interfere with Persia’s possessions in Asia Minor, Cyprus, Libya or Egypt. It was probably to mark the definite conclusion of the Persian War that Pericles proposed a Panhellenic congress at Athens to consult about the rebuilding of the ruined temples by the Persian invasion; but owing to the refusal of Sparta to attend the project fell through.
Although the war had ended, Pericles and his supporters intended to continue collecting the tribute on which Athens had come to depend. Payment seems to have been suspended in the first year of the peace then Cleinias (d.447 BC), a member of the Alcmaeonidae family, proposed and carried out a programme to tighten up the system of tribute collection. Under the protection of Athenian warships it was resumed, although there was considerable resentment and passive resistance.
Phocis in alliance with Athens had regained Delphi after the Battle of Oenophyta. The bloodless Second Sacred War (449-448 BC) began when the Spartans marched into Phocis and restored Delphi to the Amphictyonic League. This action did not violate the truce, but challenged Athens’ position in Central Greece. In 448 BC Pericles led the Athenian army against Delphi. Immediately after the Spartans left, he recaptured Delphi and gave it back to the Phocians.
In 447 BC Tolmides led a thousand hoplites north to restore Athenian influence in Orchomenus, Chaeronea and other cities in Boeotia where exiled oligarchs had overthrown the democracies established after the Athenian victory there in 457 BC. Chaeronea was captured and a garrison installed. On its return the Athenian army was attacked at Coronea by a combined force of Boeotian, Euboean and east Locrian exiles and defeated. Tolmides and some of his men were killed; others were captured. Athens agreed to evacuate Boeotia in return for the Athenians being allowed to leave Boeotia safely.
In 446 BC the states of Euboea revolted from Athens. Pericles took an army to restore order to the island. As the Athenian army moved northwards Megara took the opportunity and launched its own rebellion. Sparta and Corinth, eager to bring Megara back into the Peloponnesian League, sent an army under Pleistoanax (Agiad; r.459-409 BC) to help with an invasion of Attica. Pericles turned back to meet this new challenge. Pleistoanax, however, advanced only as far as Eleusis and then suddenly withdrew. With the Peloponnesian threat removed, Pericles reversed again and subdued the island.
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