“LACONISMO” COMO VIRTUD EN LA ATENAS DEL S. V. A.C.: A PROPÓSITO DE LA VIDA DE CIMÓN DE PLUTARCO

Abstract

The Persian Wars were, at the beginning of the Classic period, the starting point of the distinction between “Greek” and “non-Greek”, and the political apogee of Athens includes the period that goes from the struggle against the Barbarian to the confrontation with Sparta, so that the performance of men like Aristides, Themistocles and Cimon influenced the consolidation of Athenian power and the values that it represented. Our aim in this paper is to analyse how, in the Life of Cimon, written by Plutarch when Greece was already part of the Roman Empire, the philolaconian attitude of Cimon is not valued negatively, but as a favourable factor to characterize him. This confirms, once again, that Plutarch does not write history, but he is interested especially in the moral lesson that can be provided, when rebuilding and presenting men of the past, included in his Parallel lives, by their way of action, independently from the conditions in which they lived.