Cimon’s First Abduction of Iphigenia

Cimon’s First Abduction of Iphigenia is the sea raid in Neifile’s embedded tale in which Cimon tries to secure by force the woman whose father has refused him. He takes Iphigenia from the ship carrying her to marry Pasimondas, but the apparent victory lasts only hours: a storm drives the raiders back to Rhodes, and the Rhodians capture them. The reversal makes the episode more than a successful abduction. It binds romantic resolve to violence, chance, and the consequences of trying to overcome a marriage arrangement by force.

Background and Stakes

Cimon has long loved Iphigenia and has repeatedly asked her father, Cipseus, to give her to him in marriage. Cipseus refuses, explaining that he has promised her to Pasimondas, a young nobleman of Rhodes, and will not break his word. The disagreement therefore concerns more than Cimon’s desire: Iphigenia is already committed to another match, and her father treats that pledge as binding. When the time comes for the wedding, Pasimondas’s friends arrive to escort her to Rhodes.

The episode follows Cimon’s transformation from a man once regarded as a dunce into one who considers himself remade by love. He insists on the name Cimon because that was the name Iphigenia used for him, and his self-understanding is tied to the change he believes she has brought about. His appeal to her father has failed; rather than accept the refusal, he turns to a planned attack at sea. The story thus places his declaration that love has made him a man beside an action that overrides both Iphigenia’s existing marriage arrangement and her freedom to choose whether to go with him.

The Raid at Sea

Cimon secretly recruits young noblemen who are his friends and equips a ship for naval combat. He waits for the vessel carrying Iphigenia to her bridegroom in Rhodes. The following day, after Iphigenia has embarked with Pasimondas and his companions, Cimon intercepts them. He calls on them to strike their sails or face defeat and destruction at sea. The Rhodians arm themselves and prepare to defend their ship, but Cimon fastens it to his own with a grappling iron, then leaps aboard alone, without waiting for his companions.

With a cutlass in hand, he attacks the defenders and cuts them down until they surrender and acknowledge themselves his prisoners. Cimon tells them that he has not come from a desire for plunder or hatred. His stated object is Iphigenia: because her father would not grant her to him peacefully, he claims that love has compelled him to take her from her escort as an enemy and by force. He asks the Rhodians to yield her and depart. They do so unwillingly, giving up Iphigenia to the man who has just overcome them in combat.

Cimon then addresses Iphigenia directly, trying to comfort her and arguing that his long love has made him more deserving of her than Pasimondas’s pledged marriage. His words present the raid as the fulfillment of a devotion he believes has earned a claim. But the scene itself shows the imbalance between that belief and the circumstances: Iphigenia is weeping, and the surrender has been compelled by arms. Cimon has won possession of her, not her consent. He takes her aboard his own ship, releases the Rhodians without taking anything else from them, and spends some time trying to console her.

The Storm and Reversal

Cimon and his companions decide not to return to Cyprus. They steer toward Crete, where many of them have relatives and friends and expect to find safety. Cimon’s joy at having taken Iphigenia, however, is abruptly checked. Less than four hours after he leaves the Rhodians, a violent change in the weather brings clouds and powerful winds. The darkness and rough sea make it impossible to see where to steer or to carry out ordinary work aboard ship.

The tempest affects everyone aboard, but the scene gives particular weight to Iphigenia’s distress. She weeps and fears each blow of the waves, bitterly blaming Cimon’s presumption and interpreting the storm as a sign that the gods oppose his attempt to possess her. Her reading of the danger stands against Cimon’s earlier confidence: he has treated force as a way around human refusal, while she sees the sea as a force that may prevent his desire from being fulfilled. The weather does not settle the conflict by itself, but it strips the raiders of control over their course.

Unable to steer, the ship is carried near Rhodes. The men aboard do not recognize the island and make every effort to reach land to save their lives. They enter a small inlet where the Rhodian ship they had released has also arrived. At dawn, when the sky becomes clearer, Cimon discovers that they are only about a bowshot from the vessel they captured the previous day. He is deeply troubled and urges his companions to leave the inlet, knowing that their return has put them in danger. They try to get back to sea, but the wind prevents their escape and drives them ashore.

Capture and Narrative Consequence

The Rhodian sailors recognize Cimon and alert the young men whose ship he had attacked. They come to the shore with villagers and take Cimon, Iphigenia, and his companions into the village. Cimon and his party have already landed and are considering flight into a nearby wood, but the Rhodians seize them before they can escape. The first abduction therefore ends not with Cimon’s arrival at a refuge but with Iphigenia returned to Rhodian custody and Cimon’s liberty lost.

Pasimondas complains to the island’s senate, and Lysimachus, the chief magistrate for that year, arrives with armed men and has Cimon and his companions taken to prison. Pasimondas presses for their execution, but the Rhodians spare their lives because Cimon had released the young men he captured the day before. They are instead condemned to perpetual imprisonment. The mercy is limited and consequential: the captives live, but the episode closes with Cimon separated from Iphigenia and apparently without hope of release.

That ending also opens the way to the next turn in the tale. As Pasimondas prepares to marry Iphigenia, he arranges for his brother Ormisdas to marry Cassandra on the same day. Lysimachus, who loves Cassandra and sees this marriage as the loss of his own hope, begins to consider carrying her off. Remembering Cimon and his imprisoned companions, he recognizes that they may help him. Thus the failed raid leaves behind a new alliance and a second threatened abduction: Cimon’s attempt to act alone by force becomes the circumstance another lover may exploit, joining separate desires to a shared contest over love, honor, and freedom.