# Cimon — The Decameron character guide

> Cimon in The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Pasimondas, thy Cimon

**First appearance:** 0052-the-first-story

## Snapshot

A Cypriot nobleman's son so brutish he seems beyond teaching, until one glimpse of Iphigenia transforms him into Cyprus's most accomplished gentleman.

## Who they are

Cimon is the embarrassment of his father Aristippus's house: hulking, uncouth, and seemingly incapable of letters or courtesy, kept in the countryside like a beast. Love arrives as a literal ambush — he stumbles upon Iphigenia sleeping in a meadow and is remade, begging for fine clothes, mastering philosophy, song, and arms within four years. His transformation is the tale's central spectacle, but it also breeds a dangerous fixation: the same intensity that civilizes him may not stop at courtship.

## In the story

### [The First Story](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_decameron_se/chapters/the-first-story)

Transformed from a brute into a man by love for Iphigenia; leads a sea raid to claim her.

### [The First Story](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_decameron_se/chapters/the-first-story)

A young nobleman of Rhodes, betrothed to Iphigenia; orchestrates Cimon's imprisonment.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_decameron_se/characters/cimon
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_decameron_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_decameron_se/characters