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But when Egypt revolted, and the Athenians assisted it, and Greek triremes sailed as far as Cyprus and Cilicia, and Kimon was master of the sea, then the king determined to attack the Greeks, and prevent their development at his expense.
Great interest was now manifested in the search, and after his sepulchre had with great difficulty been discovered, Kimon placed the remains of the hero on board of his own ship and brought them back to Athens, from which they had been absent four hundred years.
Kimon thereupon proceeded to tell his daughter that his dearest ambition had been a desire to unite her in marriage with a literary man. He saw that the tendency of the times was in the direction of literature; schools of philosophy were springing up on every side, logic and poetry were prated in every household.
For instance, when Themistokles, at the time of the Persian invasion, urged the Athenians to abandon their city and territory, and resist the enemy at Salamis, on board of their fleet, while the greater part of the citizens were struck with astonishment at so daring a proposal, Kimon was seen with a cheerful countenance walking through the Kerameikus with his friends, carrying in his hand his horse's bridle, which he was going to offer up to the goddess Athena in the Acropolis, in token that at that crisis the city did not need horsemen so much as sailors.
Afterwards the conversation turned upon Kimon's exploits, and each mentioned what he thought the most important. Hereupon Kimon himself described what he considered to be the cleverest thing he had ever done. After the capture of Sestos and Byzantium by the Athenians and their allies, there were a great number of Persians taken prisoners, whom the allies desired Kimon to divide amongst them.
VI. When, after the repulse of the Persian invasion, Kimon was sent as general of the Athenian forces to operate against the enemy in Asia, acting under the orders of Pausanias, as the Athenians had not then acquired their supremacy at sea, the troops whom he commanded were distinguished by the splendour of their dress and arms, and the exactness of their discipline.
XIII. The land forces now moved down to the beach, and it appeared to Kimon that it would be a hazardous undertaking to effect a landing, and to lead his tired men to attack fresh troops, who also had an immense superiority over them in numbers.
The kind treatment of Minucius by Fabius and his mildness of character contrast very favourably with the bitter party feud of Perikles with Kimon and Thucydides, who were men of good birth, and belonging to the conservative party, and whom Perikles drove into exile by the ostracism. Then, too, the power of Perikles was much greater than that of Fabius.
Indeed, Lichas the Spartan became renowned throughout Greece for nothing except having entertained all the strangers who were present at the festival of the Gymnopædia: while the profuse hospitality of Kimon, both to strangers and his own countrymen, far surpassed even the old Athenian traditions of the heroes of olden days; for though the city justly boasts that they taught the rest of the Greeks to sow corn, to discover springs of water, and to kindle fire, yet Kimon, by keeping open house for all his countrymen, and allowing them to share his crops in the country, and permitting his friends to partake of all the fruits of the earth with him in their season, seemed really to have brought back the golden age.
But during this period the Lacedaemonians with a great force invaded the territory of Tanagra, and, as the Athenians at once marched out to attack them, Kimon came back from exile, took his place in full armour among the ranks of his own tribe, and hoped by distinguishing himself in the battle amongst his fellow citizens to prove the falsehood of the Laconian sympathies with which he had been charged.
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