which he commences
hostilities. War inflames the passions, and success the ambition.
Cimon, at first anxious to secure the Grecian, was now led on to
desire the increase of the Athenian power. The Athenian fleet had
subdued Naxos, and Naxos was rendered subject to Athens. This was the
first of the free states which the growing republic submitted to her
yoke [172]. The precedent once set, as occasion tempted, the rest
shared a similar fate.

II. The reduction of Naxos was but the commencement of the victories
of Cimon. In Asia Minor there were many Grecian cities in which the
Persian ascendency had never yet been shaken. Along the Carian coast
Cimon conducted his armament, and the terror it inspired sufficed to
engage all the cities, originally Greek, to revolt from Persia; those
garrisoned by Persians he besieged and reduced. Victorious in Caria,
he passed with equal success into Lycia [173], augmenting his fleet
and forces as he swept along. But the Persians, not inactive, had now
assembled a considerable force in Pamphylia, and lay encamped on the
banks of the Eurymedon (B. C. 466), whose waters, sufficiently wide,
received their fleet. The expected re-enforcement of eighty
Phoenician vessels from Cyprus induced the Persians to delay [174]
actual hostilities. But Cimon, resolved to forestall the anticipated
junction, sailed up the river, and soon forced the barbarian fleet,
already much more numerous than his own, into active engagement. The
Persians but feebly supported the attack; driven up the river, the
crews deserted the ships, and hastened to join the army arrayed along
the coast. Of the ships thus deserted, some were destroyed; and two
hundred triremes, taken by Cimon, yet more augmented his armament.
But the Persians, now advanced to the verge of the shore, presented a
long and formidable array, and Cimon, with some anxiety, saw the
danger he incurred in landing troops already much harassed by the late
action, while a considerable proportion of the hostile forces, far
more numerous, were fresh and unfatigued. The spirit of the men, and
their elation at the late victory, bore down the fears of the general;
yet warm from the late action, he debarked his heavy-armed infantry,
and with loud shouts the Athenians rushed upon the foe. The contest
was fierce--the slaughter great. Many of the noblest Athenians fell
in the action. Victory at length declared in favour of Cimon; the
Persians were put to