ow to sing or to play the harp, but
that he knew how to make a state rich and great. 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. He placed the prisoners on one
side, and all their clothes and jewellery on the other, and offered
the allies their choice between the two. They complained that he had
made an unequal division, but he bade them take whichever they
pleased, assuring them that the Athenians would willingly take
whichever part they rejected. By the advice of Herophytus of Samos,
who urged them to take the property of the Persians, rather than the
Persians themselves, the allies took the clothes and jewels. At this
Kimon was thought to have made a most ridiculous division of the
spoil, as the allies went swaggering about with gold bracelets,
armlets, and necklaces, dressed in Median robes of rich purple, while
the Athenians possessed only the naked bodies of men who were very
unfit for labour. Shortly afterwards, however, the friends and
relations of the captives came down to the Athenian camp from Phrygia
and Lydia, and ransomed each of them for great sums of money, so that
Kimon was able to give his fleet four months' pay, and also to remit a
large sum to Athens, out of the money paid for their ransom.

X. The money which Kimon had honourably gained in the war he spent yet
more honourably upon his countrymen. He took down the fences round his
fields, that both strangers and needy Athenians might help themselves
to his crops and fruit. He provided daily a plain but plentiful table,
at which any poor Athenian was welcome to dine, so that he might live
at his ease, and be able to devote all his attention to public
matters. Aristotle tells us that it was not for all the Athenians, but
only for the Lakiadae, or members of his own township, that he kept
this public table. He used to be attended by young men dressed in rich
cloaks, who, if he met any elderly citizen poorly clothed, would
exchange cloaks with the old man; and this was thought to be a very
noble act. The same young men carried pockets full of small change and
would silently put money into the hands of the bett