er class of poor in
the market-place. All this is alluded to by Kratinus, the comic poet,
in the following passage from his play of the Archilochi:

"I too, Metrobius, hoped to end
My days with him, my noblest friend,
Kimon, of all the Greeks the best,
And, richly feasting, sink to rest.
But now he's gone, and I remain unblest."

Moreover, Gorgias of Leontini says that Kimon acquired wealth in order
to use it, and used it so as to gain honour: while Kritias, who was
one of the Thirty, in his poems wishes to be

"Rich as the Skopads, and as Kimon great,
And like Agesilaus fortunate."

Indeed, Lichas the Spartan became renowned throughout Greece for
nothing except having entertained all the strangers who were present
at the festival of the Gymnopaedia: 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. If any scurrilous tongues hinted
that it was merely to gain popularity and to curry favour with the
people that he did these things, their slanders were silenced at once
by Kimon's personal tastes and habits, which were entirely
aristocratic and Spartan. He joined Aristeides in opposing
Themistokles when the latter courted the mob to an unseemly extent,
opposed Ephialtes when, to please the populace, he dissolved the
senate of the Areopagus, and, at a time when all other men except
Aristeides and Ephialtes were gorged with the plunder of the public
treasury, kept his own hands clean, and always maintained the
reputation of an incorruptible and impartial statesman. It is related
that one Rhoesakes, a Persian, who had revolted from the king, came to
Athens with a large sum of money, and being much pestered by the
mercenary politicians there, took refuge in the house of Kimon, where
he placed two bowls beside the door-posts, one of which he filled with
gold, and the other with silver darics.[311] Kimon smiled at this, and
inquired whether he wished him to be his friend, or his hired agent;
and when the