sian war, had given it a
home. That war had established the naval supremacy of Athens; she had
become an imperial state; and the Ionians, bound to her by the double
chain of kindred and of subjection, were importing into her both their
merchandize and their civilization. The arts and philosophy of the
Asiatic coast were easily carried across the sea, and there was Cimon,
as I have said, with his ample fortune, ready to receive them with due
honours. Not content with patronizing their professors, he built the
first of those noble porticos, of which we hear so much in Athens, and
he formed the groves, which in process of time became the celebrated
Academy. Planting is one of the most graceful, as in Athens it was one
of the most beneficent, of employments. Cimon took in hand the wild
wood, pruned and dressed it, and laid it out with handsome walks and
welcome fountains. Nor, while hospitable to the authors of the city's
civilization, was he ungrateful to the instruments of her prosperity.
His trees extended their cool, umbrageous branches over the merchants,
who assembled in the Agora, for many generations.

Those merchants certainly had deserved that act of bounty; for all the
while their ships had been carrying forth the intellectual fame of
Athens to the western world. Then commenced what may be called her
University existence. Pericles, who succeeded Cimon both in the
government and in the patronage of art, is said by Plutarch to have
entertained the idea of making Athens the capital of federated Greece:
in this he failed, but his encouragement of such men as Phidias and
Anaxagoras led the way to her acquiring a far more lasting {137}
sovereignty over a far wider empire. Little understanding the sources
of her own greatness, Athens would go to war: peace is the interest of
a seat of commerce and the arts; but to war she went; yet to her,
whether peace or war, it mattered not. The political power of Athens
waned and disappeared; kingdoms rose and fell; centuries rolled
away,--they did but bring fresh triumphs to the city of the poet and
the sage. There at length the swarthy Moor and Spaniard were seen to
meet the blue-eyed Gaul; and the Cappadocian, late subject of
Mithridates, gazed without alarm at the haughty conquering Roman.
Revolution after revolution passed over the face of Europe, as well as
of Greece, but still she was there,--Athens, the city of mind,--as
radiant, as splendid, as delicate, as young