“Fortunate old rascal I am! For I meet Cimon the son of Miltiades, and Democrates, that young lieutenant of Themistocles who all the world knows is gaining fame already as Nestor and Odysseus, both in one, among the orators of Athens.”
“Your compliments exceed all truth,” exclaimed the second Athenian, not at all angered by the praise. But Simonides, whose tongue was brisk, ran on with a torrent of flattery and of polite insinuation, until Cimon halted him, with a query.
“Yet why, dear Cean, since, as you say, you only arrived this afternoon at the Isthmus, were you so anxious to stake that money on Glaucon?”
“Why? Because I, like all Greece outside of Sparta, seem to be turning Glaucon-mad. All the way from Thessaly—in Bœotia, in Attica, in Megara—men talked of him, his beauty, his prowess, his quarrel with his father, his marriage with Hermione, the divinest maiden in Athens, and how he has gone to the games to win both the crown and crusty Conon’s forgiveness. I tell you, every mule-driver along the way seemed to have staked his obol on him. They praise him as ‘fair as Delian Apollo,’ ‘graceful as young Hermes,’ and—here I wonder most,—‘modest as an unwedded girl.’ ” Simonides drew breath, then faced the others earnestly, “You are Athenians; do you know him?”
“Know him?” Cimon laughed heartily; “have we not left him at the wrestling ground? Was not Democrates his schoolfellow once, his second self to-day? And touching his beauty, his valour, his modesty,” the young man’s eyes shone with loyal enthusiasm, “do not say ‘over-praised’ till you have seen him.”
Simonides swelled with delight.
“Oh, lucky genius that cast me with you! Take me to him this moment.”
“He is so beset with admirers, his trainers are angry already; besides, he is still at the wrestling ground.”
“But soon returns to his tents,” added Democrates, instantly; “and Simonides—is Simonides. If Themistocles [pg 8]and Leonidas can see Glaucon, so must the first poet of Hellas.”
“O dearest orator,” cried the little man, with an arm around his neck, “I begin to love you already. Away this moment, that I may worship your new divinity.”