d been sent on an expedition to the isle of Cyprus, which was rising
against the Persians. There Kimon fell sick and died, but his fleet,
immediately after, won a grand victory over the Phoenician and Cilician
fleets, in the Persian service.

[Picture: The Acropolis, Athens]

However, some hot-headed young Athenians were beaten at Coronea by the
Boeotians, who were Spartan allies, and a good many small losses befel
them by land, till they made another peace for thirty years in 445.
There was nobody then in Athens, or Greece either, equal to Pericles, who
was managing all affairs in his own city with great wisdom, and making it
most beautiful with public buildings. On the rock of the Acropolis stood
the Parthenon, the temple of the virgin goddess Pallas Athene, which was
adorned with a portico, the remains of which still stand up gloriously
against the blue Grecian sky. The bas-relief carvings on the pediments,
representing the fight between the Centaurs and Lapithae, are now in the
British Museum; and though the statue itself is gone, still seals and
gems remain, made to imitate it, and showing the perfect beauty of the
ivory and gold statue of Athene herself, which was carved by the great
sculptor Phidias, and placed within the temple. When there was a
question whether this figure should be made of marble or of ivory, and
Phidias recommended marble as the cheapest, the whole assembly of
Athenians voted for ivory.

[Picture: Propylaea, Athens]

A beautiful fortification called the Propylaea guarded the west side of
the Acropolis, where only there was no precipice; and there were other
splendid buildings--a new open theatre, for the acting of those
unrivalled tragedies of the three Athenian poets, and of others which
have been lost; a Museum, which did not then mean a collection of
curiosities, but a place where the youth might study all the arts sacred
to the Muses; a Lyceum for their exercises, and schools for the
philosophers. These schools were generally colonnades of pillars
supporting roofs to give shelter from the sun, and under one of these
taught the greatest, wisest, and best of all truth-seekers, namely,
Socrates.

Though the houses at Athens stood irregularly on their steep hill, there
was no place in the world equal to it for beauty in its buildings, its
sculptures, and its carvings, and, it is also said, in its paintings; but
none of these have come down