der to gratify his dislike of the Athenians.

Perikles, after the reduction of Samos, returned to Athens, where he
buried those who had fallen in the war in a magnificent manner, and was
much admired for the funeral oration which, as is customary, was spoken
by him over the graves of his countrymen. When he descended from the
rostrum the women greeted him, crowning him with garlands and ribbons
like a victorious athlete, and Elpinike drawing near to him said, "A
fine exploit, truly, Perikles, and well worthy of a crown, to lose many
of our brave fellow-citizens, not fighting with Persians or Phoenicians,
as my brother Kimon did, but in ruining a city of men of our own blood
and our own allies." At these words of Elpinike, Perikles merely smiled
and repeated the verse of Archilochus--

"Too old thou art for rich perfumes."

Ion says that his victory over the Samians wonderfully flattered his
vanity. Agamemnon, he was wont to say, took ten years to take a
barbarian city, but he in nine months had made himself master of the
first and most powerful city in Ionia. And the comparison was not an
unjust one, for truly the war was a very great undertaking, and its
issue quite uncertain, since, as Thucydides tells us, the Samians came
very near to wresting the empire of the sea from the Athenians.

XXIX. After these events, as the clouds were gathering for the
Peloponnesian war, Perikles persuaded the Athenians to send assistance
to the people of Korkyra, who were at war with the Corinthians, and thus
to attach to their own side an island with a powerful naval force, at a
moment when the Peloponnesians had all but declared war against them.

When the people passed this decree, Perikles sent only ten ships under
the command of Lacedaemonius, the son of Kimon, as if he designed a
deliberate insult; for the house of Kimon was on peculiarly friendly
terms with the Lacedaemonians. His design in sending Lacedaemonius out,
against his will, and with so few ships, was that if he performed
nothing brilliant he might be accused, even more than he was already, of
leaning to the side of the Spartans. Indeed, by all means in his power,
he always threw obstacles in the way of the advancement of Kimon's
family, representing that by their very names they were aliens, one son
being named Lacedaemonius, another Thessalus, another Eleius. Moreover,
the mother of all three was an Arcadian.

Now Perikles was much reproached for sending these