“This I have brought for you,"’ he said, turning to the delighted Rhodopis, “but for you, friend Phanes, I have something still better.  Guess, who won the four-horse chariot-race?”

“An Athenian?” asked Phanes, and his face glowed with excitement; for the victory gained by one citizen at the Olympic games belonged to his whole people, and the Olympic olive-branch was the greatest honor and happiness that could fall to the lot, either of a single Hellene, or an entire Greek tribe.

“Rightly guessed, Phanes!” cried the bringer of this joyful news, “The first prize has been carried off by an Athenian; and not only so, your own cousin Cimon, the son of Kypselos, the brother of that Miltiades, who, nine Olympiads ago, earned us the same honor, is the man who has conquered this year; and with the same steeds that gained him the prize at the last games.

[The second triumph won by the steeds of Cimon must have taken place, as Duneker correctly remarks, about the year 528.  The same horses won the race for the third time at the next Olympic games, consequently four years later.  As token of his gratitude Cimon caused a monument to be erected in their honor in “the hollow way” near Athens.  We may here remind our readers that the Greeks made use of the Olympic games to determine the date of each year.  They took place every four years.  The first was fixed 776 B. C. Each separate year was named the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th of such or such an Olympiad.]

“The fame of the Alkmaeonidae is, verily, darkening more and more before the Philaidae.  Are not you proud, Phanes? do not you feel joy at the glory of your family?”

In his delight Phanes had risen from his seat, and seemed suddenly to have increased in stature by a whole head.

With a look of ineffable pride and consciousness of his own position, he gave his hand to the messenger of victory.  The latter, embracing his countryman, continued: 

“Yes, we have a right to feel proud and happy, Phanes; you especially, for no sooner had the judges unanimously awarded the prize to Cimon, than he ordered the heralds to proclaim the tyrant Pisistratus as the owner of the splendid team, and therefore victor in the race.  Pisistratus at once caused it to be announced that your family was free to return to Athens, and so now, Phanes, the long-wished for hour of your return home is awaiting you.”

But at these words Phanes turned pale, his look of conscious pride changed into one of indignation, and he exclaimed: 

“At this I am to rejoice, foolish Kallias? rather bid me weep that a descendant of Ajax should be capable of laying his well-won fame thus ignominiously at a tyrant’s feet!  No!  I swear by Athene, by Father Zeus, and by Apollo, that I will sooner starve in foreign lands than take one step homeward, so long as the Pisistratidae hold my country in bondage.  When I leave the service of Amasis, I shall be free,