Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/353

 GRECIAN CONFEDERACY UNDER ATHENS. 329 among the contending parties at Athens, while the unshaken patriotism of Kimon and his friends discountenanced and dis- armed those conspirators who had entered into correspondence with the enemy, at the same time that it roused a repentant ad- miration towards the ostracized leader himself. Such was the happy working of this new sentiment that a decree was shortly proposed and carried, — proposed too, by Perikles himself, — to abridge the ten years of Kimon's ostracism, and permit his im- mediate return.! "We may recollect that, under circumstances partly analogous, Themistokles had himself proposed the restor- ation of his rival Aristeides from ostracism, a little before the battle of Salamis : 2 and in both cases, the suspension of enmity between the two leaders was partly the sign, partly also the aux- iliary cause, of reconciliation and renewed fraternity among the general body of citizens. It was a moment analogous to that sal- utary impulse of compromise, and harmony of parties, which followed the extinction of the oligarchy of Four Hundred, forty- six years afterwards, and on which Thucydides dwells emphati- cally as the salvation of Athens in her distress, — a moment rare in free communiti-s generally, not less than among the jealous competitors for pc'itical ascendency at Athens.3 ' Plutarch, Kimon, c. 14 ; Perikles, c. 10. Plutarch represents the Athe- nians as having recalled Kimon from fear of the Lacedaemonians who had just beaten them at Tanagra, and for the purpose of procuring peace. He adds that Kimon obtained peace for them forthath. Both these assertions are incorrect. The extraordinary successes in Jioeotia, which followed so quickly after the defeat at Tanagra, show that the Athenians were under no impressions of fear at that juncture, and that the recall of Kimon pro- ceeded from quite different feelings. Moreover, the peace with Sparta was not made till some years afterwards. ^ Plutarch, Themistokles, c. 10. 3 Plutarch, Kimon, c. 17; Perikles, c. 10 ; Thucyd. viii, 97. Plutarch observes, respecting this reconciliation of parties after the battle of Tana- gra, after having mentioned that Perikles himself proposed the restoration of Kimon — OvTU TOTE -rro^ATiKoi (liv fjauv al 6ta(^opal, fiirpioi 6e 01 ^Vf^ol Kal Tzpdg rb Koivijv EvavuK?^T}Toi. ovfi^Epov, 7) Ss (j>i?.oTi/iia nuvTov k-LKparovaa tuv TradHv Tolc T!ic Tva-piSoc vTTex'^P^'' Kaipoic. Which remarks are very analogous to those of Thucydides, in recounting the memorable proceedings of the year 411 B.C., after the deposition of the oligarchy of Pour Hundred (Thucyd. viii, 97).