Cimon

And since he was already wealthy, Cimon lavished the revenues from his campaign, which he was thought to have won with honor from the enemy, to his still greater honor, on his fellow-citizens. He took away the fences from his fields, that strangers and needy citizens might have it in their power to take fearlessly of the fruits of the land; and every day he gave a dinner at his house—simple, it is true, but sufficient for many, to which any poor man who wished came in, and so received a maintenance which cost him no effort and left him free to devote himself solely to public affairs.

But Aristotle says[*](Aristot. Const. Ath. 27.3) that it was not for all Athenians, but only for his own demesmen, the Laciadae, that he provided a free dinner. He was constantly attended by young comrades in fine attire, each one of whom, whenever an elderly citizen in needy array came up, was ready to exchange raiment with him. The practice made a deep impression.

These same followers also carried with them a generous sum of money, and going up to poor men of finer quality in the market-place, they would quietly thrust small change into their hands. To such generosity as this Cratinus seems to have referred in his Archilochi, with the words:—

1. Yes, I too hoped, Metrobius, I, the public scribe,
2. Along with man divine, the rarest host that lives,
3. In every way the best of all Hellenic men,
4. With Cimon, feasting out in joy a sleek old age,
5. To while away the remnant of my life. But he
6. Has gone before and left me.