they supplied Eion with victuals, and driving them entirely out of the country, took possession of it as conqueror, by which means he reduced the besieged to such straits, that Butes, who commanded there for the king, in desperation set fire to the town, and burned himself, his goods, and all his relations, in one common flame. By this means, Cimon got the town, but no great booty; as the barbarians had not only consumed themselves in the fire, but the richest of their effects. However, he put the country about into the hands of the Athenians, a most advantageous and desirable situation for a settlement. For this action, the people permitted him to erect the stone Mercuries, upon the first of which was this inscription:—
Of bold and patient spirit, too, were those,
Who, where the Strymon under Eion flows,
With famine and the sword, to utmost need
Reduced at last the children of the Mede.
Upon the second stood this:—
The Athenians to their leaders this reward
For great and useful service did accord;
Others hereafter, shall, from their applause,
Learn to be valiant in their country's cause,
and upon the third, the following:—
With Atreus' sons, this city sent of yore
Divine Menestheus to the Trojan shore;
Of all the Greeks, so Homer's verses say,
The ablest man an army to array:
So old the title of her sons the name
Of chiefs and champions in the field to claim.
Though the name of Cimon is not mentioned in these inscriptions, yet his contemporaries considered them to
