translucent air. Behind rose, one above the other, the Seven Hills, on
which long afterwards the Emperor Constantine built a second Rome; and
over these heights, even then, buildings were scattered of various
forms and dates, here the pillared temples of the Greek colonists,
to whom Byzantium owed its origin, there the light roofs and painted
domes which the Eastern conquerors had introduced.

One of the Athenians was a man in the meridian of manhood, of a calm,
sedate, but somewhat haughty aspect; the other was in the full bloom
of youth, of lofty stature, and with a certain majesty of bearing;
down his shoulders flowed a profusion of long curled hair, divided in
the centre of the forehead, and connected with golden clasps, in which
was wrought the emblem of the Athenian nobles--the Grasshopper--a
fashion not yet obsolete, as it had become in the days of Thucydides.
Still, to an observer, there was something heavy in the ordinary
expression of the handsome countenance. His dress differed from the
earlier fashion of the Ionians;[7] it dispensed with those loose linen
garments which had something of effeminacy in their folds, and was
confined to the simple and statue-like grace that characterised the
Dorian garb. Yet the clasp that fastened the chlamys upon the right
shoulder, leaving the arm free, was of pure gold and exquisite
workmanship, and the materials of the simple vesture were of a quality
that betokened wealth and rank in the wearer.

"Yes, Cimon," said the elder of the Athenians, "yonder galley itself
affords sufficient testimony of the change that has come over the
haughty Spartan. It is difficult, indeed, to recognize in this
luxurious satrap, who affects the dress, the manners, the very
insolence of the Barbarian, that Pausanias who, after the glorious day
of Plataea, ordered the slaves to prepare in the tent of Mardonius