which was suspended a ladder of silken cords, the procession halted,
and opening on either side, left space in the midst for the commander.

"He comes," whispered Antagoras to Cimon. "By Hercules! I pray you
survey him well. Is it the conqueror of Mardonius, or the ghost of
Mardonius himself?"

The question of the Chian seemed not extravagant to the blunt son of
Miltiades, as his eyes now rested on Pausanias.

The pure Spartan race boasted, perhaps, the most superb models of
masculine beauty which the land blessed by Apollo could afford. The
laws that regulate marriage ensured a healthful and vigorous progeny.
Gymnastic discipline from early boyhood gave ease to the limbs, iron
to the muscle, grace to the whole frame. Every Spartan, being born to
command, being noble by his birth, lord of the Laconians, Master of
the Helots, superior in the eyes of Greece to all other Greeks, was at
once a Republican and an Aristocrat. Schooled in the arts that compose
the presence, and give calmness and majesty to the bearing, he
combined with the mere physical advantages of activity and strength a
conscious and yet natural dignity of mien. Amidst the Greeks assembled
at the Olympian contests, others showed richer garments, more
sumptuous chariots, rarer steeds, but no state could vie with Sparta
in the thews and sinews, the aspect and the majesty of the men.
Nor were the royal race, the descendants of Hercules, in external
appearance unworthy of their countrymen and of their fabled origin.

Sculptor and painter would have vainly tasked their imaginative minds
to invent a nobler ideal for the effigies of a hero, than that which
the Victor of Plataea offered to their inspiration. As he now paused