amidst the group, he towered high above them all, even above Cimon
himself. But in his stature there was nothing of the cumbrous bulk and
stolid heaviness, which often destroy the beauty of vast strength.
Severe and early training, long habits of rigid abstemiousness, the
toils of war, and, more than all, perhaps, the constant play of
a restless, anxious, aspiring temper, had left, undisfigured by
superfluous flesh, the grand proportions of a frame, the very
spareness of which had at once the strength and the beauty of one of
those hardy victors in the wrestling or boxing match, whose agility
and force are modelled by discipline to the purest forms of grace.
Without that exact and chiselled harmony of countenance which
characterised perhaps the Ionic rather than the Doric race, the
features of the royal Spartan were noble and commanding. His
complexion was sunburnt, almost to oriental swarthiness, and the
raven's plume had no darker gloss than that of his long hair, which
(contrary to the Spartan custom), flowing on either side, mingled
with the closer curls of the beard. To a scrutinizing gaze, the more
dignified and prepossessing effect of this exterior would perhaps have
been counterbalanced by an eye, bright indeed and penetrating, but
restless and suspicious, by a certain ineffable mixture of arrogant
pride and profound melancholy in the general expression of the
countenance, ill according with that frank and serene aspect which
best becomes the face of one who would lead mankind. About him
altogether--the countenance, the form, the bearing--there was that
which woke a vague, profound, and singular interest, an interest
somewhat mingled with awe, but not altogether uncalculated to produce
that affection which belongs to admiration, save when the sudden frown
or disdainful lip repelled the gentler impulse and tended rather to
excite fear, or to irritate pride, or to wound self-love.