8.6
For the Athenians had once received an oracle bidding them bring back the bones of Theseus to the city and honor him as became a hero, but they knew not where he lay buried, since the Scyrians would not admit the truth of the story, nor permit any search to be made. Now, however, Cimon set to work with great ardour, discovered at last the hallowed spot, had the bones bestowed in his own trireme, and with general pomp and show brought them back to the hero’s own country after an absence of about four hundred years. This was the chief reason why the people took kindly to him.
8.7
But they also cherished in kindly remembrance of him that decision of his in the tragic contests which became so famous. When Sophocles, still a young man, entered the lists with his first plays, Apsephion the Archon, seeing that the spirit of rivalry and partisanship ran high among the spectators, did not appoint the judges of the contest as usual by lot, but when Cimon and his fellow-generals advanced into the theater and made the customary libation to the god, he would not suffer them to depart, but forced them to take the oath and sit as judges, being ten in all, one from each tribe.
