Cimon   

Peripoltas the prophet, having brought the King Opheltas, and those
under his command, from Thessaly into Boeotia, left there a family,
which flourished a long time after; the greater part of them inhabiting
Chaeronea, the first city out of which they expelled the barbarians.
The descendants of this race, being men of bold attempts and warlike
habits, exposed themselves to so many danger's in the invasions of
the Mede, and in battles against the Gauls, that at last they were
almost wholly consumed.
There was left one orphan of this house, called Damon, surnamed Peripoltas,
in beauty and greatness of spirit surpassing all of his age, but rude
and undisciplined in temper. A Roman captain of a company that wintered
in Chaeronea became passionately fond of this youth, who was now pretty
nearly grown a man. And finding all his approaches, his gifts, his
entreaties, alike repulsed, he showed violent inclinations to assault
Damon. Our native Chaeronea was then in a distressed condition, too
small and too poor to meet with anything but neglect. Damon, being
sensible of this, and looking upon himself as injured already, resolved
to inflict punishment. Accordingly, he and sixteen of his companions
conspired against the captain; but that the design might be managed
without any danger of being discovered, they all daubed their faces
at night with soot. Thus disguised and inflamed with wine, they set
upon him by break of day, as he was sacrificing in the market-place;
and having killed him, and several others that were with him, they
fled out of the city, which was extremely alarmed and troubled at
the murder. The council assembled immediately, and pronounced sentence
of death against Damon and his accomplices. This they did to justify
the city to the Romans. But that evening, as the magistrates were
at supper together, according to the custom, Damon and his confederates,
breaking into the hall, killed them, and then fled again out of the
town. About this time, Lucius Lucullus chanced to be passing that
way with a body of troops, upon some expedition, and this disaster
having but recently happened, he stayed to examine the matter. Upon
inquiry, he found the city was in no wise faulty, but rather that
they themselves had suffered; therefore he drew out the soldiers,
and carried them away with him. Yet Damon continuing to ravage the
country all about, the citizens, by messages and decrees, in appearance
favourable, enticed him into the city, and upon his return, made him
Gymnasiarch; but afterwards as he was anointing himself in the vapour
baths, they set upon him and killed him. For a long while after apparitions
continuing to be seen, and groans to be heard in that place, so our
fathers have told us, they ordered the gates of the baths to be built
up; and even to this day those who live in the neighbourhood believe
that they sometimes see spectres and hear alarming sounds. The posterity
of Damon, of whom some still remain, mostly in Phocis, near the town
of Stiris, are called Asbolomeni, that is, in the Aeolian idiom, men
daubed with soot: because Damon was thus besmeared when he committed
this murder.
But there being a quarrel between the people of Chaeronea and the
Orchomenians, their neighbours, these latter hired an informer, a
Roman, to accuse the community of Chaeronea as if it had been a single
person of the murder of the Romans, of which only Damon and his companions
were guilty; accordingly, the process was commenced, and the cause
pleaded before the Praetor of Macedon, since the Romans as yet had
not sent governors into Greece.
The advocates who defended the inhabitants appealed to the testimony
of Lucullus, who, in answer to a letter the praetor wrote to him,
returned a true account of the matter-of-fact. By this means the town
obtained its acquittal, and escaped a most serious danger. The citizens,
thus preserved, erected a statue to Lucullus in the market-place,
near that of the god Bacchus.
We also have the same impressions of gratitude; and though removed
from the events by the distance of several generations, we yet feel
the obligation to extend to ourselves: and as we think an image of