After he had given aid to the Lacedaemonians, he was going back home with his forces through the Isthmus of Corinth, when Lachartus upbraided him for having introduced his army before he had conferred with the citizens. ‘People who knock at doors,’ said he, ‘do not go in before the owner bids them’; to which Cimon replied, ‘And yet you Corinthians, O Lachartus, did not so much as knock at the gates of Cleonae and Megara, but hewed them down and forced your way in under arms, demanding that everything be opened up to the stronger.’ Such was his boldness of speech to the Corinthian in an emergency, and he passed on through with his forces.
