Nikias

“ Nothing throughout the whole career of Nikias is so inexplicable as his guilty fatuity—for we can call it by no lighter name, seeing that it involved all the brave men around him in one common ruin with himself—at the present critical juncture. ”

“ A certain party among them had indeed secretly invited the coming of Nikias, through which intrigue easy terms were obtained for the inhabitants. Some few men, indicated by the Kytherians in intelligence with Nikias, were carried away as prisoners to Athens: but the remainder were left undisturbed, and enrolled among the tributary allies under obligation to pay four talents per annum; an Athenian garrison being placed at Kythêra for the protection of the island. From hence Nikias employed seven days in descents and inroads upon the coast, near Helos, Asinê, Aphrodisia, Kotyrta, and elsewhere. ”

“ If Alkibiadês had demanded an armament on so vast a scale, the people would have turned a deaf ear. But such was their respect for Nikias—on the united grounds of prudence, good fortune, piety, and favor with the gods—that his opposition to their favorite scheme had really made them uneasy; and when he made the same demand, they were delighted to purchase his concurrence by adopting all such conditions as he imposed. ”

“ If we are amazed at the insolent carelessness with which Nikias disdained the commonest precautions for repelling the foreknown approach, by sea, of an enemy formidable even single-handed, what are we to say of that unaccountable blindness which led him to neglect the same enemy when coming at the head of a relieving army, and to omit the most obvious means of defence in a crisis upon which his future fate turned? ”

“ Men might differ about the virtue of Nikias; but his piety was an incontestable fact; and his “good fortune” also, in times prior to the Sicilian expedition, was recognized by men like Alkibiadês, who most probably had no very lofty opinion of his virtue (Thucyd. vi, 17) . The contrast between the remarkable piety of Nikias, and that extremity of ill-fortune which marked the close of his life, was very likely to shock Grecian ideas generally, and was a natural circumstance for the historian to note. ”

“ Nikias disembarked with his chorus upon the little island of Rhenea close by, with all their vestments and holy things, and then during the night bridged the strait—which is very narrow—with a bridge of boats which he had had made at Athens expressly, which was beautifully ornamented with gilding and rich tapestry. ”

“ Nikias.
O ye gods,
She is a pregnant horror as she stands.
Ægeus.
She speaks; her voice sounds as a sound far off.
Medea.
As you have said, O Jason, let it be.{47}
I for my part am nothing loth to break
A compact never in fair justice framed,
Seeing how much one gave and one how much.
For you, you thought: This maid has served me well,
And yet may serve me. When I touch her palm
The blood is set a-tingle in my veins;
For these things I will make her body mine.
And I, I stood before you, clean and straight,
A woman some deemed fair and all deemed wise ”

“ When we find Thucydidês, after narrating so much improvidence and mismanagement on the grand scale, still keeping attention fixed on the private morality and decorum of Nikias, as if it constituted the main feature of his character, we can understand how the Athenian people originally came both to over-estimate this unfortunate leader, and continued over-estimating him with tenacious fidelity even after glaring proof of his incapacity. Never in the political history of Athens did the people make so fatal a mistake in placing their confidence. ”

“ Kleon, having sounded the general feeling of his friends, was, on the whole, for war.
He spoke of the duty of all men, at any price, to save their country’s honour and preserve the state’s integrity. He denounced the perfidy of Sparta, and declared if Nikias, to whose negligence in confiding the Thrakian colonies to the government of the money-making Thoukydides the loss of Amphipolis was due—if Nikias feared to meet Brasidas in the field, why, he would go himself and bring the Spartans back prisoners to Athens, as he had done before, when Nikias shirked his duty at Sphakteria. ”

“ In this respect Crassus cannot be compared with Nikias, not though he had carried the frontier of the Roman empire as far as the Caspian and the Indian seas.
[Pg 91] III. Yet a statesman, in a country which appreciates his merits, ought not when at the height of his power to make way for worthless men, and place in office those who have no claim to it, as Nikias did when he laid down his own office of commander-in-chief and gave it to Kleon, a man who possessed no qualification whatever for the post except his brazen effrontery. ”

“ XVIII. Nikias, much against his will, was chosen to lead the expedition. His unwillingness was in a great measure due to the fact that Alkibiades was to act as his colleague; for the Athenians thought that the war would be conducted better if the rashness of Alkibiades was tempered by the prudence of Nikias, because the third general, Lamachus, although advanced in years, yet had the reputation of being no less daring and reckless a soldier than Alkibiades himself. ”

“ Besides these two main points, which Nikias had in common with Periklês, he was perfect in the use of those minor and collateral modes of standing well with the people, which that great man had taken little pains to practise. While Periklês attached himself to Aspasia, whose splendid qualities did not redeem, in the eyes of the public, either her foreign origin or her unchastity, the domestic habits of Nikias appear to have been strictly conformable to the rules of Athenian decorum. ”

“ When, however, the Corinthians and Bœotians, dissatisfied with the whole transaction, seemed likely by their complaints and menaces to rekindle the war, Nikias induced Athens and Sparta to confirm the peace by entering upon an alliance, which enabled them to deal with [Pg 12] the malcontents with more authority, and give them more confidence in one another.
All these transactions greatly displeased Alkibiades, who was naturally disinclined to peace, and who hated the Lacedæmonians because they paid their court to Nikias and disregarded him. ”

“ Worn out by disease, compelled by the exigencies of the retreat to forego the medicines and treatment which his condition required, he nevertheless, weak as he was, did more than many strong men could do, while all his men knew well that he made those efforts, not from any wish or hope to save his own life, but that it was solely on their behalf that he did not give way to despair. The tears and lamentations of the rest were prompted by their own private sorrows and fears, but the only grief shown by Nikias was that so splendid an expedition should have ended in such miserable failure. ”

“ Nikias then continued, doubtless turning towards Alkibiadês: “If any man, delighted to be named to the command, though still too young for it, exhorts you to this expedition in his own selfish interests, looking to admiration for his ostentation in chariot-racing, and to profit from his command, as a means of making good his extravagances, do not let such a man gain celebrity for himself at the hazard of the entire city. ”

“ Kleon probably thought that if commissioners were named, Nikias, Lachês, and other politicians of the same rank and color, would be the persons selected; persons whose anxiety for peace and alliance with Sparta would make them over-indulgent and careless in securing the interests of Athens: and it will be seen, when we come to describe the conduct of Nikias four years afterwards, that this suspicion was not ill-grounded. ”

“ In the well-known [p. 320] impossibility of obtaining new provisions, every man was anxious to hurry on the struggle. [476] But Nikias, as he mustered them on the shore immediately before going aboard, saw but too plainly that it was the mere stress of desperation which impelled them; that the elasticity, the disciplined confidence, the maritime pride, habitual to the Athenians on shipboard, was extinct, or dimly and faintly burning. ”

“ Kleon was confused by this unexpected turn of the debate, and declined the command; but as the Athenians insisted upon it, and Nikias urged him to do so, he plucked up spirit, accepted the office of general, and even went so far as to pledge himself within twenty days either to kill the Spartans on the island or to bring them prisoners to Athens. The Athenians were more inclined to laugh at this boast than to believe it; for they were well acquainted with the vainglorious character of the man, and had often amused themselves at his expense. ”

“ Admitting fully both the good intentions of Nikias, and his personal bravery, rising even into heroism during the last few days in Sicily, it is not the less incontestable, that, first, the failure of the enterprise, next, the destruction of the armament, is to be traced distinctly to his lamentable misjudgment. ”

“ Moreover, Nikias did Athens much harm by permitting Kleon to attain to such a height of power and reputation, which gave him such exaggerated confidence in himself that he grew quite unmanageable, and caused many terrible disasters, by which Nikias suffered as much as any man. ”

“ Crassus too used to practise these openly, like a trade: while he was also accused of taking bribes for his speeches in the Senate, of defrauding the allies of Rome, of currying favour with great ladies and assisting them to shield offenders from justice. Nothing of this sort was ever laid to the charge of Nikias, who, however, was ridiculed for giving money to common informers because he feared their tongues. Yet this action of his, though it would have been a disgrace to Perikles, or Aristeides, was a necessity for Nikias, who was naturally of a timid disposition. ”

“ Lots being drawn to determine whether Sparta or Athens should be the first to make the cessions required, the Athenians drew the favorable lot: an advantage so very great, under the circumstances, that Theophrastus affirmed Nikias to have gained the point by bribery. There is no ground for believing such alleged bribery; the rather, as we shall presently find Nikias gratuitously throwing away most of the benefit which the lucky lot conferred. ”

“ The impatient Lamachos had already been on board his vessel for some time, chafing at the delay, caring little for the doings at the Ekklesia. All he cared for was to be at Syrakuse, fighting the Syrakusans. As for Nikias, he had stolen down the night before, not sure of the reception the populace might give him after the conduct of Pythonikos.
Flowers decked the great triremes from prow to stern, silver goblets glittered on the higher decks. All was jollity as the hoplites, the archers, and the other light-armed soldiers, and a small force of cavalry, marched on board the transport ships. ”

“ But when the triremes were fully manned, and the trierarchs, after superintending the embarkation, were themselves about to enter and push off, the agony of Nikias was too great to be repressed. Feeling more keenly than any man the intensity of this last death-struggle, and the serious, but inevitable, shortcomings of the armament in its present condition, he still thought that he had not said enough for the occasion. He now renewed his appeal personally to the trierarchs, all of them citizens of rank and wealth at Athens. ”

“ To a life thus rigidly decorous and ultra-religious—both eminently acceptable to the Athenians—Nikias added the judicious employment of a large fortune with a view to popularity. Those liturgies—or expensive public duties undertaken by rich men each in his turn, throughout other cities of Greece as well as in Athens—which fell to his lot were performed with such splendor, munificence, and good taste, as to procure for him universal encomiums ”

“ From Carthage nothing was obtained; why, we do not know; for we shall find the Carthaginians, six years hence, invading Sicily with prodigious forces; and if they entertained any such intentions, it would seem that the presence of Nikias in Sicily must have presented the most convenient moment for executing them. To the Sikels, Egestæans, and all the other allies of Athens, Nikias sent orders for bricks, iron bars, clamps, and everything suitable for the wall of circumvallation, which was to be commenced with the first burst of spring. ”

“ V. When acting as general, Nikias did many great exploits, for he was many times victorious, all but took Syracuse, and ought not justly to bear the blame of the whole Sicilian disaster, because of his disease, and the ill will which some bore him at Athens. Crassus on the other hand committed so many mistakes as to put it out of the power of fortune to aid him, so that one wonders not so much that his folly was overcome by the Parthians as that it could overcome the good fortune of the Romans. ”

“ The blindness of Nikias would indeed appear unaccountable, were it not that we shall have worse yet to recount. To appreciate his misjudgment fully, and to be sensible that we are not [p. 264] making him responsible for results which could not have been foreseen, we have only to turn back to what had been said six months before by the exile Alkibiadês at Sparta: “Send forthwith an army to Sicily (he exhorted the Lacedæmonians) ; but send at the same time, what will be yet more valuable than an army, a Spartan to take the supreme command.” ”

“ To employ terms which are not fully suitable to the Athenian democracy, but which yet bring to view the difference intended to be noted better than any others, Nikias was a minister or ministerial man, often actually exercising and always likely to exercise official functions,—Kleon was a man of the opposition, whose province it was to supervise and censure official men for their public conduct. ”