|
See also: ancient Athens, inherited from his See also: father Niceratus a considerable See also: fortune in-vested mainly in the See also: silver mines of Laurium
.
Evidence of his See also: wealth is found in the fact that he had no less than r000 slaves whom he hired out
.
He gravitated naturally to the aristocratic party, and was several times colleague with See also: Pericles in the
aristocrats against the advanced party of See also: Cleon (q.v.)
.
He made use of his wealth both to buy off enemies (especially in-formers) and to acquire popularity by the magnificent way in which he discharged various public services, especially those connected with the See also: state See also: religion, of which he was a strong supporter
.
In the See also: field he displayed extreme caution, and
See also: prior to the See also: great Sicilian expedition achieved a number of minor military successes
.
In 421 he took a prominent See also: part in the arrangement of the " See also: Peace of See also: Nicias," which terminated the first See also: decade of the Peloponnesian War (q.v.)
.
He now entered with varying success upon a See also: period of rivalry with See also: Alcibiades, the details of which are largely matters of conjecture
.
So bitter was the strife that the See also: ostracism of one seemed inevitable, but by a temporary coalition they secured instead the banishment of the demagogue Hyperbolus (417)
.
In 415 he was appointed with Alcibiades and Lamachus to command the Sicilian expedition, and, after the See also: flight of Alcibiades (q.v.) and the See also: death of Lamachus, was practically the See also: sole See also: commander, the much more capable See also: Demosthenes, who was sent to his aid, being apparently of comparatively little See also: weight
.
How far it is just to attribute to his excessive caution and his See also: blind faith in omens the disastrous failure it is difficult to say
.
At all events it is clear that the management of so great an enterprise was a task far beyond his See also: powers
.
He was a See also: man of conventional respect-ability and See also: mechanical piety, without the originality which was required to meet the crisis which faced him
.
His popularity with the aristocratic party in Athens is, however, strikingly shown by the lament of See also: Thucydides over his death: " He assuredly, among all Greeks of my See also: time, least deserved to come to so extreme a See also: pitch of See also: ill-fortune, considering his exact performance of established duties to the divinity " (vii
.
86, See also: Grote's version)
.
Besides Thucydides see Plutarch's Nicias and Diod. xii
.
|
|
|
[back] NICIAS |
[next] NICKEL |
There are no comments yet for this article.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.
Links to articles and home page are encouraged.