Nicias

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For the Indo-Greek king, see Nicias

Nicias (470-413 BC), a soldier and statesman in ancient Athens, inherited from his father Niceratus a considerable fortune invested mainly in the silver mines of Laurium.

Evidence of his wealth is found in the fact that he had no fewer than 1000 slaves whom he hired out. He gravitated naturally to the aristocratic party, and was several times colleague with Pericles in the strategia. On the death of Pericles he was left leader of the aristocrats against the advanced party of Cleon. He made use of his wealth both to buy off enemies (especially informers) and to acquire popularity by the magnificent way in which he discharged various public services, especially those connected with the state religion, of which he was a strong supporter. In the field he displayed extreme caution, and prior to the great Sicilian expedition achieved a number of minor military successes. Plutarch states that "Nicias declined all difficult and lengthy enterprises; if he took a command, he was for doing what was safe."

In 421 he took a prominent part in the arrangement of the "Peace of Nicias," which terminated the first decade of the Peloponnesian War. He now entered with varying success upon a period of rivalry with Alcibiades, the details of which are largely matters of conjecture. So bitter was the strife that the 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 flight of Alcibiades and the death of Lamachus, was practically the sole commander, the much more capable Demosthenes (not the orator), who was sent to his aid, being apparently of comparatively little weight.

How far it is just to attribute to his excessive caution and his blind faith in omens the disastrous failure it is difficult to say. So many chances for Athenian success were lost, but as always, one always views hindsight events in 20/20 vision. He was a man of conventional respectability and 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 Thucydides over his death: "He assuredly, among all Greeks of my time, least deserved to come to so extreme a pitch of ill-fortune, considering his exact performance of established duties to the divinity" (vii. 86, Crete's version).

Besides Thucydides see Plutarch's Nicias and Diod. xii. 83; also the general authorities on the history of Greece.

Nicias appears as a character in Plato's dialogue Laches, in which Socrates and others discuss the nature of courage without reaching any firm conclusions.

[edit] References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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Livius, Nicias by Jona Lendering

Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
Alcibiades and Coriolanus - Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar - Aratus & Artaxerxes and Galba & Otho - Aristides and Cato the Elder
Crassus and Nicias - Demetrius and Antony - Demosthenes and Cicero - Dion and Brutus - Fabius and Pericles - Lucullus and Cimon
Lysander and Sulla - Numa and Lycurgus - Pelopidas and Marcellus - Philopoemen and Flamininus - Phocion and Cato the Younger - Pompey and Agesilaus
Poplicola and Solon - Pyrrhus and Gaius Marius - Romulus and Theseus - Sertorius and Eumenes
Tiberius Gracchus & Gaius Gracchus and Agis & Cleomenes - Timoleon and Aemilius Paullus - Themistocles and Camillus

Image:Parthenon XL.jpg Athenian statesmen \| Ancient Greece
Aeschines - Agyrrhius - Alcibiades - Andocides - Archinus - Aristides - Aristogeiton - Aristophon - Autocles
Callistratus - Chremonides - Cleisthenes - Cleon - Critias - Demades - Demetrius Phalereus - Demochares - Democles - Demosthenes
Ephialtes - Eubulus - Hyperbolus - Hypereides - Cimon - Cleophon - Laches- Lycurgus - Lysicles
Miltiades - Moerocles - Nicias - Peisistratus - Pericles - Philinus - Phocion - Themistocles
Theramenes - Thrasybulus - Thucydides - Xanthippus