Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
but, to avoid envy, he thanked fortune for all, and gave the glory
to the divine powers. And the actions themselves bore testimony in
his favor; the city met at that time with several considerable
reverses, but he had not a hand in any of them. The Athenians were
routed in Thrace by the Chalcidians, Calliades and Xenophon
commanding in chief. Demosthenes was the general when they were
unfortunate in Aetolia. At Delium, they lost a thousand citizens
under the conduct of Hippocrates; the plague was principally laid
to the charge of Pericles, he, to carry on the war, having shut up
close together in the town the crowd of people from the country,
who, by the change of place, and of their usual course of living,
bred the pestilence. Nicias stood clear of all this; under his
conduct was taken Cythera, an island most commodious against
Laconia, and occupied by the Lacedaemonian settlers; many places,
likewise, in Thrace, which had revolted, were taken or won over by
him; he, shutting up the Megarians within their town, seized upon
the isle of Minoa; and soon after, advancing from thence to Nisaea,
made himself master there, and then making a descent upon the
Corinthian territory, fought a successful battle, and slew a great
number of the Corinthians with their captain Lycophron. There it
happened that two of his men were left by an oversight, when they
carried off the dead, which when he understood, he stopped the
fleet, and sent a herald to the enemy for leave to carry off the
dead; though by law and custom, he that by a truce craved leave to
carry off the dead, was hereby supposed to give up all claim to the
victory. Nor was it lawful for him that did this to erect a
trophy, for his is the victory who is master of the field, and he
is not master who asks leave, as wanting power to take. But he
chose rather to renounce his victory and his glory, than to let two
citizens lie unburied. He scoured the coast of Laconia all along,
and beat the Lacedaemonians that made head against him. He took
Thyrea, occupied by the Aeginetans, and carried the prisoners to
Athens.
When Demosthenes had fortified Pylos, and the Peloponnesians
brought together both their sea and land forces before it, after
the fight, about the number of four hundred native Spartans were
left ashore in the isle Sphacteria. The Athenians thought it a
great prize, as indeed it was, to take these men prisoners. But
the siege, in places that wanted water, being very difficult and
untoward, and to convey necessaries about by sea in summer tedious
and expensive, in winter doubtful, or plainly impossible, they
began to be annoyed, and to repent their having rejected the
embassy of the Lacedaemonians that had been sent to propose a
treaty of peace, which had been done at the importunity of Cleon,
who opposed it chiefly out of a pique to Nicias; for, being his
enemy, and observing him to be extremely solicitous to support the
offers of the Lacedaemonians, he persuaded the people to refuse
them.
Now, therefore, that the siege was protracted, and they heard of
the difficulties that pressed their army, they grew enraged against
Cleon. But he turned all the blame upon Nicias, charging it on his
softness and cowardice, that the besieged were not yet taken.
"Were I general," said he, "they should not hold out so long." The
Athenians not unnaturally asked the question, "Why then, as it is,
do not you go with a squadron against them?" And Nicias standing
up resigned his command at Pylos to him, and bade him take what
forces he pleased along with him, and not be bold in words, out of
harm's way, but go forth and perform some real service for the
commonwealth. Cleon, at the first, tried to draw back,
disconcerted at the proposal, which he had never expected; but the
Athenians insisting, and Nicias loudly upbraiding him, he thus
provoked, and fired with ambition, took upon him the charge, and
said further, that within twenty days after he embarked, he would
either kill the enemy upon the place, or bring them alive to
Athens. This the Athenians were readier to laugh at than to
believe, as on other occasions, also, his bold assertions and
extravagances used to make them sport, and were pleasant enough.
As, for instance, it is reported that once when the people were
assembled, and had waited his coming a long time, at last he
appeared with a garland on his head, and prayed them to adjourn to
the next day. "For," said he, "I am not at leisure to-day; I have
sacrificed to the gods, and am to entertain some strangers."
Whereupon the Athenians laughing rose up, and dissolved the
assembly. However, at this time he had good fortune, and in
conjunction with Demosthenes, conducted the enterprise so well,
that within the time he had limited, he carried captive to Athens
all the Spartans that had not fallen in battle.
This brought great disgrace on Nicias; for this was not to throw
away his shield, but something yet more shameful and ignominious,
to quit his charge voluntarily out of cowardice, and voting
himself, as it were, out of his command of his own accord, to put
into his enemy's hand the opportunity of achieving so brave an
action. Aristophanes has a jest against him on this occasion in
the Birds: --
Indeed, not now the word that must be said
Is, do like Nicias, or retire to bed.
And, again, in his Husbandmen: --
I wish to stay at home and farm.
What then?
Who should prevent you?
You, my countrymen;
Whom I would pay a thousand drachmas down,
To let me give up office and leave town.
Enough; content; the sum two thousand is,
With those that Nicias paid to give up his.
Besides all this, he did great mischief to the city by suffering
the accession of so much reputation and power to Cleon, who now
assumed such lofty airs, and allowed himself in such intolerable
audacity, as led to many unfortunate results, a sufficient part of
which fell to his own share. Amongst other things, he destroyed
all the decorum of public speaking; he was the first who ever broke
out into exclamations, flung open his dress, smote his thigh, and
ran up and down whilst he was speaking, things which soon after
introduced amongst those who managed the affairs of State, such
license and contempt of decency, as brought all into confusion.
Already, too, Alcibiades was beginning to show his strength at
Athens, a popular leader, not, indeed, as utterly violent as Cleon,
but as the land of Egypt, through the richness of its soil, is
said,
-- great plenty to produce,
Both wholesome herbs, and drugs of deadly juice,
so the nature of Alcibiades was strong and luxuriant in both kinds,
and made way for many serious innovations. Thus it fell out that
after Nicias had got his hands clear of Cleon, he had not
opportunity to settle the city perfectly into quietness. For
having brought matters to a pretty hopeful condition, he found
everything carried away and plunged again into confusion by
Alcibiades, through the wildness and vehemence of his ambition, and
all embroiled again in war worse than ever. Which fell out thus.
The persons who had principally hindered the peace were Cleon and
Brasidas. War setting off the virtue of the one, and hiding the
villainy of the other, gave to the one occasions of achieving brave
actions, to the other opportunity of committing equal dishonesties.
Now when these two were in one battle both slain near Amphipolis,
Nicias was aware that the Spartans had long been desirous of a
peace, and that the Athenians had no longer the same confidence in
the war. Both being alike tired, and, as it were by consent,
letting fall their hands, he, therefore, in this nick of time,
employed his efforts to make a friendship betwixt the two cities,
and to deliver the other States of Greece from the evils and
calamities they labored under, and so establish his own good name
for success as a statesman for all future time. He found the men
of substance, the elder men, and the land-owners and farmers pretty
generally, all inclined to peace. And when, in addition to these,
by conversing and reasoning, he had cooled the wishes of a good
many others for war, he now encouraged the hopes of the
Lacedaemonians, and counseled them to seek peace. They confided in
him, as on account of his general character for moderation and
equity, so, also, because of the kindness and care he had shown to
the prisoners taken at Pylos and kept in confinement, making their
misfortune the more easy to them.
The Athenians and the Spartans had before this concluded a truce
for a year, and during this, by associating with one another, they
had tasted again the sweets of peace and security, and unimpeded
intercourse with friends and connections, and thus longed for an
end of that fighting and bloodshed, and heard with delight the
chorus sing such verses as
-- my lance I'll leave
Laid by, for spiders to o'erweave,
and remembered with joy the saying, In peace, they who sleep are
awaked by the cock-crow, not by the trumpet. So shutting their
ears, with loud reproaches, to the forebodings of those who said
that the Fates decreed this to be a war of thrice nine years, the
whole question having been debated, they made a peace. And most
people thought, now, indeed, they had got an end of all their
evils. And Nicias was in every man's mouth, as one especially
beloved of the gods, who, for his piety and devotion, had been
appointed to give a name to the fairest and greatest of all
blessings. For in fact they considered the peace Nicias's work, as
the war the work of Pericles; because he, on light occasions,
seemed to have plunged the Greeks into great calamities, while
Nicias had induced them to forget all the evils they had done each
other and to be friends again; and so to this day it is called the
Peace of Nicias.
The articles being, that the garrisons and towns taken on either
side, and the prisoners should be restored, and they to restore the
first to whom it should fall by lot, Nicias, as Theophrastus tells
us, by a sum of money procured that the lot should fall for the
Lacedaemonians to deliver the first. Afterwards, when the
Corinthians and the Boeotians showed their dislike of what was
done, and by their complaints and accusations were wellnigh
bringing the war back again, Nicias persuaded the Athenians and the
Lacedaemonians, besides the peace, to make a treaty of alliance,
offensive and defensive, as a tie and confirmation of the peace,
which would make them more terrible to those that held out, and the
firmer to each other. Whilst these matters were on foot,
Alcibiades, who was no lover of tranquillity, and who was offended
with the Lacedaemonians because of their applications and
attentions to Nicias, while they overlooked and despised himself,
from first to last, indeed, had opposed the peace, though all in
vain, but now finding that the Lacedaemonians did not altogether
continue to please the Athenians, but were thought to have acted
unfairly in having made a league with the Boeotians, and had not
given up Panactum, as they should have done, with its
fortifications unrazed, nor yet Amphipolis, he laid hold on these
occasions for his purpose, and availed himself of every one of them
to irritate the people. And, at length, sending for ambassadors
from the Argives, he exerted himself to effect a confederacy
between the Athenians and them. And now, when Lacedaemonian
ambassadors were come with full powers, and at their preliminary
audience by the council seemed to come in all points with just
proposals, he, fearing that the general assembly, also, would be
won over to their offers, overreached them with false professions
and oaths of assistance, on the condition that they would not avow