NICIAS (d. 414 B.C.)

This article appears in Volume V19, Page 658 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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NICIAS (d. 414 B.C.) , a soldier and statesman in ancient Athens, inherited from his father Niceratus a considerable fortune in-vested mainly in the silver mines of

Laurium

LAURIUM
LAURIUM (Aabptov, mod. ERGASTIRI)

. Evidence of his 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 Pericles in the
aristocrats against the advanced party of 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 state religion, of which he was a strong supporter. In the field he displayed extreme caution, and prior to the

great

GREAT

Sicilian expedition achieved a number of

minor

military successes. In 421 he took a prominent part in the arrangement of the " Peace of Nicias," which terminated the first decade of the Peloponnesian War (q.v.). 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 (q.v.) and the death of Lamachus, was practically the sole

commander

COMMANDER

, the much more capable

Demosthenes

DEMOSTHENES

, who was sent to his aid, being apparently of comparatively little

weight

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. At all events it is clear that the management of so

great

GREAT

an enterprise was a task far beyond his

powers

POWERS, HIRAM (1805-1873)

. He was a man of conventional respect-ability 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

THUCYDIDES (OovavMns)

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, Grote's version).
Besides

Thucydides

THUCYDIDES (OovavMns)

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

Greece

GREECE

, and the article

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