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Nicias (d. 414 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 BC|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. At all
events it is clear that the management of so great
an enterprise was a task far beyond his powers. 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.

1911