Lives by Plutarch - 6 - Nicias
Nicias
Quotes
"Fortune is an inscrutable master, incapable of comprehension by the rational mind."
"Everyone blamed Nicias for all this. They accused him of having spent too much time thinking and hesitating and being careful that he wasted every opportunity he had to actually get something done."
Notes
Nicias is a talented military leader who rises to power after Pericles dies. He's more cautious and fearful of the people than Pericles, though, very timid. He doesn't have much charisma either, but he does have a lot of money and he wins people over by putting on big festivals and athletic competitions. Athens has grown suspicious of "clever people" who can speak well, so he keeps his speeches short and attributes his success to the gods, not himself.
He has a thing for divination and he keeps a diviner in his house so he can ask it questions whenever he wants. Most of his questions have to do with his silver mine which is his main source of wealth.
Nicias keeps to himself a lot and he's a bit reclusive. He has a personal propogandist/promoter to boost his reputation for him, and explain to people why he's "grumpy and antisocial."
Nicias is sometimes too timid for his own good. He has a public spat with another politician/military leader, Cleon, over an island Athens had captured called Pylos. Cleon says it's Nicias' fault that they're having trouble holding the island against the Spartans and that he, Cleon, would do a way better job. Nicias tells Cleon he can go ahead and take over if he wants. Cleon is trapped since he didn't really want to lead a campaign to Pylos, but he goes ahead and does it and he ends up being really successful. He even brings back a bunch of captured Spartans. This makes Nicias look bad, since he had stepped aside and looked weak.
Later Nicias is part of negotiations with Sparta to end the Peloponnesian Wars, but another guy Alcibiades wants to stop him (he doesn't want to end the war for some reason, probably selfish). The two of them become rivals against each other but the Athenians are suspicious of both of them. At this point, anyone who is growing personally too powerful makes himself a target of ostracism, meaning they're kicked out of Athens.
Nicias and Alcibiades both cleverly turn the people on to a different target which takes the attention off themselves. However, says Plutarch, fortune is a very strange thing because if either Nicias or Alcibiades got ostracized, that probably would have prevented the way more horrible disaster that was about to happen to Nicias.
Athens is only just recovering from the brutal war against the Spartans, and the plague that was killing everyone at the same time. They want to show that they're strong again, and they decide to have a new war against the Syracusans on the island of Sicily.
Nicias says this is a really bad idea and they shouldn't do it. But he loses that argument, and Athens even makes him the military commander for the war. Nicias accepts their decision and heads out to Sicily with the Athenian navy.
Nicias takes a lot of time sailing around Sicily, being cautious and timid, and this gives the Syracusans time to rally and get their defenses together. When the fighting starts, Athens starts losing badly and people blame Nicias. They "accused him of having spent too much time thinking and hesitating and being careful that he wasted every opportunity he had to actually get something done."
If that wasn't enough, Nicias also has some kind of stomach bug and is really sick most of the time he's there. He writes back to Athens to ask them for reinforcements and for himself to be replaced. Athens won't replace him but they do send some reinforcements.
The reinforcements get there but Nicias still wants to hold off from fighting. He's actually talking to a traitor from the Syracusans who's telling him they're exhausted and can't go on much longer, so Nicias wants to wait them out. But everyone is sick of Nicias' caution so they overrule him and decide to go and fight.
They go on to lose even more badly and even their retreat by sea is cut off now. They're basically trapped for the Syracusans to come in and kill them all. There's still a slim chance they can get away on land, but it means they have to abandon their sick and wounded, which they do and they can hear the people left behind screaming after them.
Nicias is still sick through all of this. But he continues on admirably (for the circumstances), especially since he argued that this whole war was a bad idea in the first place. But there's only so much he can do and eventually their whole army is captured in probably the worst defeat in Athens' history. Nicias asks for mercy for his men, but the Syracusans are too high on their victory to give them that. They also kill Nicias by cutting his throat.
It takes a while for word to get to Athens about this. It actually comes to them from a stranger who comes into the city for a haircut and tells the barber about it all. The barber runs to tell everyone in Athens and they call the stranger in to question him. They think he's making it up and they strap him to a wheel and torture him for a long time. But then some messengers arrive and confirm that the story is true. Clearly they didn't take to the news very well.