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Though Nikias, son of Nikeratus, had been for some time conspicuous in public life, and is said to have been more than once Strategus along with Perikles, this is the first occasion on which Thucydides introduces him to our notice.⁴ He was now one of the Strategi or generals of the commonwealth, and appears to have enjoyed, on the whole, a greater and more constant personal esteem than any citizen of Athens, from the present time down to his death. In wealth and in family, he ranked among the first class of Athenians: in political character, Aristotle placed him, together with Thucydides son of Melesias and Theramenes, above all other names in Athenian history—seemingly even above Perikles.⁵ Such a criticism, from Aristotle, deserves respectful attention, though the facts before us completely belie so lofty an estimate. It marks, however, the position occupied by Nikias in Athenian politics, as the principal person of what may be called the oligarchical party, succeeding Kimon⁶ and Thucydides, and preceding Theramenes. In looking to the conditions under which this party continued to subsist, we shall see that during the interval between Thucydides (son of Melesias) and Nikias, the democratical forms had acquired such confirmed ascendency, that it would not have suited the purpose of any politician to betray evidence of positive hostility to them, prior to the Sicilian expedition and the great embarrassment in the foreign relations of Athens which arose out of that disaster. After that change, the Athenian oligarchs became emboldened and aggressive, so that we shall find Theramenes among the chief conspirators in the revolution of the Four Hundred:⁷ but Nikias represents the oligarchical party in its previous state of quiescence and torpidity, accommodating itself to a sovereign democracy, and existing in the form of common sentiment rather than of common purposes. And it is a remarkable illustration of the real temper of the Athenian people, that a man of this character, known as an oligarch but not feared as such, and doing his duty sincerely to the democracy, should have remained until his death the most esteemed and influential man in the city. He was a man of a sort of even mediocrity, in intellect, in education, and in oratory: forward in his military duties, and not only personally courageous in the field, but also competent as a general under ordinary circumstances: assiduous in the discharge of all political duties at home, especially in the post of Strategus or one of the ten generals of the state, to which he was frequently chosen and rechosen. Of the many valuable qualities combined in his predecessor Perikles, the recollection of whom was yet fresh in the Athenian mind, Nikias possessed two, on which, most of all, his influence rested,—though, properly speaking, that influence belongs to the sum total of his character, and not to any special attributes in it. First, he was thoroughly incorruptible as to pecuniary gains,—a quality so rare in Grecian public men of all the cities, that when a man once became notorious for possessing it, he acquired a greater degree of trust than any superiority of intellect could have bestowed upon him: next, he adopted the Periklean view as to the necessity of a conservative or stationary foreign policy for Athens, and of avoiding new acquisitions at a distance, adventurous risks, or provocation to fresh enemies. With this important point of analogy, there were at the same time material differences between them even in regard to foreign policy. Perikles was a conservative, resolute against submitting to loss or abstraction of empire, as well as refraining from aggrandizement. Nikias was in policy faint-hearted, averse to energetic effort for any purpose whatever, and disposed not only to maintain peace, but even to purchase it by considerable sacrifices. Nevertheless, he was the leading champion of the conservative party of his day, always powerful at Athens: and as he was constantly familiar with the details and actual course of public affairs, capable of giving full effect to the cautious and prudential point of view, and enjoying unqualified credit for honest purposes—his value as a permanent counsellor was steadily recognized, even though in particular cases his counsel might not be followed.

Besides these two main points, which Nikias had in common with Perikles, he was perfect in the use of those minor and collateral modes of standing well with the people, which that great man had taken little pains to practise. While Perikles attached himself to Aspasia, whose splendid qualities did not redeem in the eyes of the public either her foreign origin or her unchastity,⁸ the domestic habits of Nikias appear to have been strictly conformable to the rules of Athenian decorum. Perikles was surrounded by philosophers, Nikias by prophets—whose advice was necessary both as a consolation to his temperament and as a guide to his intelligence under difficulties: one of them was constantly in his service and confidence; and his conduct appears to have been sensibly affected by the difference of character between one prophet and another, just as the government of Louis XIV and other Catholic princes has been modified by the change of confessors. To a life thus rigidly decorous and ultra-religious—both eminently acceptable to the Athenians—Nikias added the judicious employment of a large fortune with a view to popularity. Those liturgies (or expensive public duties undertaken by rich men each in his turn, throughout other cities of Greece as well as in Athens) which fell to his lot were performed with such splendour, munificence, and good taste, as to procure for him universal encomiums; and so much above his predecessors as to be long remembered and extolled. Most of these liturgies were connected with the religious service of the state; so that Nikias, by his manner of performing them, displayed his zeal for the honour of the gods at the same time that he laid up for himself a store of popularity. Moreover, the remarkable caution and timidity—not before an enemy, but in reference to his own fellow citizens—which marked his character, rendered him pre-eminently scrupulous as to giving offence or making personal enemies. While his demeanour towards the poorer citizens generally was equal and conciliating, the presents which he made were numerous, both to gain friends and to silence assailants. We are not surprised to hear that various bullies, whom the comic writers turn to scorn, made their profit out of this susceptibility, but most assuredly, Nikias as a public man, though he might occasionally be cheated out of money, was greatly assisted by the reputation which he thus acquired.

[Vol. VI, pp. 385-90.]

He is described by Thucydides in general terms as a person of the most violent temper and character in Athens—as being dishonest in his calumnies, and virulent in his invective and accusation. . . . The general attributes set forth by Thucydides (apart from Aristophanes, who does not profess to write history) we may well accept—the powerful and violent invective of Kleon, often dishonest—together with his self-confidence and audacity in the public assembly. Men of the middling class, like Kleon and Hyperbolus,¹³ who persevered in addressing the public assembly and trying to take a leading part in it, against persons of greater family pretension than themselves, were pretty sure to be men of more than usual audacity. Had they not possessed this quality, they would never have surmounted the opposition made to them: we may well believe that they had it to a displeasing excess; and even if they had not, the same measure of self-assumption which in Alkibiades¹⁴ would be tolerated from his rank and station, would in them pass for insupportable impudence. Unhappily, we have no specimens to enable us to appreciate the invective of Kleon. We cannot determine whether it was more virulent than that of Demosthenes and Aeschines,¹⁵ seventy years afterwards; each of those eminent orators imputing to the other the grossest impudence, calumny, perjury, corruption, loud voice and revolting audacity of manner, in language which Kleon can hardly have surpassed in intensity of vituperation, though he doubtless fell immeasurably short of it in classical finish. Nor can we even tell in what degree Kleon’s denunciations of the veteran Perikles were fiercer than those memorable invectives against the old age of Sir Robert Walpole with which Lord Chatham’s political career opened.¹⁶ . . . The fact of Kleon’s great power of speech, and his capacity of handling public business in a popular manner, is better attested than anything else respecting him, because it depends upon two witnesses, both hostile to him—Thucydides and Aristophanes. The assembly and the dikastery were Kleon’s theatre and holding-ground: for the Athenian people taken collectively in their place of meeting—and the Athenian people taken individually—were not always the same person, and had not the same mode of judgment: Demos sitting in the Pnyx was a different man from Demos at home.¹⁷ The lofty combination of qualities possessed by Perikles exercised ascendancy over both one and the other; but the qualities of Kleon swayed considerably the former without standing high in the esteem of the latter.

[Vol. VI, pp. 332-4.]

To employ terms which are not fully suitable to the Athenian democracy, but which yet bring to view the difference intended to be noted better than any others, Nikias was a Minister or Ministerial man, often actually exercising and always likely to exercise official functions: Kleon was a man of the Opposition, whose province it was to supervise and censure official men for their public conduct. We must divest these words of that sense which they are understood to carry in English political life—a standing Parliamentary majority in favour of one party: Kleon would often carry in the public assembly resolutions, which his opponents Nikias and others of like rank and position—who served in the posts of Strategus, ambassador, and other important offices designated by the general vote—were obliged against their will to execute. . . . While Nikias was thus in what may be called ministerial function, Kleon was not of sufficient importance to attain the same, but was confined to the inferior function of opposition. . . . As an opposition man, fierce and violent in temper, Kleon was extremely formidable to all acting functionaries; and from his influence in the public assembly, he was doubtless the author of many important positive measures, thus going beyond the functions belonging to what is called opposition. But though the most effective speaker in the public assembly, he was not for that reason the most influential person in the democracy: his powers of speech in fact stood out the more prominently, because they were found apart from that station and those qualities which were considered, even at Athens, all but essential to make a man a leader in political life. To understand the political condition of Athens at this time, it has been necessary to take this comparison between Nikias and Kleon, and to remark, that though the latter might be a more victorious speaker, the former was the more guiding and influential leader; the points gained by Kleon were all noisy and palpable,—sometimes, however, without doubt, of considerable moment,—but the course of affairs was much more under the direction of Nikias.

[Vol. VI, pp. 392-5.]

If we are surprised to find a man, whose whole importance resided in his tongue, denouncing so severely the licence and the undue influence of speech in the public assembly, we must recollect that Kleon had the advantage of addressing himself to the intense prevalent sentiment of the moment; that he could therefore pass off the dictates of this sentiment as plain, downright, honest sense and patriotism, while the opponents, speaking against the reigning sentiment and therefore driven to collateral argument, circumlocution, and more or less of manoeuvre, might be represented as mere clever sophists, showing their talents in making the worse appear the better reason¹⁹ —if not actually bribed, at least unprincipled and without any sincere moral conviction. As this is a mode of dealing with questions both of public concern and of private morality, not less common at present than it was in the time of the Peloponnesian war—to seize upon some strong and tolerably widespread sentiment among the public, to treat the dictates of that sentiment as plain common sense and obvious right, and then to shut out all rational estimate of coming good and evil as if it were unholy or immoral, or at best mere uncandid subtlety—we may well notice a case in which Kleon employs it to support a proposition now justly regarded as barbarous.

[Vol. VI, pp. 340-1.]