H 



NICIAS. 



NICIAS. 



480 



parties in this matter. Under ALCIBIADES we have related at sufficient 

 length the circumstances and the result of the vote of ostracism, 

 which was carried with a view to the removal of one or other of these 

 leaders, but which, by a sudden combination of both parties each 

 being at the moment doubtful of the issue resulted in directing the 

 votes against Hyperbolus, the successor of Cleou as the leader of a 

 third or extreme democratic party. The machinations of Alcibiades 

 having at length succeeded in putting an end to the peace, it was, in 

 spite of the most energetic protests on the part of Nicias, determined 

 to send an expedition against Sicily ; and Nicias, Alcibiades, and 

 Lamachus, were appointed to conduct it. It was in vain that Nicias 

 remonstrated against the whole proceeding, and urged his ill-health as 

 a reason for his not being sent in command. He was compelled to go, 

 and after the recal of Alcibiades to answer the charge of profanation, 

 the chief conduct of the expedition which he had come now to deem 

 utterly hopeless devolved upon him. He appears indeed to have 

 become both meutallyand physically unequal to an undertaking which 

 would have tasked the energies of a far greater general. Had his 

 conduct been always such as it now waa, he might well be stigmatised 

 as both timid and superstitious, but he really appears to have been 

 weighed down by disease and hopeless depression. 



In the spring of B.C. 414, Nicias having embarked his troops at 

 Catana, landed a party of them in the Bay of Thapsus, north of Syra- 

 cuse, which, without being perceived, ascended the heights of the 

 Kj.ipuke, took possession of them, and built there a fort which they 

 called Labdalum. They then began to build a wall from Port Trogilua 

 to the Great Harbour, so as to enclose Syracuse on the land side 

 whilst their fleet blockaded it by sea. In executing this work, 

 Lamachus waa killed in a fight against a party of Syracusaua. In the 

 mean time Gylippus, the Spartan commander, arrived in Sicily, 

 collected some troops from Gela, Selinus, and other towns allied to 

 Syracuse marched towards Epipolic, seized the fort Labdalum, and 

 annoyed the Athenians in their encampment. The Syracusana now 

 attacked the Athenian fleet at the entrance of the Great Harbour : 

 the fight was not decisive ; but Gylippus, with his land forces, sur- 

 prised the forts which the Athenians bad raised on the peninsula of 

 Plemuiyrium. Another sea-fight took place, in which the Athenian 

 galleys were worsted. Soon after Demosthenes and Eurymedon 

 arrived from Athens with a new fleet of 73 galleys and about 8000 

 soldiers. Demosthenes attacked the heights of Epipolic by night, but 

 was repulsed with great loss. Gylippus went round to the Sicilian 

 towns to collect fresh forces against the Athenians. After several 

 discordant councils among the Athenian generals, who saw their laud 

 troops dwindle away both by sickness and by the hand of the enemy, 

 who was superior to them in cavalry, it was resolved to embark the 

 soldiers secretly and sail away with the fleet. Nicias, though an we have 

 seen never sanguine about the success of the expedition, now opposed 

 the raising of the siege from a feeling of honour, as well as from fear of 

 responsibility, but at last gave way to the opinion of his brother- 

 commanders. An eclipse of the moon however being interpreted by 

 the soothsayers as an injunction of the gods that the army should not 

 depart till the next full moon, Nicias gave in his adhesion to their 

 decision, and tho last chance of escape from destruction was lost. 

 The Syracusans having heard of this determination, made demon- 

 strations against the Athenian camp, and at the same time attacked 

 their fleet in the Great Harbour and defeated it. The Syracueaus 

 then blocked up the entrance of the Great Harbour by means of 

 galleys and other vessels lying at anchor and connected by means of 

 chain*, and thus shut up the Athenians. Nicias then resolved to fight 

 his way out with the fleet. The Athenian vessels were heavy those 

 of the Syracusans light ; the former, in try ing to break through the 

 chain, got crowded in one mass, and became unmanageable; the crews 

 were exposed to showers of stonea from the enemy, and at last the 

 Athenian fleet was driven against the shore, and the greater part of it 

 was taken or sunk. There remained 60 vessels, with which Demo- 

 sthenes proposed to escape, whilst the Syracusans in their rejoicing 

 were off their guard ; but the sailors were discouraged, and refused to 

 sail. At last the Athenians resolved to abandon their remaining 

 Teasels and stores, their sick and woundef, and retire by land to 

 Catena. The army broke up on the third day after the sea- fight in 

 two bodies, with the baggage in the centre. After crossing the 

 Aiiapug they were much harassed in the plain by the Syracusan 

 cavalry and light troops, and after short marches and continual 

 fighting for several days the corps of Demosthenes, which was in the 

 rear, was surrounded and overpowered ; part of the Sicilian auxiliaries 

 who served with the Athenians were allowed to return to their homes, 

 and the rest of the soldiers, about 6000, surrendered at discretion, and 

 were taken prisoners with Demosthenes to Syracuse. Nicias, who had 

 throughout these evil days displayed the most heroic bravery, and 

 incessantly endeavoured to sustain the courage of his soldiers, arrived 

 that very evening on the banks of the Erineus, and, crossing the 

 river, encamped on a mountain. The next day he was informed of 

 the surrender of Demosthenes, and was himself attacked. After 

 fighting all that day, hia men having neither provisions nor water, he 

 moved on tho following morning and reached tho river Asinarus, 

 where, the men rushing to the water to drink, the Syracusaus fell 

 upon them and slaughtered them without resistance. After a great 

 massacre, Nicias, seeing no chance of safety, implored Gylippua to 



stop the slaughter; and the order being given to that effect, the 

 survivors were taken prisoners to Syracuse. Of 40,000 men who had 

 been engaged iu the expedition, all were killed or taken prisoners, and 

 not one of 200 vessels returned to Athens. 



Of the prisoners, all the free-born Athenians, and the Sicilians who 

 were with them, were confined in the quarries ; the rest, servants, 

 followers of the camp, &c., were sold as slaves. Nicias and Demo- 

 sthenes were put to death. The prisoners in the quarries receiving but 

 a small pittance of barley-bread and water, and having no shelter by 

 day or night, diseases broke out among them. The bodies of the 

 dead were left to putrefy among the living, and this created conta- 

 gion, of which most of them perished. Thus ended this formidable 

 expedition, the ill success of which broke down the power of Athens, 

 and had a great influence on the result of the Peloponnesian war. 

 At Athens the news of the loss of that magnificent armament excited 

 the bitterest grief, and, though he had constantly foretold the result, 

 the public indignation was chiefly directed against Nicias. Ou the 

 monument raised to the memory of those who fell in Sicily, the name 

 of Demosthenes was inscribed, but that of Nicias was omitted. 



(Plutarch, Nicioa ; Thucydides, vi., vii. ; Thirlwall, Hist, of Greece, 

 vol. iii.; Grote who has judged Nicias very severely Hist, of Greece, 

 vols. vi., vii.) 



N I'd AS is the name commonly given to the physician of Pyrrhus, 

 king of Epirus, who went to Fabriciu*, the Roman consul, offering 

 for a certain reward to take off his master by poison, A.U.C. 474, B.C. 

 280. Fabricius not only rejected his offer with indignation, but 

 immediately sent him back to the king with notice of his treachery ; 

 and Pyrrhus, upon receiving the information, is said to have cried 

 out, " This is that Fabricius whom it is harder to turn aside from 

 justice and honour than to divert the sun from its course." (Eutro- 

 pius, lib. ii., cap. 14.) Zonaras adds (' Anual.,' torn, ii., p. 50, 1. 10, 

 ed. Basil., 1557) that Nicias was put to death, and his skin used to 

 cover the seat of a chair. 



Historians (as was hinted above) are not agreed as to tiie traitor's 

 name. He is called Nicias by Claudius Quadrigarius (ap. Aul. Gell., 

 lib. iii., cap. 8) and Zouaras (torn, ii, .p. 48, 1. 45), and Cineas by 

 .Elian (' Var. Hist.,' lib. xii., cap. 33). But Ammiauus Marcellfuus 

 (lib. xxx., cap. L), Valerius Antias (ap. Aul. Gell., lib. iii., cap. 8), and 

 Valerius Maximus (lib. vi., cap. 5, 1) tell the story of one of thu 

 friends of I'yrrhus, whom the first-named author calls Demochares, 

 and the two others Timochares. 



NICl'AS (NIK(OJ) of Athens, the son of Nicomedes, and the pupil 

 of Autidotus, was one of the most celebrated painters of antiquity. 

 He was, though probably younger, contemporary with Apelles. His 

 particular excellence was iu the general effect of the picture : in ele- 

 gant design, in beautiful colour, and in effective chiaroscuro; in fact iu 

 the characteristic qualities of the Bolognese school subsequent to the 

 Caracci. He also excelled iu painting females ; but this would bo 

 the necessary result of his mastery over the instrumental and technical 

 parts of art. 



It is remarkable, that though Athens was so long the principal seat 

 of the arts among the Greeks, about two centuries, Nicias and Apollo- 

 dorus are the only two Greek painters of the greatest fame who were 

 natives of Athena. Yet the case is very similar with modern liome; 

 of all the great painters of that central city of art, two only were 

 natives Giulio Pippi, called Komano, and Carlo Maratti. 



The most celebrated work of Nicias was the NCKI/ICC, or the region 

 of the shades, of Homer (' Necromantia Homeri ') ; from the passage 

 of the Odyssey where Ulysses invokes the shades of the dead. Nicias, 

 says Plutarch, refused to sell this picture to Ptolemxus I., of Egypt, 

 who offered him sixty talents for it ; he presented it to his native 

 city, Athens. If Plutarch speaks here of the Attic talent, the price 

 offered was enormous, though not unprecedented in ancient times 

 nearly 15,000i. according to the received computation of Attic money; 

 but if the Egyptian talent is signified, which is however unlikely, the 

 amount would be diminished to nearly one-fourth. 



Nicias must have been old when Ptolemy was king of Egypt ; and 

 from his refusal of this offer, probably very rich also, as Pliny saya he 

 was. Ptolemy aacended the throne of Egypt in 306 B.C., and Nicias, 

 about half a century earlier, was employed by Praxiteles to colour 

 some of his statues. Pliny intimates a- doubt whether the same artist 

 in these two cases is alluded to ; and Sillig, in hia ' Catalogus Arti- 

 ficum,' has concluded that they cannot be the same. Only one Nicias, 

 however, is known and spoken of by ancient authors ; and the only 

 reason for doubting the identity of these two is founded on Pliny's 

 method of assigning their dates to artists and their scholars, mention - 

 iug only a single year or olympiad for each, which, vaguely expressed 

 as it always is, need not give us the exact time of an artist within 

 hilt' a century. If we consider such a given date as the commencement 

 of his career, we make him probably contemporary with a generation 

 of artists who succeeded him; and if as the end of hia career, as 

 probably with one which preceded Lim ; but if we presume such date 

 to be the middle of his career, he may still have been born half a 

 century before it, and may have painted pictures a quarter of a century 

 after it. Thus if we suppose Nicias, when he refused to sell his 

 picture to Ptolemy, to have been about seventy years of age, and he 

 was doubtless old, with such a reputation and such independence, he 

 may very easily have many years before paiuted the statues of Praxi- 



