The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives (Classics) by Plutarch

Author:Plutarch
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1973-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

7

NICIAS

[c. 470 – 413 B.C.]

THERE is a true parallel, I believe, between the lives of Nicias and Crassus,1 and between the disasters of the Sicilian and the Parthian expeditions. However, the first is a subject which Thucydides has already handled incomparably, surpassing even his own high standards, not only in the pathos but in the brilliance and variety of his narrative. So I must appeal to the reader not to think me as vain as Timaecus,2 who flattered himself that he could outdo Thucydides in skill and show up Philistus as a thoroughly uninspired and amateurish writer. Under this fond illusion he launches confidently into the descriptions of battles by land and sea and the set speeches in which both these historians have already shown their genius. In practice Timaeus does not even come as near their level as

One of the infantry

Footslogging beside a Lydian chariot,

to quote Pindar’s phrase: instead he shows himself to be the very embodiment of the immature yet pedantic writer:

Dull-witted, stuffed with Sicilian lard for brains,

as Diphilus puts it. He often sinks to the level of Xenarchus, as for example when he gives his opinion that it was a bad omen for the Athenians that Nicias, whose name was derived from victory, began by refusing command of the expedition; or that the mutilation of the Hermae was a divine warning that the Athenians would suffer their greatest reverses during the war at the hands of Hermocrates1 the son of Hermon; or again that it was fitting that Heracles should take the side of the Syracusans for the sake of their goddess Kore who had delivered up Cerberus to him, and should be angry with the Athenians because they were helping the Segestans, a people descended from the Trojans, whose city he had destroyed in revenge for the wrongs done him by Laomedon.

In Timaeus’s case we may put down his performance to the same sense of fitness which led him to correct the language of philistus and find fault with Plato and Aristotle. My own view is that this kind of captious rivalry with other authors in matters of diction is the mark of a petty and donnish mind, and when it is applied to an inimitable masterpiece, such absurdity can go no further. There can be no question, of course, of passing over those of Nicias’s actions which Thucydides and Philistus have recorded, especially since they throw so much light upon his character and disposition, which were so often obscured by his great misfortunes, but here I have only touched briefly on the essentials to avoid the charge of negligence. Certain facts, however, which have eluded most writers altogether, or have been mentioned only haphazardly by others, or are recorded only in decrees or in ancient votive inscriptions, I have tried to collect with care. In doing this my object is not to accumulate useless detail, but to hand down whatever may serve to make my subject’s character and temperament better understood.

2. I may begin by

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