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Updated: August 19, 2024
Many months elapsed before Gylippus was able to embark for Sicily, and meanwhile important events had been occurring at the seat of war. We return, therefore, to the head-quarters of Nicias, which had once more been removed from Naxos to Catana. Mention has already been made of the island of Ortygia, the site of the original colony, connected with the mainland of Sicily by a bridge or causeway.
Nicias was arrived at a mature age, and was esteemed their first general. Phaeax was but a rising statesman like Alcibiades; he was descended from noble ancestors, but was his inferior, as in many other things, so, principally, in eloquence. He possessed rather the art of persuading in private conversation than of debate before the people, and was, as Eupolis said of him,
And a general assembly of the people of Syracuse and their confederates sitting, Eurycles, the popular leader, moved, first, that the day on which they took Nicias should from thenceforward be kept holiday by sacrificing and forbearing all manner of work, and from the river be called the Asinarian Feast. This was the twenty-sixth day of the month Carneus, the Athenian Metagitnion.
Meanwhile Nicias sailed straight from Hyccara along the coast and went to Egesta and, after transacting his other business and receiving thirty talents, rejoined the forces.
The Scythian police who kept order in the Pnyx could procure him no audience. And when Nicias saw that he could not prevent the enterprise, he placed his services at Alcibiades' disposal, and began to equip the fleet. Aspasia was now the widow of Pericles, and had mourned him for a long time. The "Hemicyklion" was no more, but her few remaining friends visited her from time to time.
Demosthenes was quick to realise that the whole situation was hopeless; but Nicias lacked nerve to accept the responsibility of retiring, and also had some idea that affairs within Syracuse were favourable. His obstinacy gave Demosthenes and his colleague Eurymedon the impression that he was guided by secret information.
The golden city joyfully welcomed her, and loaded her with fresh riches; when she appeared in the games it was a triumph. Countless admirers and lovers came to her. She received them with indifference, for she at last despaired of meeting another Lollius. Amongst many others, she met the philosopher Nicias, who desired to possess her, although he professed to have no desires.
Encouraged by the shouts of the multitude, who were crying to Cleon, "Why don't you go and do it?" he rose from his place, and proposed that the tanner should be sent in charge of an expedition to take the men at Sphacteria. At first Cleon agreed to go, thinking that Nicias was jesting; but when he saw that the proposal was made seriously, he began to draw back.
The gardener, already believing that the little Eros was saved, smiled on it as though it had been a child, when Paphnutius, snatching the god from the arms which held it, threw it into the flames, crying "It is enough that Nicias has touched it to make it replete with every sort of poison!"
The friendship which Socrates felt for him has much contributed to his fame; and though we have no account from any writer concerning the mother of Nicias or Demosthenes, of Lamachus or Phormion, of Thrasybulus or Theramenes, notwithstanding these were all illustrious men of the same period, yet we know even the nurse of Alcibiades, that her country was Lacedaemon, and her name Amycla; and that Zopyrus was his teacher and attendant; the one being recorded by Antisthenes, and the other by Plato.
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