II. So much for their riches. Now in their political life, Nikias
never did anything bold, daring or unjust, for he was outwitted by
Alkibiades, and always stood in fear of the popular assembly. Crassus,
on the other hand, is accused of great inconsistency, in lightly
changing from one party to another, and he himself never denied that
he once obtained the consulship by hiring men to assassinate Cato and
Domitius. And in the assembly held for the dividing for the provinces,
many were wounded and four men slain in the Forum, while Crassus
himself (which I have forgotten to mention in his Life) struck one
Lucius Annalius, a speaker on the other side, so violent a blow with
his fist that his face was covered with blood. But though Crassus was
overbearing and tyrannical in his public life, yet we cannot deny that
the shrinking timidity and cowardice of Nikias deserve equally severe
censure; and it must be remembered that when Crassus was carrying
matters with so high a hand, it was no Kleon or Hyperbolus that he had
for an antagonist, but the great Julius Cæsar himself, and Pompeius
who had triumphed three several times, and that he gave way to neither
of them, but became their equal in power, and even excelled Pompeius
in dignity by obtaining the office of censor. A great politician
should not try to avoid unpopularity, but to gain such power and
reputation as will enable him to rise above it.

Yet if it were true that Nikias preferred quiet and security to
anything else, and that he stood in fear of Alkibiades in the
assembly, of the Spartans at Pylus, and of Perdikkas in Thrace, he had
every opportunity to repose himself in Athens and to "weave the
garland of a peaceful life," as some philosopher calls it. He had
indeed a true and divine love of peace, and his attempt to bring the
Peloponnesian war to an end, was an act of real Hellenic patriotism.