 Volume 3 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Fabius Maximus, Part II. After this he was summoned to Rome by the priests to assist in sundry sacrifices and put his forces in charge of Minicius, who was not to give battle nor engage the enemy in any way. Such were not only the commands of Fabius as dictator, but also his reiterated counsels and requests. To all these Minicius gave little heed, and straightway began to threaten the enemy. One day he noticed that Hannibal had sent the larger part of his army off to forage, whereupon he attacked the residue, drove them headlong inside their trenches, slew many of them, and inspired them all with the fear of being held in siege by him. When Hannibal's forces were reunited in their camp, Minicius affected a safe retreat, thereby filling himself with measureless boastfulness and his soldiery with boldness. An exaggerated version of the affair speedily made its way to Rome, and Fabius, when he heard it, said he was more afraid of the success of Minicius than he would be of his failure. But the people were exalted in spirit and joyfully ran to a meeting in the forum. Their Matilius, their tribune, mounted the rostra and haranged them, extolling Minicius, but denouncing Fabius not as a weakling merely, nor yet as a coward, but actually as a traitor. He also included in his accusations the ablest and foremost men of the state besides. They had brought on the war at the outset, he said, in order to crush the people, and had it once flung the city into the hands of a man with soul and absolute authority, that he might, by his dilatory work, give Hannibal an assured position and time to reinforce himself with another army from Libya, on the plea that he had Italy in his power. Then Fabius came forward to speak, but wasted no time on a defensive himself against the tribune. He simply said that the sacrifices and sacred rites must be performed as quickly as possible, so that he might proceed to the army and punish Minicius for engaging the enemy contrary to his orders. Thereupon a great commotion spread swiftly through the people. They realized the peril that threatened Minicius. For the dictator has the power to imprison and put to death without trial, and they thought that the wrath of Fabius, provoked in a man of his great gentleness, would be severe and implacable. Wherefore they were all terrified and held their peace, excepting only Matilius. He enjoyed immunity of person as a tribune of the people, for this is the only majesty which is not robbed of its power by the election of a dictator. It abides when the rest are abolished, and vehemently charged and prayed the people not to abandon Minicius, nor permit him to suffer the fate which Manlius Torcatus inflicted upon his son, whom he beheaded although crowned with laurel for the greatest prowess, but to strip Fabius of his tyrant's power and entrust the state to one who was able and willing to save it. The rabble were moved by such utterances. They did not dare to force Fabius to resign his sovereignty, unpopular as he was, but they voted that Minicius should have an equal share in the command, and should conduct the war with the same powers as the dictator, a thing which had not happened before in Rome. A little while afterwards it is true it happened again, namely, after the disaster at Cannae. At that time Marcus Junius the dictator was in the field, and at home it became necessary that the senate should be filled up, since many senators had perished in the battle. They therefore elected Fabius Butus a second dictator. But he, after acting in that capacity and choosing the men to fill up the senate, at once dismissed his lictors, eluded his escort, plunged into the crowd, and straightway went up and down the forum arranging some business matter of his own, and engaging in affairs like a private citizen. Now that they had invested Minicius with the same powers as the dictator, the people supposed that the latter would feel shorn of strength and altogether humble. But they did not estimate the man aright. For he did not regard their mistake as his own calamity, but was like Diogenes the wise man, who, when some one said to him, These folk are ridiculing you, said, But I am not ridiculed. He held that only those are ridiculed who are confounded by such treatment and yield their ground. So Fabius endured the situation calmly and easily, so far as it affected himself, thereby confirming the axiom of philosophy that a sincerely good man can neither be insulted nor dishonored. But because it affected the state, he was distressed by the folly of the multitude. They had given opportunities to a man with a diseased military ambition, and fearful lest this man, utterly crazed by his empty glory and prestige, should bring about some great disaster before he could be checked. He set out in all secrecy from the city. When he reached the camp, he found that Menicius was no longer to be endured. He was harsh in his manner, puffed up with conceit, and demanded the sole command in his due turn. This Fabius would not grant, feeling that the sole command of a part of the army was better than the command of the whole in his turn. The first and fourth legions he therefore took to himself, and gave the second and third to Menicius, the allied forces also being equally divided between them. When Menicius put on lofty heirs and exalted because the majesty of the highest and greatest office in the state had been lowered and insulted on his account, Fabius reminded him that his contention was not with Fabius, but rather, were he wise with Hannibal. If, however, he was bent on rivalry with his colleague in office, he must see to it that the man who had been triumphantly honoured by his fellow-citizens should not be proved more careless of their salvation and safety than the man who had been ingloriously outraged by them. But Menicius regarded all this as an old man's dissimulation, and taking the forces allotted to him went into camp apart by himself, while Hannibal, not unaware of what was going on, kept a watchful eye on everything. Now there was a hill between him and the Romans which could be occupied with no difficulty, and which, if occupied, would be a strong sight for a camp and in every way sufficient. The plain roundabout, when viewed from a distance, was perfectly smooth and level, but really had sundry small ditches and other hollow places in it. For this reason, though it would have been very easy for him to get possession of the hill by stealth, Hannibal had not cared to do so, but had left it standing between the two armies in the hope that it might bring on a battle. But when he saw Menicius separated from Fabius, in the night he scattered bodies of his soldiers among the ditches and hollows, and at break of day, with no attempt at concealment, sent a few to occupy the hill, that he might seduce Menicius into an engagement for it. And this actually came to pass. First Menicius sent out his light-armed troops, then his horsemen, and finally, when he saw Hannibal coming to the support of his troops on the hill, he descended into the plain with all his forces in battle array. In a fierce battle he sustained the discharge of missiles from the hill, coming to close quarters with the enemy there and holding his advantage, until Hannibal, seeing that his enemy was happily deceived and was opposing the rear of his line of battle to the troops who had been placed in ambush, raised the signal. At this his men rose up on all sides, attacked with loud cries, and slew their foes who were in the rear ranks. Then indescribable confusion and fright took possession of the Romans. Menicius himself felt all his courage shattered and looked anxiously now to one and now to another of his commanders, no one of whom dared to hold his ground. Nay all urged their men to flight, and a fatal flight, too. For the Numidians, now masters of the situation, galloped round the plain and slew them as they scattered themselves about. Now that the Romans were in such an evil pass, Fabius was not unaware of their peril. He had anticipated the result, as it would seem, and had his forces drawn up under arms, wisely learning the progress of events not from messengers but by his own observations in front of his camp. Accordingly, when he saw the army of Menicius surrounded and confounded, and when their cries, as they fell upon his ears, showed him that they no longer stood their ground, but were already panic-stricken and routed, he smote his thigh, and with the deep groan said to the bystanders, Hercules, how much sooner than I expected, but later than his own rash eagerness demanded, has Menicius destroyed himself. Then ordering the standards to be swiftly advanced and the army to follow, he called out with a loud voice, Now, my soldiers, let every man be mindful of Marcus Menicius and press on to his aid, for he is a brilliant man and a lover of his country. And if his ardent desire to drive away the enemy has led him into any error, we will charge him with it later. Well then, as soon as he appeared upon the scene, he routed and dispersed the Numedians who were galloping about in the plain. Then he made against those who were attacking the rear of the Romans under Menicius, and slew those whom he encountered. But the rest of them, ere they were cut off and surrounded in their own turn, as the Romans had been by them, gave way and fled. Then Hannibal, seeing the turn affairs had taken, and Fabius, with a vigor beyond his years, plowing his way through the combatants up to Menicius on the hill, put an end to the battle, signaled a retreat, and led his Carthaginians back to their camp, the Romans also being glad of a respite. It is said that, as Hannibal withdrew, he addressed to his friends some such pleasantry as this about Fabius. Barely did I not often prophesy to you that the cloud, which we saw hovering above the heights, would one day burst upon us in a drenching and furious storm. After the battle Fabius dispoiled all of the enemy whom he had slain, and withdrew to his camp, without indulging in a single haughty or invidious word about his colleague. In Menicius, assembling his own army, said to them, fellow soldiers, to avoid all mistakes in the conduct of great enterprises is beyond man's powers, but when a mistake has once been made, to use his reverses as lessons for the future is the part of a brave and sensible man. I therefore confess, that while I have some slight cause of complaint against fortune, I have larger grounds for praising her. For what I could not learn in all the time that preceded it, I have been taught in the brief space of a single day, and I now perceive that I am not able to command others myself, but need to be under the command of another, and that I have all the while been ambitious to prevail over men of whom to be outdone were better. Now in all other matters the dictator is your leader, but in the rendering of thanks to him I myself will take the lead, and will show myself first in following his advice and doing his bidding. After these words he ordered the eagles to be raised and all to follow them, and led the way to the camp of Fabius. When he had entered this he proceeded to the general's tent, while all were lost in wonder. When Fabius came forth, Menicius had the standards planted in front of him, and addressed him with a loud voice as father, while his soldiers greeted the soldiers of Fabius as patrons, the name by which freedmen addressed those who have set them free. When quiet prevailed, Menicius said, Dictator, you have on this day won two victories, one over Hannibal through your valor, and one over your colleague through your wisdom and kindness. By the first you saved our lives, and by the second you taught us a great lesson, banquished as we were by our enemy to our shame, and by you to our honor and safety. I call you by the excellent name of father, because there is no more honorable name which I can use, and yet a father's kindness is not so great as this kindness bestowed by you. My father did but beget me, while to you I owe not only my own salvation, but also that of all these men of mine. No saying he embraced Fabius and kissed him, and the soldiers on both sides in like manner embraced and kissed each other, so that the camp was filled with joy and tears of rejoicing. After this Fabius laid down his office, and consuls were again appointed. The first of these maintained the style of warfare which Fabius had ordained. They avoided a pitched battle with Hannibal, but gave aid and succor to their allies, and prevented their falling away. But when Tarentius Varro was elevated to the consulship, a man whose birth was obscure, and whose life was conspicuous for servile flattery of the people and for rashness, it was clear that in his inexperience and temerity he would stake the entire issue upon the hazard of a single throw. For he used to shout in the assemblies that the war would continue as long as the city employed men like Fabius as its generals, but that he himself would conquer the enemy the very day he saw them. And not only did he make such speeches, but he also assembled and enrolled a larger force than the Romans had ever employed against any enemy. Eighty-eight thousand men were arrayed for battle, to the great terror of Fabius and all sensible Romans. For they thought their city could not recover if she lost so many men in the prime of life. Now Paulus Amilius was the colleague of Tarentius, a man of experience in many wars, but not acceptable to the people, and crushed in spirit by a fine which they had imposed upon him. Therefore Fabius tried to rouse and encourage him to restrain the madness of his colleague, showing him that he must struggle to save his country, not so much from Hannibal as from Tarentius. The latter, he said, was eager to fight because he did not see where his strength lay, the former because he saw his own weakness. But, said he, it is to me, O Paulus, that more credence should be given in regard to Hannibal's affairs, and I solemnly assure you that, if no one shall give him battle this year, the man will remain in Italy only to perish, or will leave it in flight, since even now, when he is thought to be victorious and to be master of the country, not one of his enemies has come over to his side, and not even so much as the third part of the force which he brought from home is still left. To this Paulus is said to have answered, if I consult my own interest, O Fabius, it is better for me to encounter the spears of the enemy than to face again the votes of my fellow citizens. But if the State is in such a past, I will try to be a good general in your opinion, rather than in that of all the rest who so forcibly oppose you. With this determination Paulus went forth to the war. But Tarentius, insisting on his right to command a day in turn, and then encamping over against Hannibal by the river Aphidus and the town called Cannae, at break of day put on the signal for a battle, a scarlet tunic displayed above the General's tent. Like this even the Carthaginians were confounded at first, seeing the boldness of the Roman general and the number of his army, which was more than double their own. But Hannibal ordered his forces to arm for battle, while he himself, with a few companions, rode to the top of a gently sloping ridge, from which he watched his enemies as they formed in battle array. When one of his companions, named Gisco, a man of his own rank, remarked that the number of the enemy amazed him, Hannibal put on a serious look and said, Gisco, another thing has escaped your notice which is more amazing still. And when Gisco asked what it was, it is the fact, said he, that in all this multitude there is no one who has called Gisco. The jest took them all by surprise and set them laughing, and as they made their way down from the ridge they reported the pleasantry to all who met them, so that great numbers were laughing heartily, and Hannibal's escort could not even recover themselves. The sight of this infused courage into the Carthaginians. They reasoned that their general must have a mighty contempt for the enemy if he laughed and gested so in the presence of danger. In the battle Hannibal practiced a double strategy. In the first place he took advantage of the ground to put the wind at his back. This wind came down like a fiery hurricane and raised a huge cloud of dust from the exposed and sandy plains and drove it over the Carthaginian lines hard into the face of the Romans, who turned away to avoid it and so fell into confusion. In the second place he formed his troops as follows. The sturdiest and most warlike part of his force he stationed on either side of the center and manned the center itself with his poorest soldiers, intending to use this as a wedge jutting out far in advance of the rest of his line. But orders were given to the picked troops when the Romans should have cut the troops in the center to pieces and pursued them hotly as they retreated and formed a deep hollow, and so got within their enemy's line of battle, then to turn sharply from either side, smite them on the flanks, and envelop them by closing in upon their rear. And it was this which seems to have produced the greatest slaughter. For the center gave way and was followed by the Romans in pursuit. Hannibal's line of battle thus changing its shape into that of a crescent, and the commanders of the picked troops on his wings wheeled them swiftly to the left and right, and fell upon the exposed sides of their enemy, all of whom, except those who retired before they were surrounded, were then overwhelmed and destroyed. It is said, further, that a strange calamity befell the Roman cavalry also. The horse of Paulus, as it appears, was wounded and threw his rider off, and one after another of his attendance dismounted and sought to defend the consul on foot. When the horsemen saw this, supposing that a general order had been given, they all dismounted and engaged the enemy on foot. On seeing this, Hannibal said, this is more to my wish than if they had been handed over to me in fetters. But such particulars as these may be found in the detailed history of the war. As for the consuls, Varro galloped off with a few followers to the city of Venusia, but Paulus, caught in the deep surges of that panicked flight, and covered with many missiles which hung in his wounds, weighed down in body and spirit by so vast a misfortune, sat down, leaning against a stone and waiting for an enemy to dispatch him. His head and face were so profusely smeared with blood that few could recognize him, even his friends and retainers passed him by without knowing him. Only Cornelius Lentulus, a man of the patrician order, saw who he was, and, leaping from his horse, led him to Paulus and besought the consul to take him and save himself for the sake of his fellow citizens, who now, more than ever, needed a brave commander. But Paulus rejected his prayer, and forced the youth, all tears, to mount his horse again, and then rose up and clasped his hand and said, Lentulus, tell Fabius Maximus, and be thyself a witness to what thou tellest, that Paulus Amilius was true to his precepts up to the end, and broke not one of the agreements made with him, but was vanquished first by Varro and then by Hannibal. With such injunctions he sent Lentulus away, then threw himself in the midst of the slaughter and perished. And it is said that fifty thousand Romans fell in that battle, that four thousand were taken alive, and that after the battle there were captured in both consular camps no less than ten thousand. End of Fabius Maximus Part II In view of such a complete success, Hannibal's friends urged him to follow up his good fortune and dash into their city on the heels of the flying enemy, assuring him, in that case, that on the fifth day after his victory he would sup on the capital. It is not easy to say what consideration turned him from this course. Nay, it would rather seem that his evil genius, or some divinity, interposed to inspire him with the hesitation and timidity which he now showed. Wherefore, as they say, Barca, the Carthaginian, said to him angrily, Thou canst win a victory, but thy victory thou canst not use. And yet his victory brought a great change in his circumstances. Before the battle he had not a city, not a trading place, not a seaport in Italy, and could with difficulty barely supply his army with provisions by foraging, since he had no secure base of supplies for the war, but wandered hither and thither with his army as if it were a great horde of robbers. After the battle, however, he brought almost all Italy under his sway. Most of its peoples, and the largest of them, too, came over to him of their own accord, and Capua, which is the most considerable city after Rome, attached herself firmly to his cause. Not only then does it work great mischief, as Euripides says, to put friends to the test, but also prudent generals. For that which was called cowardice and sluggishness and phabius before the battle, immediately after the battle was thought to be no mere human calculation, nay rather a divine and marvelous intelligence, since it looked so far into the future and foretold a disaster which could hardly be believed by those who experienced it. In him, therefore, Rome at once placed her last hopes. To his wisdom she fled for refuge as to temple and altar, believing that it was first and chiefly due to his prudence that she still remained a city, and was not utterly broken up, as in the troublest times of the Gallic invasion. For he who, in times of apparent security, appeared cautious and irresolute, then, when all were plunged in boundless grief and helpless confusion, was the only man to walk the city with calm step, composed countenance, and gracious address, checking effeminate lamentation, and preventing those from assembling together who were eager to make public their common complaints. He persuaded the Senate to convene, heartened up the magistrates, and was himself the strength and power of every magistracy, since all looked to him for guidance. Accordingly he put guards at the gates in order to keep the frightened throng from abandoning the city, and set limits of time and place to the mourning for the dead, ordering any who wished to indulge in lamentation to do so at home for a period of thirty days. After that, all mourning must cease and the city be purified of such rites. And since the festival of Ceres fell within these days, it was deemed better to remit entirely the sacrifices and the procession, rather than to emphasize the magnitude of their calamity by the small number and the dejection of the participants, where the God's delight is in honors paid them by the fortunate. However, all the rites which the augurs advocated for the propitiation of the gods, or to avert inauspicious omens, were duly performed. And besides, Pictor, a kinsman, aphabious, was sent to consult the oracle at Delphi, and when two of the Vestal Virgins were found to have been corrupted, one of them was buried alive, according to the custom, and the other slew herself. But most of all was the gentle dignity of the city to be admired in this, that when Varro, the consul, came back from his flight, as one would come back from a most ill-starred and disgraceful experience in humility and dejection, the Senate and the whole people met him at the gates with a welcome. The magistrates and the chief men of the city, of whom Fabius was one, praised him, as soon as quiet was restored, because he had not despaired of the city after so great a misfortune, but was at hand to assume the reins of government, and to employ the laws on his fellow citizens in accomplishing the salvation which lay within their power. When they learned that Hannibal, after the battle, had turned aside into the other parts of Italy, they plucked up courage and sent out commanders with armies. The most illustrious of these were Fabius Maximus and Claudius Marcellus, men who were similarly admired for directly opposite characters. The latter, as has been stated in his life, was a man of splendid and impetuous actions, with an arm of ready vigor, and by nature like the men whom Homer is want to call fond of battle and eager for the fray. He therefore conducted his first engagements in the venturesome and reckless style of warfare which met the daring of such a man as Hannibal with an equal daring. Fabius on the contrary clung to his first and famous convictions, and looked to see Hannibal, if only no one fought with him or harassed him, become his own worst enemy, wear himself out in the war and speedily lose his high efficiency, like an athlete whose bodily powers have been overtaxed and exhausted. It was for these reasons that, Posadonius says, the Romans called Fabius their buckler and Marcellus their sword, and that the mingling of the firm steadfastness of the one with the versatility of the other proved the salvation of Rome. By his frequent encounters with Marcellus, whose course was like that of a swiftly flowing river, Hannibal saw his forces shaken and swept away, while by Fabius, whose course was slow, noiseless, and unceasing in its stealthy hostility, they were imperceptibly worn away and consumed. And finally he was brought to such a past that he was worn out with fighting Marcellus and afraid of Fabius when not fighting. For it was with these two men that he fought almost all the time as they held the offices of Prater, Pro-Council, or Council, and each of them was Council five times. However, when Marcellus was serving as Council for the fifth time, Hannibal led him into an ambush and slew him, but he had no success against Fabius, although he frequently brought all sorts of deceitful tests to bear upon him. Once it is true he did deceive the man, and came near giving him a disastrous overthrow. He composed and sent to Fabius letters purporting to come from the chief men of Metapontum, assuring him that their city would be surrendered to him if he should come there, and that those who were contriving the surrender only waited for him to come and show himself in the neighborhood. These letters moved Fabius to action and he proposed to take a part of his force and set out by night. Then he got unfavorable auspices and was turned from his purpose by them, and in a little while it was discovered that the letters which had come to him were cunning forgeries by Hannibal, who had laid an ambush for him near the city. This escape, however, may be laid to the favor of the gods. Fabius thought that the revolts of the cities and the agitations of the allies ought to be restrained and discountenanced rather by mild and gentle measures, without testing every suspicion and showing harshness in every case to the suspected. It is said, for instance, that when he learned about a Marcian soldier, eminent among the allies for valor and high birth, who had been talking with some of the soldiers in the camp about deserting to the enemy, he was not incensed with him, but admitted frankly that he had been unduly neglected. So far he said this was the fault of the commanders, who distributed their honors by favor rather than for valor. But in the future it would be the man's own fault if he did not come to him and tell him when he wanted anything. These words were followed by the gift of a war-horse and by other signal rewards for bravery, and from that time on there was no more faithful and zealous man in the service. Fabius thought it hard that, whereas the trainers of horses and dogs relied upon care and intimacy and feeding rather than on golds and heavy collars for the removal of the animal's obstinacy, anger, and discontent, the commander of men should not base the most of his discipline on kindness and gentleness, but show more harshness and violence in his treatment of them than farmers in their treatment of wild fig trees, wild pear trees, and wild olive trees, which they reclaim and domesticate till they bear luscious olives, pears, and figs. Accordingly, when another soldier, a Locanian, was reported by his officers as frequently quitting his post and roaming away from the camp, Fabius asked them what kind of a man they knew him to be in other respects. Alt has defied that such another soldier could not easily be found, and rehearsed sundry exploits of his wherein he had shown conspicuous bravery. Fabius therefore inquired into the cause of the man's irregularity, and discovered that he was deeply in love with the maid, and risked his life in long journeys from the camp every time he visited her. Accordingly, without the man's knowledge, Fabius sent and arrested the girl and hid her in his own tent. Then he called the Locanian to him privately and said, It is well known that, contrary to Roman custom and law, you often pass the night away from camp. But it is also well known that you have done good service in the past. Your transgressions shall therefore be atoned for by your deeds of valor, but for the future I shall put another person in charge over you. Then to the soldier's amazement he led the girl forth and put her in his hands, saying, This person pledges herself that you will hereafter remain in camp with us, and you will now show plainly whether or not you left us for some other unbased purpose, making this maid and your love for her a mere pretext. Such is the story which is told about this matter. The city of Tarentum, which had been lost to the Romans by treachery, Fabius recovered in the following manner. There was a young man of Tarentum in his army, and he had a sister who was very faithfully and affectionately disposed towards him. With this woman the commander of the forces set by Hannibal to guard the city, a Brutian, was deeply enamored, and the circumstance led her brother to hope that he could accomplish something by means of it. He therefore joined his sister in Tarentum, ostensibly as a deserter from the Romans, though he was really sent into the city by Fabius, who was privy to his scheme. Some days passed, accordingly, during which the Brutian remained at home, since the woman thought that her amore was unknown to her brother. Then her brother had the following words with her. I would have you know that a story was very current out there in the Roman camp that you have interviews with a man high in authority. Who is this man? For if he is, as they say, a man of repute and illustrious for his valor, war, that confounder of all things, makes very little account of race. Nothing is disgraceful if it is done under compulsion. Nay, we may count it rare good fortune, at a time when right is weak, to find might very gentle with us. Thereupon the woman sent for her Brutian and made her brother acquainted with him. The barbarian's confidence was soon gained, since the brother fostered his passion and plainly induced the sister to be more complacent and submissive to him than before, so that it was not difficult, the man being a lover and a mercenary as well, to change his allegiance, in anticipation of the large gifts which it was promised that he should receive from Fabius. This is the way the story is usually told. But some writers say that the woman by whom the Brutian was won over was not a Tarantine, but a Brutian, and a Concubana Fabius, and that when she learned that the commander of the Brutian Garrison was a fellow countryman and an acquaintance of hers, she told Fabius, held a conference with a man beneath the walls of the city, and won him completely over. While this plot was under way, Fabius schemed to draw Hannibal away from the neighborhood, and therefore gave orders to the Garrison at Regium to overrun Brutium and take Colonia by storm. This Garrison numbered eight thousand, most of them deserters, and the refuse of the soldiers sent home from Sicily and disgraced by Marcellus, men whose loss would least afflict an injured Rome. Fabius expected that by casting these forces, like a bait, in front of Hannibal, he would draw him away from Tarantum. And this was what actually happened. For Hannibal immediately swept thither in pursuit with his army. But five days after Fabius had laid siege to Tarantum, the youth who, with his sister, had come to an understanding with the Brutian commander in the city, came to him by night. He had seen and knew precisely the spot at which the Brutian was watching with the purpose of handing the city over to its assailants. Fabius, however, would not suffer his enterprise to depend wholly upon the betrayal of the city. While, therefore, he himself led a detachment quietly to the appointed spot, the rest of his army attacked the walls by land and sea, with great shouting and tumult, until most of the Tarantines had run to the aid of those who were defending them. Then the Brutian gave Fabius the signal, and he scaled the walls and got the mastery of the city. At this point, however, Fabius seems to have been overcome by his ambition, for he ordered his men to put the Brutians, first of all, to the sword, that his possession of the city might not be known to be due to treachery. He not only failed to prevent this knowledge, but also incurred the reproach of perfidity and cruelty. Many of the Tarantines also were slain, thirty thousand of them were sold into slavery, their city was plundered by the Roman army, and three thousand talents were thereby brought into the public treachery. While everything else was carried off as plunder, it has said that the accountant asked Fabius what his orders were concerning the gods, for so he called their pictures and statues, and that Fabius answered, Let us leave their angered gods for the Tarantines. However, he removed the colossal statue of Heracles from Tarantum and set it up on the capital, and near it an equestrian statue of himself in bronze. He thus appeared far more eccentric in these matters than Marcellus. Nay, rather, the mild and humane conduct of Marcellus was thus made to seem altogether admirable by contrast, as it has been written in his life. It is said that Hannibal had got within five miles of Tarantum when it fell, and that openly, he remarked, it appears then that the Romans have another Hannibal, for we have lost Tarantum even as we took it. But that in private he was then for the first time led to confess to his friends that he had long seen the difficulty, and now saw the impossibility of their mastering Italy with their present forces. For this success Fabius celebrated a second triumph more splendid than his first, since he was contending with Hannibal like a clever athlete, and easily baffling all his undertakings, now that his hugs and grips no longer had their old time vigor. For his forces were partly innervated by luxury and wealth, and partly blunted, as it were, and worn out by their unermenting struggles. Now there was a certain Marcus Livius, who commanded the garrison of Tarantum when Hannibal got the city to revolt. He occupied the citadel, however, and was not dislodged from this position, but held it until the Romans again got the upper hand of the Tarantines. This man was vexed by the honors paid to Fabius, and once, carried away by his jealousy and ambition, said to the sonnet that it was not Fabius but himself who should be credited with the capture of Tarantum. At this Fabius laughed, and said, You are right! Had you not lost the city, I had not taken it. Among the other marks of high favor which the Romans conferred upon Fabius they made his son Fabius counsel. When the son had entered upon his office and was arranging some matter pertaining to the war, his father, either by reason of his age and weakness, or because he was putting his son to the test, mounted his horse and rode towards him through the throng of bystanders. The young man caught sight of his father at a distance and would not suffer what he did, but sent a lictor with orders for him to dismount and come to the council on foot if he had any need of his offices. All the rest were offended at this command, and implied by their silent gaze at Fabius that this treatment of him was unworthy of his high position. But Fabius himself sprang quickly from his horse, almost ran to his son, and embraced him affectionately. My son, he said, You are right in thought and act. You understand what a people has made you its officer, and what a high office you have received from them. It was in this spirit that our fathers and we ourselves have exalted Rome, a spirit which makes parents and children ever secondary to our country's good. And of a truth it is reported of the great grandfather of our Fabius, that though he had the greatest reputation and influence in Rome, and though he had himself been consul five times and had celebrated the most splendid triumphs for the greatest wars, he nevertheless, when his son was consul, went forth to war with him as his lieutenant, and in the triumph that followed, while the son entered the city on a four-horse chariot, the father followed on horseback with the rest of the train, exalting in the fact that, though he was master of his son and was the greatest of the citizens both in name and in fact, he yet put himself beneath the law and its official. However, this was not the only admirable thing about him. But the son of our Fabius, as it happened, died, and this affliction he bore with equanimity, like a wise man and a good father. The funeral oration, which is pronounced at the upsequies of illustrious men by some kinsmen, he delivered himself from his place in the Forum, and then wrote out the speech and published it. But now Cornelius Scipio was sent into Spain, where he not only conquered the Carthaginians in many battles and drove them out of the country, but also won over a multitude of nations, and took great cities with splendid spoils, so that on his return to Rome he enjoyed an incomparable favour and fame and was made consul. Perceiving that the people demanded and expected a great achievement from him, he regarded the hand-to-hand struggle with Hannibal there in Italy as very antiquated and senile policy, and purposed to fill Libya at once, and the territory of Carthage itself, with Roman arms and soldiery, and ravaged them, and thus to transfer the war from Italy thither. To this policy he urged the people with all his soul. But just at this point Fabius tried to fill the city with all sorts of fear. They were hurrying, he said, under the guidance of a foolhardy young man into the remotest and greatest peril, and he spared neither word nor deed which he thought might defer the citizens from this course. He brought the senate over to his views, but the people thought that he attacked Scipio through jealousy of his success, and that he was afraid lest, if Scipio performed some great and glorious exploit, and either put an end to the war entirely or removed it out of Italy, his own failure to end the war after all these years would be attributed to Sloth and cowardice. Now it is likely that Fabius began this opposition out of his great caution and prudence, in fear of the danger which was great, but that he grew more violent and went to greater lengths in his opposition out of ambition and rivalry, in an attempt to check the rising influence of Scipio. For he even tried to persuade Crassus, Scipio's colleague in the consulship, not to surrender the command of the army and not to yield to Scipio, but to proceed in person against Carthage if that policy were adopted. He also prevented the granting of monies for the war. As for monies, since he was obliged to provide them for himself, Scipio collected them on his private account from the cities of Etruria, which were devotedly attached to him. And as for Crassus, it was partly his nature, which was not contentious, but gentle, that kept him at home, and partly also a religious custom, for he was Pontifex Maximus, or high-priest. Accordingly Fabius took another way to oppose Scipio, and tried to hinder and restrain the young men who were eager to serve under him, crying out in sessions of the Senate and the Assembly that it was not Scipio himself only who was running away from Hannibal, but that he was sailing off from Italy with her reserve forces, playing upon the hopes of her young men, and persuading them to abandon their parents, their wives, and their city, although the enemy still sat at her gates, masterful and undefeated. And verily he frightened the Romans with these speeches, and they decreed that Scipio should employ only the forces which were then in Sicily, and take with him only three hundred of the men who had been with him in Spain, men who had served him faithfully. In this course, at any rate, Fabius seems to have been influenced by his own cautious temper. But as soon as Scipio had crossed into Africa, tidings were brought to home of wonderful achievements and of exploits transcendent in magnitude and splendor. These reports were confirmed by abundant spoils which followed them. The King of Numidia was taken captive. Two of the enemy's camps were at once destroyed by fire, and in them a great number of men, arms, and horses. Embassies were sent from Carthage to Hannibal urgently calling upon him to give up his fruitless hopes in Italy, and come to the aid of his native city. And when every tongue in Rome was dwelling on the theme of Scipio's successes, then Fabius demanded that his successor should be sent out to replace him. He gave no other reason, but urged the well-remembered maxim that it was dangerous to entrust such vast interest to the fortune of a single man, since it was difficult for the same man to have good fortune always. By this course he gave offence now to many, who thought him a captious and malicious man, or one whose old age had robbed him utterly of courage and confidence, so that he was immoderately in awe of Hannibal. For not even after Hannibal and his army had sailed away from Italy would he suffer the rejoicing and fresh courage of the citizens to be undisturbed and assured. But then even more than ever he insisted that the city was running into extremist peril, and that her affairs were in a dangerous plight. For Hannibal, he said, would fall upon them with all the greater effect in Africa at the gates of Carthage, and Scipio would be confronted with an army yet warm with the blood of many imperators, dictators, and consuls. Consequently the city was once more confounded by these speeches, and although the war had been removed to Africa, they thought its terrors were nearer Rome. But shortly afterwards Scipio utterly defeated Hannibal himself in battle, humbled and trod underfoot the pride of fallen Carthage, restored to his fellow citizens a joy that surpassed all their hopes, and in very truth, righted once more the ship of their supremacy, which had been shaken in heavy surge. Fabius Maximus, however, did not live to see the end of the war, nor did he even hear of Hannibal's defeat, nor behold the great and assured prosperity of the country. But about the time when Hannibal set sail from Italy he fell sick and died. Epaminondas, it is true, was buried by the Thebans at the public cost, because of the poverty in which he died, for it is said that nothing was found in his house after his death except a piece of iron money. Fabius, however, was not buried by the Romans at the public charge, but each private citizen contributed the smallest coin in his possession, not because his poverty called for their aid, but because the people felt that it was burying a father whose death thus received honor and regard befitting his life. End of Fabius Maximus. Part 8 of Volume 3 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. Volume 3 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Division of Pericles with Fabius Maximus. Such is the story of these men's lives, and since both left behind the many examples of civil as well as military excellence, let us consider in the first place the matter of their military achievements. Pericles was at the head of his people when its prosperity was greatest, when its own strength was at the full, and its imperial power culminating. It was the general good fortune and vigor that kept him free from stumbling and falling, whereas the achievements of Fabius, who took charge of his city at times of the greatest disgrace and misfortune, did not maintain her safely in her prosperity, but rather lifted her out of disaster into a better state. And besides, the victories of Simon and the trophies of Mironides and Leocrates, and the many great successes of Tomates, made it the privilege of Pericles, during his administration, to enrich the city with holidays and public festivals, rather than to enlarge and protect her dominion by war. Fabius, on the contrary, whose eyes beheld many disgraceful defeats, many cruel deaths of imperators and generals, lakes and plains and forests filled with slain armies, and rivers flowing with blood and slaughter to the sea, put helping and supporting hands to his city, and by his firm and independent course prevented her from utter exhaustion through the disasters brought upon her by others. And yet it would appear to be not so difficult a task to manage a city when she is humbled by adversity and rendered obedient to wisdom by necessity, as it is to bridle a people which is exalted by prosperity, and swollen with insolence and boldness, which is precisely the way in which Pericles governed Athens. Still, the magnitude and multitude of evils which afflicted the Romans revealed the steadfast purpose and greatness of the man who was not confounded by them, and would not abandon his own principles of action. Over against the capture of Samos by Pericles it is fair to set the taking of Tarentum by Fabius, and against Uboa, the cities of Campania, Capua itself was reduced by the consuls Fulvius and Appius. In open and regular battle Fabius seems to have won no victory except that for which he celebrated his first triumph, whereas Pericles set up nine trophies for his wars on land and sea. However, no such exploit is recorded of Pericles as that by which Fabius snatched Menaceus from the hands of Hannibal and preserved an entire Roman army. The deed was certainly a noble one, and showed a combination of valor, wisdom, and kindness alike. So on the other hand, no such defeat is recorded of Pericles as that which Fabius suffered when he was outwitted by Hannibal's stratagem of the oxen. He had his enemy imprisoned in the narrow defile which he had entered of his own accord and accidentally, but let him slip away unnoticed in the night, force his way out when day came, take advantage of his adversaries' delays, and so conquer his captor. And if it is the part of a good general not only to improve the present, but also to judge correctly of the future, then Pericles was such a general, for the war which the Athenians were waging came to an end as he had foreknown and foretold, for they undertook too much and lost their empire. But it was contrary to the principles of Fabius that the Romans sent Scipio against Carthage and were completely victorious, not through the favour of fortune, but through the wisdom and valor of the general who utterly conquered their enemies. Therefore the very disasters of his country bear witness to the sagacity of Pericles, while the successes of the Romans proved that Fabius was completely in the wrong. And it is just as great a failing in a general to involve himself in disaster from want of foresight as it is to throw away an opportunity for success from want of confidence. Inexperience it would seem, is to blame in each case, which both engenders rashness in a man and robs a man of courage. So much for their military abilities. As for their statesmanship, the Peloponnesian war was a ground of great complaint against Pericles, for it is said to have been brought on by his contention that no concession should be made to Sparta. I think, however, that not even Fabius Maximus would have made any concessions to Carthage, but would have nobly undergone the peril needful to maintain the Roman supremacy. Nevertheless, the courteous and gentle conduct of Fabius towards Menaceus contrasts forcibly with the factious opposition of Pericles to Simon and Thucydides, who were both good and true men and of the highest birth, and yet were subjected by him to ostracism and banishment. But Pericles had greater influence and power than Fabius. For this reason he did not suffer any other general to bring misfortune upon the city by his evil consuls, except that Ptomides broke away from his guidance, carried through by main force a plan for attacking Bowsha, and met with disaster. But the rest all attached themselves submissively to his opinion, owing to the greatness of his influence. Fabius, on the other hand, though sure and unerring in his own conflict of affairs, seems to have fallen short through his inability to restrain others. Probably the Romans would not have suffered so many disasters if Fabius had been as influential with them as Pericles was at Athens. And further, as regards their freedom from mercenary views, Pericles displayed it by never taking any gifts at all, Fabius by his liberality to the needy, when he ransomed at his own cost his captured soldiers. Albeit the amount of his property was not great, but about six talents. And Pericles, though he had opportunities owing to his authority and influence, to enrich himself from the obsequious allies and kings beyond all possible estimates, nevertheless kept himself preeminently superior to bribes and free from corruption. By the side of the great public works, the temples and the stately edifices, with which Pericles adorned Athens, all Rome's attempts at splendor down to the times of the Caesar's taken together are not worthy to be considered. Nay, the one had a towering preeminence above the other, both in grandeur of design and grandeur of execution, which precludes comparison. And of comparison of Pericles with Fabius Maximus. Part 9 of Volume 3 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Volume 3 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, translated by Bernadotte Peron. Nikeas. Part 1. I think that Nikeas is a suitable parallel to Crassus and the Sicilian to the Parthian disaster. I must therefore at once, and in all modesty, entreat my readers not to imagine for an instant that, in my narration of what Thucydides has inimitably set forth, surpassing even himself in pathos, vividness, and variety, I am so disposed as was Timaeus. He, confidently hoping to excel Thucydides in skill, and make Philistus seem altogether tedious and clumsy, pushes his history along through the conflicts and sea-fights and harangues which those writers had already handled with the greatest success, showing himself in rivalry with him, not even so much as by Lydian Carr a footman slowly plodding, to use Pender's comparison. Nay, rather, a perfect example of senile learning in youthful conceit, and in the words of Dephyllis, obese, stuffed to the full with Sicilian Greece. Indeed, he often lapses unawares into the manner of Zanarchus, as, for instance, when he says he thinks that it was a bad omen for the Athenians that Nikeas, whose name was derived from victory, declined at first to head their expedition, also that, by the mutilation of the Hermae, heaven indicated to them in advance that by the hands of Thermocratus the son of Hermon they were to suffer most of their reverses during the war, and further, that it was fitting that Heracles should aid the Syracusans, for the sake of their goddess Cora, who delivered Cerberus into his hands, but should be angry with the Athenians, because they were trying to succour the Egistaeans, although they were descendants of the Trojans, whose city he had once destroyed because of the wrong Dunhem by Leomedon their king. As for Timaeus, he may possibly have been moved to write thus in the exercise of the same critical taste, which led him to correct the language of Philistus and abuse Plato and Aristotle, but as for me, I feel that jealous rivalry with other writers in matters of diction is altogether undignified and pedantic, and if it be practiced toward what is beyond all imitation utterly silly. At all events, those deeds which Thucydides and Philistus have set forth, since I cannot entirely pass them by, indicating as they do the nature of my hero and the disposition which lay hidden beneath his many great sufferings, I have run over briefly, and with no unnecessary detail, in order to escape the reputation of utter carelessness and sloth, but those details which have escaped most writers, and which others have mentioned casually, or which are found on ancient motive offerings or in public decrees, these I have tried to collect, not massing together useless material of research, but handing on such as furthers the appreciation of character and temperament. Accordingly, I may say of Nicaeus, in the first place, what Aristotle wrote, namely, that the three best citizens of Athens, men of hereditary goodwill and friendship for the people, were Nicaeus the son of Nisoratus, Thucydides the son of Melisius, and Theromenes the son of Hagnon. However, this was true of the last in lesser degree than of the other two, because he has been flouted for inferior parentage as an alien from Seos, and on account of his not being steadfast, but ever trying to court both sides in his political career, was nicknamed Cothernus. Of the other two, Thucydides was the older man, and as head of the aristocratic party, the party of the good and true, often opposed Pericles in his efforts to win the favor of the people. Nicaeus was a younger man. He was held in some repute even while Pericles was still living, so that he was not only associated with him as general, but frequently had independent command himself. After Pericles was dead, Nicaeus was at once put forward into the position of leader, especially by the party of the rich and notable. These made him their champion to face the disgusting boldness of Cleon. And yet, for that matter, the common people also held him in favor and aided his ambitions. For although Cleon had great influence with them, by coddling them and giving frequent jobs for pay, yet the very men whose favor he thus sought to gain were aware of his rapacity and fierce effrontery, and for the most part preferred Nicaeus as their champion. The dignity of Nicaeus was not of the harsh, offensive sort, but was blended with much circumspection and one control of the people from the very fact that he was thought to be afraid of them. Timid as he was by nature and distrustful of success, in war he managed to succeed in hiding his cowardice under a cloak of good fortune, for he was uniformly successful as a general. While in political life his nervousness and the ease with which he could be put into confusion by accusers actually tended to make him popular, and gave him in high degree that power which comes from the favor of the people, because they fear men who scorn them, but exalt men who fear them. The multitude can have no greater honor shown them by their superiors than not to be despised. Now Pericles led the city by virtue of his native excellence and powerful eloquence, and had no need to assume any persuasive mannerisms with the multitude. But Nicaeus, since he lacked such powers, but had excessive wealth, sought by means of this to win the leadership of the people. And since he despaired of his ability to vie successfully with the versatile buffoonery by which Cleon catered to the pleasure of the Athenians, he tried to captivate the people by choral and gymnastic exhibitions, and other light prodigalities, outdoing in the costliness and elegance of these all his predecessors and contemporaries. Of his dedicatory offerings they remained standing in my day not only the Palladium on the Acropolis, the one which has lost its gilding, but also the temples surmounted by Corrigate tripods in the precinct of Dionysus, for he was often victorious with choruses and was never defeated. A story is told, how, in one of his choral exhibitions, a house servant of his appeared in the costume of Dionysus, very fair to see, and very tall, the down of youth still upon his face. The Athenians were delighted at the sight and applauded for a long time. At last Nicaeus arose and said he deemed it an unholy thing that one who had been acclaimed as a God should be a slave, and gave the youth his freedom. It is a matter of record also how splendid and worthy of the God his lavish outlays at Delos were. The choirs which cities used to send thither to sing the praises of the God were want to put in at the island in haphazard fashion. The throng of worshippers would meet them at the ship and bid them sing, not with a decorum due, but as they were hastily and tumultuously disembarking, and while they were actually donning their chaplet's investments. But when Nicaeus conducted the festival embassy, he landed first on the neighboring island of Renea, with his choir, sacrificial victims and other equipment. Then with the bridge of boats which he had brought along to him from Athens, where it had been made to measure and signally adorned with gildings and dyed stuffs and garlands and tapestries, he spanned during the night the strait between Renea and Delos, which is not wide. At break of day he led his festival procession in honor of the God, and his choir arrayed in lavish splendor and singing as it marched, across the bridge to land. After the sacrifices and choral contests and the banquets were over, he erected the famous bronze palm tree as a thank offering to the God, and consecrated to his service attractive land which he bought at the price of ten thousand drachmas, the revenues from which the dehens were to expend in sacrificial banquets, at which many blessings should be invoked upon Nicaeus from the gods. This stipulation he actually had graven on the stone which he left in Delos to be, as it were, the sentry over his benefaction. The palm tree, however, was torn away by the wind and fell against the colossal statue of the God which the naxians erected, and overturned it. In this course it is clear that there was much ostentatious publicity, looking towards increase of reputation and gratification of ambition, and yet to judge from the rest of the man's bent and character one might feel sure that such means of winning the favor and control of the people were rather a corollary to his reverent piety. For he was one of those who are excessively terrified at heavenly portents, and was addicted to divination, as Thucydides says. And in one of the dialogues of pacifon it is recorded that he sacrificed every day to the gods, and that he kept a diviner at his house, ostensibly for the constant inquiries which he made about public affairs, whereas most of his inquiries were really about his own private matters, and especially about his silver mines, for he had large interests in the mining district of Larium, and they were exceedingly profitable, although worked at great risks. He maintained a multitude of slaves in these mines, and the most of his substance was in silver. For this reason he had a large retinue of people who wanted his money and who got it, too, for he gave to those who could work him harm no less than to those who deserved his favors, and in general his cowardice was a source of revenue to the base, as his liberality was to the good. Witness to this can be had from the comic poets. Telecleides composed the following verses on a certain public informer. So then Charnacles gave Amina that he might not tell of him, how he was his mother's first-born and her first-born child at that. Minus four he got from Nikeus, son of Rich Naceritus. But the reason why he gave them, though I know it very well, I'll not tell the man's my friend, and I think him wise and true. And the personage who was held up to ridicule by Eupolis in his Marikus, fetches in a sort of lazy pauper, and says, Marikus, how long a time since you were now with Nikeus? Pauper. I have not seen him, saving just now on the square. Marikus. The man admits he actually did see Nikeus, yet what possessed him thus to see him if he was not treacherous? Chorus. He heard, ye heard, my comrades, oh, our Nikeus was taken in the very act. Pauper. What, you, oh crazy-witted folk, you catch a man so good in sin of any sort? And the cleon of Aristophanes blusteringly says, I'll bellow down the orders, and Nikeus I'll rattle. And Fernikus plainly hints at his lack of courage and his panic-stricken air in these verses. He was a right good citizen, and I know it well. He wouldn't cringe and creep as Nikeus always does. Since he was disposed to be thus cautious of public informers, he would neither dine with a fellow citizen, nor indulge in genial interchange of views or familiar social intercourse. Indeed he had no leisure for such past times, but when he was general he remained at the War Department till night, and when he was counselor he was first to reach and last to leave the council. And even if he had no public business to transact, he was inaccessible and hard to come at, keeping close at home with his doors bolted. His friends used to accost those who were in waiting at his door and begged them to be indulgent with Nikeus, for he was even then engaged upon sundry urgent matters of public business. The man who most aided him in playing this role, and helped him to assume his costume of pompous dignity, was Hero. He had been reared in the household of Nikeus and thoroughly instructed by him in letters and literature. He pretended to be the son of Dionysius, surnamed Calcus, whose poems are indeed extant, and who, as leader of the colonizing expedition to Italy, founded Thurivy. This Hero it was who managed for Nikeus his secret dealings with the Seers, and who was forever putting forth among the people moving tales about the life of severe hardships, which his patron led for the sake of the city. Why, said he, even when he takes his bath and when he eats his dinner, some public business or other is sure to confront him. He neglects his private interests and his anxiety for the common good, and scarcely gets to sleep till others wait. That's the reason why he is physically all run down, and is not affable or pleasant to his friends. Nay, he has actually lost these, too, in addition to his substance, and all in the service of the city. Other public men not only win friends but enrich themselves through their influences public speakers, and then fare sumptuously, and make a plaything of the service of the city. In point of fact, such was the life of Nikeus that he could save himself what Agamemnon did. Soothe, as master of my life, my pomp I have, and to the populace I mislave. He saw that the people, upon occasion, served their own turn with experienced men of eloquence or surpassing ability, but ever looked with suspicious and cautious eyes upon such powers, and tried to abate the pride and reputation to which they gave rise. This was manifest in their finding pericles and ostracizing daemon, and discrediting, as most of them did, Antiphon of Remnusian, and finally, above all, in the fate of Pachys, the captor of Lesbos, who while he was giving the official account of his generalship, drew his sword in the very courtroom and slew himself. Nikeus, therefore, tried to evade commands which were likely to be laborious and long, and whenever he did serve his general made safety his chief aim, and so was successful for the most part as was natural. He did not, however, ascribe his achievements to any wisdom or ability or valor of his own, but rather credited them to fortune, and took modest refuge in the divine ordering of events, relinquishing thereby part of his reputation through fear of envy. Events bore witness to his wisdom, for in the many great reverses which the city suffered at that period he had absolutely no share. It was under the leadership of Caleides and Xenophon that his countrymen met defeat at the hands of the Calcydians in Thrace. The Aetolian disaster occurred when Demosthenes was in command. Hippocrates was general when a thousand citizens were sacrificed at Delium, and after the plague Pericles incurred the most blame, because he shut up the throng from the country and the city on account of the war, and the plague was the result of their changing of abode and their unwanted manner of living. For all these things Nikeus was free from blame. While as general he captured Sathera, an island favorably situated for the command of Laconia and inhabited by the Lachodemonians, he captured also many places in Thrace, which had revolted, and brought them back to their allegiance, having shut up the Magarians in their city he straightway seized the island of Minoa, and shortly after, from the space of operations, got possession of Niseia. He also made a descent upon the territory of Corinth, defeated the Corinthians in battle and slew many of them, including Lycophron their general. Here it befell him when his dead were taken up for burial that two of his men were left unnoticed on the field. As soon as he was made aware of this he halted his armament and sent back a herald to the enemy asking leave to take up his dead. And yet by usage and unwritten law the side which secured the right to take up its dead by a truce was thought to renounce all claims to victory, and for those who so obtained this right the erection of a trophy of victory was unlawful, since they are victors who possess the field, but petitioners do not possess a field since they cannot take what they want. Notwithstanding this, Nikeus endured rather to abandon the honor and reputation of his victory than to leave unburied two of his fellow citizens. He also ravaged the coast of Lachonia, routed the Lachodemonians who opposed him, captured Theria, which the Agenitans held, and took his prisoners alive off to Athens. After Demosthenes had fortified Pylos the Peloponnesians came up against it by land and sea, a battle was fought, and about four hundred Spartans were shut off on the island of Specteria. Then the Athenians considered that their capture would be a great achievement, as was true. But the siege was difficult and toilsome, since the region afforded little fresh water. Even in summer the shipping of the necessary supplies round Peloponnesus was a long and expensive process, while in winter it was sure to be perilous if not altogether impossible. The Athenians were therefore in bad humor and repented them of having repulsed an embassy of the Lachodemonians, which had come to treat with them for a truce and peace. They had repulsed it because Cleon, chiefly on account of Nikeus, was opposed to it. For he hated Nikeus, and when he saw him zealously cooperating with the Lachodemonians, persuaded the people to reject the truce. So when the siege grew longer and longer, and they learned that their forces were in terrible straits, they were angry with Cleon. He, however, laid all the blame on Nikeus and denounced him, saying that it was through cowardice and weakness that he was letting the men on the island slip through his hands, whereas had he himself been general instead of Nikeus, they would not have held out so long. Thereupon it occurred to the Athenians to say, It's not too late. Why don't you sell yourself and fetch the men? Nikeus, too, rose in the assembly and resigned his command of the expedition to Pylos in favor of Cleon, bidding him take as large a force as he wished, and not to vent his boldness in mere words which brought no peril with them, but to perform some deed for the city which would be worth its notice. That first Cleon tried to draw back, confused by the unexpectedness of this offer. But the Athenians kept up the same cries of encouragement, and Nikeus kept taunting him, until, his ambition incited and on fire, he undertook the command, and besides, declared in so many words that within twenty days after sailing he would either slay the men on the island or bring them alive to Athens. The Athenians were moved to hearty laughter at this, rather than to believe in it, for they were already in the way of treating his mad vanity as a joke, and a pleasant one, too. It is said, for instance, that once, when the assembly was in session, the people sat out on the Phinex a long while waiting for him to address them, and that late in the day he came in all garlanded for dinner and asked them to adjourn the assembly to the morrow. I'm busy today, he said. I'm going to entertain some guests, and have already sacrificed to the gods. The Athenians burst out laughing, then rose up and dissolved the assembly. However, this time he had good fortune, served his general most successfully along with Demosthenes, and within the time which he had specified brought home as prisoners of war, their arms surrendered, all the Spartans on Specteria who had not fallen in battle. This success of Cleons brought great discredit on Nikeus. He was thought not merely to have cast away his shield, but to have done something far more disgraceful and base in voluntarily throwing up his command out of cowardice, and in abandoning to his enemy the opportunity for so great a success, actually voting himself out of office. For this Aristophanes again scoffs at him and his birds in words like these, and lo, by Zeus, we can no longer doze about, we have no time, nor chili shall he Nikeusize, and in his farmers where he writes, thigh, and running about while speaking. He thus imbued the managers of the city's policies with that levity and contempt for propriety which soon after confounded the whole state. Just about that time Alcibiades was beginning to be a power at Athens. For a popular leader he was not so unmixed and evil as Cleon. The soil of Egypt it is said, by reason of its very excellence, produces alike, drugs of which many are good, intermixed, but many are deadly. In like manner the nature of Alcibiades, setting as it did with full and strong currents towards both good and evil, furnished cause and beginning for serious invocations. And so it came to pass that even after Nikeus was rid of Cleon he did not get opportunity to lull the city into perfect rest and calm. But when he had actually set the state fairly in the path of safety, was hurled from it by an impetuous onset of Alcibiades' ambition, and plunged again into war. This was the way it came about. The men most hostile to the peace of Helus were Cleon and Bresides. Of these, war covered up the baseness of the one and adorned the excellence of the other. That is to say, it gave the one opportunities for great iniquities, the other for great achievements. After these men had both fallen in one in the same battle before Amphifolis, Nikeus found at once that the Spartans had long been eager for peace, and that the Athenians were no longer in good heart for the war. That both were, so to speak, unstrung, and glad to let their arms drop to their sides. He, therefore, strove to unite the two cities in friendship, and to free the rest of the Helians from ills, as well as to give himself a season of rest, and so to make secure for all coming time the name which he had for success. The men who were well to do, and the elderly men, and most of the farmers, he found inclined to peace from the first, and after he had talked privately with many of the rest, taught them his views and blunted the edge of their desire for war. Then he at once held out hopes to the Spartans and urgently invited them to seek for peace. They had confidence in him not only because of his usual fairness towards them, but especially because he had shown kind attentions to those of their men who had been captured at Pylos, and kept in prison at Athens, had treated them humanely, and so eased their misfortune. The two parties had before this made a sort of stay of mutual hostilities for a year, and during this time they had held conferences with one another, and tasted again the sweets of security and leisure and intercourse with friends at home and abroad, so that they yearned for that old life which was undefiled by war, and listened gladly when choirs saying such strains as, Let my spear lie unused for the spider to cover with webs, and gladly called to mind the saying, In peace the sleeper is waked not by the trumpet but by the cock. Accordingly they heaped abuse on those who said that the war was fated to last thrice nine years, and then in this spirit debated the whole issue and made peace. Most men held it to be a manifest release from ills, and Nikeus was in every mouth. They said he was a man beloved of God, and that heaven had bestowed on him for his reverent piety, the privilege of giving his name to the greatest and fairest of blessings. They really thought that the peace was the work of Nikeus, as the war had been that of Pericles. The one, on slight occasion, was thought to have plunged the Hellenes into great calamities. The other had persuaded them to forget the greatest injuries and become friends. Therefore, to this day, men call that peace the peace of Nikeus. Part 10 of Volume 3 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. Volume 3 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Nikeus. Part 2. The Articles of Peace required that the strongholds and cities and prisoners of war which each party had taken from the others should be restored, and since that party was to make restoration first on whom the lot fell, the lot was secretly brought up by Nikeus, so that the Lachodemonians were the first to make restoration. This is the testimony of Theophrastus. But when the Corinthians and Bocians, who were vexed at the course things were taking, seemed likely, by their accusations and complaints, to revive the war, Nikeus persuaded the Athenians and Lachodemonians to make the general peace secure by the mighty bond of a mutual alliance, whereby they should become more formidable to all seceders and better assured of each other. Such being the course of events, Alcibiades, who was naturally indisposed to be quiet, and who was incensed at the Lachodemonians because they scornfully ignored him in their fond attachment to Nikeus, promptly opposed and obstructed the general peace. At the outset he made no headway, but a little while after, seeing that the Athenians were not so well pleased as before with the Lachodemonians, but thought that they had wronged them in making a separate alliance with the Bocians, and in not restoring panactum with its walls intact, nor amphipolis at all, he laid great stress on these grounds of complaint, and tried to incense the people over each one of them. Finally he managed to have an embassy sent from Argos to Athens, and tried to affect a separate alliance between these two cities. Ambassadors came at once from Sparta with full powers to treat all issues, and that their preliminary audience with the Council were declared by that body to come with nothing but just proposals. But Alcibiades was afraid they would bring the Assembly over to their views with the same arguments which had won the Council. He therefore circumvented them by deceitfully swearing that he would cooperate with them fully in the Assembly if they would only not claim nor even admit that they had come with full powers to treat all issues. For thus he declared they would most surely attain their desires. After they were persuaded by him, and had put themselves out of the guiding hands of Nikeus and into his, he introduced them to the Assembly, and asked them first whether they had come with full powers to treat all issues. On their saying no to this, he surprised them by changing front and calling on the members of the Council who were present to bear witness to what they had said before that body. He then urged the people not to follow, much less trust, men who were so manifestly liars, and who now said yes and now know to the same question. The Ambassadors were overwhelmed with confusion, naturally, and Nikeus was unable to say a word, struck dumb with amazement and anguish. Therefore the people were at once eager to call in the Argyve Embassy and make the alliance it desired. But there came a slight earthquake shock just then, luckily for Nikeus, and the Assembly was dissolved. On the following day, when the people had assembled again by dint of great effort and much talking, Nikeus succeeded, with difficulty, in persuading them to refrain from the proposed arrangement with Argos, and to send him on an Embassy to the Lachodimonians, assuring them that everything would thus turn out well. But when he came to Sparta, though in other ways he was honoured by them as a true man and one who had been zealous in their behalf, still he accomplished nothing that he purposed, but was beaten by the party there which had Bolshean sympathies, and so came back home, not merely with loss of reputation and under harsh abuse, but actually in bodily fear of the Athenians. They were vexed and indignant because they had been persuaded by him to restore so many eminent prisoners of war, for the men who had been brought to the city from Pylos belonged to the leading families of Sparta, and the most influential men there were their friends and kinsmen. However, the Athenians took no very harsh measures in their anger against Nikeus, but elected Alcibiades general, made an alliance with the Mantanians and Elians, who had succeeded from the Lachodimonians, as well as with the Argives, sent free booters to Pylos to ravage Laconia, and thus plunged again into war. At last the feud between Nikeus and Alcibiades became so intense that recourse was had to the process of ostracism. This the people used to institute from time to time when they wished to remove, for ten years, by the Ostrakhan Ballad, any one man who was an object of suspicion generally because of his great reputation, or of jealousy because of his great wealth. Both the rivals were thus involved in much confusion and peril, since one or the other must in any event succumb to the ostracism. In the case of Alcibiades, men loathed his manner of life and dreaded his boldness, as will be shown more at length in his biography, and in the case of Nikeus his wealth made him an object of jealousy. Above all else his way of life, which was not genial nor popular but unsocial and aristocratic, seemed alien and foreign, and since he often opposed the people's desires and tried to force them against their wishes into the way of their advantage, he was burdensome to them. To tell the simple truth it was a struggle between the young men who wanted war and the elderly men who wanted peace, one party proposed to ostracize Nikeus, the other Alcibiades. But in a time of sedition the base man, too, is in honour, and so in this case also the people divided into two factions, and thereby made room for the most aggressive and mischievous men. Among these was hyperbolas of the de-me parathidae, a man whose boldness was not due to any influence that he possessed, but who came to influence by virtue of his boldness, and became by reason of the very credit which he had in the city a discredit to the city. This fellow at that time thought himself beyond the reach of ostracism, since indeed he was a likelier candidate for the stocks, but he expected that when one of the rivals had been banished he might himself become a match for the one who was left, and so it was plain that he was pleased at their feud, and that he was inciting the people against both of them. Accordingly, when Nicaeus and Alcibiades became aware of his baseness, they took secret counsel with one another, united and harmonised their factions, and carried the day, so that neither of them was ostracised, but hyperbolas instead. For the time being this delighted and amused the people, but afterwards they were vexed to think that the ordinance of ostracism had been degraded by its application to so unworthy a man. They thought that even chastisement had its dignity, or rather they regarded the ostracism as a chastisement in the case of Thucydides and Aristides and such men, but in the case of hyperbolas as an honour, and as good ground for boasting on his part, since for his baseness he had met with the same fate as the best men. And so Plato, the Comet poet, somewhere said of him, indeed he suffered worthy fate for men of old, albeit a fate too good for him and for his brands, for such as him the Ostracon was never devised. And in the end no one was ever ostracised after hyperbolas, but he was the last, as Hipparchus of Colurgus, a kinsman of the famous tyrant Pesistratus, was the first to be so banished. Verily fortune is an uncertain thing, and incalculable. Had Nikeus run the risk with alcibiades of being ostracised, he had either carried the day, expelled his rival, and then dwelt safely in the city, or defeated, he had himself gone forth from the city before his last misfortunes, and had preserved the reputation of being a most excellent general. I am well aware that Theophrastus says that hyperbolas was ostracised when fakes, and not Nikeus, was driving against alcibiades, but most writers state the case as I have done. It was Nikeus, then, who, when an embassy came from Agestra and Leontini, seeking to persuade the Athenians to undertake an expedition against Sicily, opposed the measure, only to be defeated by the ambitious purposes of alcibiades. Before the assembly had met at all, alcibiades had already corrupted the multitude and got them into his power by means of his sanguine promises, so that the youth in their training schools and the old men in their workshops and lounging-places would sit in clusters drawing maps of Sicily, charts of the sea about it, and plans of the harbors and districts of the island which looked toward Libya. For they did not regard Sicily itself as the prize of the war, but rather as a mere base of operations, purposing therefrom to wage a contest with the Carthaginians and get possession of both Libya and of all the sea this sighed the pillars of Heracles. Since, therefore, their hearts were fixed on this, Nikeus, in his opposition to them, had few men, and these of no influence, to contend on his side. For the well-to-do citizens feared accusations of trying to escape their contributions for the support of the city, and so, despite their better judgment, held their peace. But Nikeus did not grow faint nor grow weary. Even after the Athenians had actually voted for the war and elected him general first, and after him Alcibiades and Lemaques, in a second session of the assembly, he rose and tried to divert them from their purpose by the most solemn adorations, and at last accused Alcibiades of satisfying his own private grieve and ambition in thus forcing the city into grievous perils beyond the sea. Still, he made no headway, nay, he was held all the more essential to the enterprise because of the experience from which he spoke. There would be great security, his hearer's thought, against the daring of Alcibiades and the roughness of Lemaques, if his well-known caution were blended with their qualities. And so he succeeded only in confirming the previous vote. For Demonstratus, the popular leader who was most active in spurring the Athenians on to the war, rose and declared that he would stop the mouth of Nikeus from uttering vain excuses, so he introduced a decree to the effect that the generals have full and independent powers in council and in action, both at home and at the seat of war, and persuaded the people to vote it. And yet the priesthood also is said to have offered much opposition to the expedition. But Alcibiades had other diviners in his private service, and from sundry oracles reputed ancient, he cited one saying that great fame would be won by the Athenians in Sicily. To his delight also certain envoys who had been sent to the shrine of Ammon came back with an oracle declaring that the Athenians would capture all the Syracusans, but utterances of opposite import the envoys concealed for fear of using words of ill omen. For no signs could deter the people from the expedition, were they never so obvious and clear, such as, for instance, the mutilation of the Hermae. These statues were all disfigured in a single night, except one called the Hermes of Andosides, a dedication of the Aegean tribe standing in front of what was at that time called the House of Andosides. Then there was the affair of the altar of the twelve gods. An unknown man leapt upon it all of a sudden, bestroated and then mutilated himself with a stone. At Delphi, moreover, there stood a palladium, made of gold and set upon a bronze palm tree, a dedication of the city of Athens from the spoils of her valor in the Persian wars. Ravens alighted on this image and pecked it for many days together. They also bid off the fruit of the palm tree, which was of gold, and cast it down to the ground. The Athenians, it is true, said that this story was an invention of the Delphians, at the instigation of the Syracusans, but at any rate when a certain oracle bade them bring the priestess of Athena from Clasamine, they sent and fetched the woman, and so her name was peace. And this, it seemed, was the advice which the divinity would give the city at that time, namely, to keep the peace. Or because, from mere human calculation, he was alarmed about the expedition, that the astrologer Meton, who had been given a certain station of command, pretended to be mad and set his house on fire. Some, however, tell the story in this way. Meton made no pretense of madness but burned his house down in the night, and then came forward publicly in great dejection and begged his fellow citizens, in view of the great calamity which had befallen him, to release from the expedition his son, who was about to sail for Sicily in command of a trireme. To Socrates, the wise man also, his divine guide, making use of the customary tokens for his enlightenment, indicated plainly that the expedition would make for the ruin of the city. Socrates let this be known to his intimate friends, and the story had a wide circulation. Not a few also were somewhat disconcerted by the character of the days in the midst of which they dispatched their armament. The women were celebrating at that time the festival of Adonis, and in many places throughout the city little images of the god were laid out for burial, and funeral rites were held about them, with wailing cries of women, so that those who cared anything for such matters were distressed, and feared lest that powerful armament, with all the splendor and vigor which were so manifest in it, should speedily wither away and come to not. Now, that Nicaea should oppose the voting of the expedition, and should not be so buoyed up by vain hopes nor so crazed by the magnitude of his command as to change his real opinion, this marked him as a man of honesty and discretion. But when he availed not either in his efforts to divert the people from the war or in his desire to be relieved of his command, the people, as it were, picking him up bodily and setting him over their forces as a general, then it was no longer a time for the exceeding caution and hesitation which he displayed, gazing back homewards from his ship like a child, and many times resuming and dwelling on the thought that the people had not yielded to his reasonings, till he took the edge from the zeal of his colleagues in command and lost the fittest time for action. He ought rather at once to have engaged the enemy at close quarters and put fortunes to the test in struggles for the mastery. Instead of this, while Lemakas urged that they sail direct to Syracuse and give battle close to the city, and the Alcibiades that they rob the Syracusans of their allied cities first and then proceed against them, Naikeas proposed and urged in opposition that they make their way quietly by sea along the coast of Sicily, circumnavigate the island, make a display of their troops and triremes, and then sail back to Athens, after having first culled out a small part of their force to give the Agastayans a taste of sucker. In this way he soon relaxed the resolution and depressed the spirits of his men. After a little while the Athenians summoned Alcibiades home to stand his trial, and then Naikeas, who nominally still had a colleague in the command, but really wielded sole power, made no end of sitting idle or cruising aimlessly about, or taking deliberate counsel, until the vigorous hopes of his men grew old and feeble, and the consternation and fear with which the first side of his forces had filled his enemies slowly subsided. While Alcibiades was yet with the fleet, sixty ships sailed for Syracuse, of which fifty lay out in the offing, drawing up so as to command the harbor, while ten rode in to Reconoiter. These made formal proclamation by voice of Herald that the people of Leontini should return to their homes. They also captured a ship of the enemy, with tablets on board in which the Syracusans had recorded lists of their citizens by tribes. These lists had been deposited at some distance from the city, in the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus, but had been sent for at that time with a view to determining and enrolling those who had come to military age. Now when these had been captured by the Athenians and brought to their generals, and the number of names was seen, the soothsayers were in distressed, lest in this circumstance lie the fulfillment of what was predicted by the Oracle, which said, the Athenians shall take all the Syracusans. However, they say that it was in another circumstance altogether that this prophecy was fulfilled for the Athenians, namely, at the time when Calypus the Athenians threw Dian and got possession of Syracuse. A little while after this, Alcibiades sailed away from Sicily, and then Nicaeus took the entire command. Lamacus was, it is true, a sturdy and honorable man, one who put forth his might without stint in battle, but so poor and petty that in every campaign where he served his general, he would charge up to the Athenian people certain trifling monies for his own clothes and boots. Nicaeus, on the contrary, was a man of great dignity and importance, especially because of his wealth and reputation. It is said that once, at the War Department, when his fellow commanders were deliberating on some matter of general moment, he bade Sophocles the poet state his opinion first, as being the senior general on the board. Thereupon Sophocles said, I am the oldest man, but you are the senior general. So also in the present case he brought Lamacus under his orders, although more of a general than himself, and always using his forces in a cautious and hesitating manner, he first gave the enemy courage by cruising around Sicily as far as possible from them, and then, by attacking the diminutive little city of Hibla, and going off without taking it, he won their utter contempt. Finally he went back to Catana without affecting anything at all except the overthrow of Hikara, a barbarian fastness. From this place it is said that Laos, the courtesan, was sold as a prisoner of war, being still a girl, and brought into Peloponnesus. The summer was now spent with Nicaeus learned that the Syracusans had plucked up courage and were going to take the initiative and come out against him. Their horsemen already had the insolence to ride up to the Athenian camp, and ask its occupants whether they had come to share the homes of the Catanians or to restore the Leontines to their old homes. At last, therefore, and reluctantly, Nicaeus set out to sail against Syracuse. Wishing to establish his forces there deliberately and without fear of interruption from the enemy, he secretly sent on a man of Catana with a message for the Syracusans. If they wished to find the camp and equipment of the Athenians abandoned of defenders, they must come in full force to Catana on a given day, for that the friends of the Syracusans in the city, where the Athenians spent most of their time, had determined, on perceiving their approach, to seize the gates and set fire to the Athenian fleet. The conspirators were already many and waited their coming. This was the best general ship that Nicaeus displayed in Sicily. He brought his enemy out of their city in full force, thereby almost emptying it of defenders, while he himself put out to sea from Catana, got control of the enemy's harbors, and seized a spot for his camp where he was confident that he would suffer least injury from that arm of the service in which he was inferior, the cavalry, and meet no hindrance in fighting with that arm whereon he most relied. When the Syracusans hurried back from Catana and drew up in order of battle before their own city, Nicaeus led his Athenians swiftly against them and carried the day. He did not slay many of the enemy it is true, for their horsemen prevented his pursuit. He had to content himself with cutting to pieces and destroying the bridges over the river, and thus give homocrates occasion to say, as he sought to encourage the Syracusans, that Nicaeus was ridiculous in maneuvering so as not to give battle, as though it was not for battle that he had crossed the seas. However, he did infuse fear and mighty consternation into the Syracusans, so that in place of their fifteen generals than in office they elected three others, to whom the people pledged themselves under oath that they would surely suffer them to command with full and independent powers. The Olympium was hard by, and the Athenians set out to seize it, in as much as it contained many offerings of gold and silver. But Nicaeus purposely delayed operations until it was too late, and allowed a garrison from Syracuse to enter in, because he thought that if his soldiers plundered the temple's treasures the Commonwealth would get no advantage from it, and he himself would incur the blame for the sacrilege. Of his victory, which was so noised about, he made no use whatever, but after a few days had elapsed, withdrew again to Naxos, and there spent the winner, making large outlays on his vast armament, but affecting little in his negotiations with a few sistles who thought of coming over to his side. The Syracusans, therefore, plucked up courage again, marked out to Catana, ravaged the fields, and burnt what had been the Athenian camp. These things all men laid to the charge of Nicaeus, since, as they said, by his excessive calculation and hesitation and caution he let the proper time for action go by forever. When he was once in action no one could find fault with the man, for after he had set out to do a thing he was vigorous and effective, but in venturing out to do it he was hesitating and timid. At any rate, when he moved his armament back to Syracuse, he showed such generalship, and made his approach with such speed and safety, that he put in at Thopsis with his fleet, and landed his men unobserved, seized Epipole before the enemy could prevent, he did the picked companies which came to his rescue, killing three hundred men, and even routed the cavalry of the enemy, which was thought to be invincible. But what most of all filled the Sicilians with terror and the Hellenes within credulity was the fact that, in a short time he carried a wall around Syracuse, a city fully as large as Athens, although the unevenness of the territory about it, its proximity to the sea and its adjacent marshes made the task of surrounding it with such a wall very difficult. But he came within a nace of bringing this great task to completion, a man who had not even sound health for such concerns, but was sick of a disease in the kidneys. To this it is only fair to ascribe the fact that part of the work was unfinished. I can but admire the watchful care of the general and the noble valor of his soldiers in what they did accomplish. Euripides, after their defeat and destruction, composed an epitaph for them in which he said, These men at Syracuse eight times were triumphant as victors. Heroes they were while the gods favored both causes alike. And not eight times only, nay, more than that you will find that the Syracusans were beaten by them, until the gods, as the poet says, or fortune, became hostile to the Athenians at the very pinnacle of their power. Now in most actions Nicaeus took part despite his bodily infirmity. But once, when his weakness was extreme, he was lying in bed within the walls, attended by a few servants, while Lemakas with the soldiery was fighting the Syracusans. These were trying to run a wall from their city out to that which the Athenians were building, to intersect it and prevent its completion. The Athenians prevailed and hurried off in pursuit with more or less disorder, so that Lemakas was isolated and then had to face some Syracusan horsemen who made an onset upon him. For most of these was Callicrates, a man skilled in war and of a high courage. Lemakas accepted his challenge to single combat, fought him, got a mortal blow from him, but gave him back the like, and fell and died along with him. The Syracusans got possession of the body of Lemakas with its armor and carried it off. Then they made a dash upon the Athenian walls where Nicaeus was, with none to succor him. He nevertheless, necessity compelling him, rose from his bed, saw his peril, and ordered his attendants to bring fire and set it to all the timbers that lay scattered in front of the walls, for the construction of siege engines, and to the engines themselves. This brought the Syracusans to a halt, and saved Nicaeus as well as the walls and stores of the Athenians. For when the Syracusans saw a great flame rising between them and the walls they withdrew. Thus it came to pass that Nicaeus was left sole general, but he was in great hopes. Cities were inclining to take his side, and ships full of grain came to his camp from every quarter. Everybody hastens to join a successful cause. Besides, sundry proposals for a treaty were already coming to him from those Syracusans who despaired of their city. At this time, too, Gallipus, who was sailing from Sparta to their aid, when he heard on his voyage how they were walled up and in swordest dress, held on his way it is true, but with the belief that Sicily was as good as taken, and that he could only save the cities of the Italian Greeks, if happily even that. For the opinion gained ground and strength that the Athenians were all powerful, and had a general who was invincible by reason of his judgment and good fortune. And Nicaeus himself, contrary to his nature, was straightway so emboldened by the present momentum of his good fortune, and most of all by the secret messengers who sent to him from the Syracusans, was so fixed in his belief that the city was just on the point of surrendering conditionally that he made no sort of account of Gallipus at his approach. He did not even set an adequate watch against him. Wherefore, finding himself completely overlooked and despised, the man sailed stealthily through the straits, made a landing at the farthest point from Syracuse, and collected a large force, the Syracusans being not so much as aware of his presence, nor even expecting him. On the contrary, they had actually called an assembly to discuss the agreements to be made with Nicaeus, and some were already on their way to it, thinking that the terms of peace should be made before their city was completely walled up. For that part of the work which remained to be done was quite small, and all the material required for it lay strewn along the line. End of Nicaeus Part 2.