Now, what his reasons were
I know full well, but will not tell, for he's a trusty fere."
Eupolis, too, in his comedy of Marikas has a scene where an informer
meets with a poor man who is no politician, and says:
"A. Say where you last with Nikias did meet.
B. Never. Save once I saw him in the street.
A. He owns he saw him. Wherefore should he say
He saw him, if he meant not to betray
His crimes?
C. My friends, you all perceive the fact,
That Nikias is taken in the act.
B. Think you, O fools, that such a man as he
In any wicked act would taken be."
Just so does Kleon threaten him in Aristophanes's play:
"The orators I'll silence, and make Nikias afraid."
Phrynichus, too, sneers at his cowardice and fear of the popular
demagogues, when he says:
"An honest citizen indeed he was,
And not a coward like to Nikias."
V. Nikias feared so much to give the mob orators grounds for
accusation against him, that he dared not so much as dine with his
follow citizens, and pass his time in their society. Nor did he have
any leisure at all for such amusements, but when general, he used to
spend the whole day in the War office, and when the Senate met he
would be the first to come to the house and the last to leave it. When
there was no public business to be transacted, he was hard to meet
with, as he shut himself up in his house and seldom stirred abroad.
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