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