A great politician
should not try to avoid unpopularity, but to gain such power and
reputation as will enable him to rise above it.
Yet if it were true that Nikias preferred quiet and security to
anything else, and that he stood in fear of Alkibiades in the
assembly, of the Spartans at Pylus, and of Perdikkas in Thrace, he had
every opportunity to repose himself in Athens and to "weave the
garland of a peaceful life," as some philosopher calls it. He had
indeed a true and divine love of peace, and his attempt to bring the
Peloponnesian war to an end, was an act of real Hellenic patriotism.
In this respect Crassus cannot be compared with Nikias, not though he
had carried the frontier of the Roman empire as far as the Caspian and
the Indian seas.
III. Yet a statesman, in a country which appreciates his merits,
ought not when at the height of his power to make way for worthless
men, and place in office those who have no claim to it, as Nikias did
when he laid down his own office of commander-in-chief and gave it to
Kleon, a man who possessed no qualification whatever for the post
except his brazen effrontery. Neither can I praise Crassus for having
so rashly and hurriedly brought the war with Spartacus to a crisis,
although he was actuated by an honourable ambition in fearing that
Pompeius would arrive and take from him the glory of having completed
the war, as Mummius took from Marcellus the glory of winning Corinth.
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