to common informers because he feared their
tongues. Yet this action of his, though it would have been a disgrace
to Perikles, or Aristeides, was a necessity for Nikias, who was
naturally of a timid disposition. Thus Lykurgus the orator excused
himself when accused of having bought off some informers who
threatened him. "I am glad," said he, "that after so long a public
life as mine I should have been at last convicted of giving bribes
rather than of receiving them."

The expenditure of Nikias was all calculated to increase his
popularity in the state, being devoted to offerings to the gods,
gymnastic contests and public dramatic performances. But all the money
he spent that way, and all that he possessed was but a small part of
what Crassus bestowed upon a public feast at Rome for some tens of
thousands of guests, whom he even maintained at his own cost for some
time after. 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. A great politician
should not try to avoid unpopularity, but to gain such power and
reputation as will enab