Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/307

 NIKIAS AND KLECN 285 CHAPTER LI. FROM THE TROUBLES IN KORKYRA, IN THE FIFTH YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, DOWN TO THE END OF THE SIXTH YEAR. ABOUT the same time as the troubles of Korkjra occurred, Nikias, the Athenian general, conducted an armament against the rocky island of Minoa, which lay at the mouth of the harbor of Megara, and was occupied by a Megarian fort and garrison. The narrow channel, which separated it from the Megarian port of Nisaea, and formed the entrance of the harbor, was defended by two towers projecting out from Nisaea, which Nikias attacked and destroyed by means of battering machines from his ships. He thus cut off Minoa from communication on that side with the Megarians, and fortified it on the other side, where it communi- cated with the mainland by a lagoon bridged over with a causeway. Minoa, thus becoming thoroughly insulated, was more completely fortified and made an Athenian possession ; since it was eminent- ly convenient to keep up an effective blockade against the Mega- rian harbor, which the Athenians had hitherto done only from the opposite shore of Salamis. 1 Though Nikias, son of Nikeratus, had been for some time con- spicuous in public life, and is said to have been more than once strategus along with Perikles, this is the first occasion on which Thucydides introduces him to our notice. He was now one of the strategi, or generals of the commonwealth, and appears to have enjoyed, on the whole, a greater and more constant personal esteem than any citizen of Athens, from the present time down to his death. In wealth and in family he ranked among the first class of Athenians : in political character, Aristotle placed him, together with Thucydides son of Melesias and Theramenes, above all other names in Athenian history, seemingly even 1 Thucyd. iii ; 51. See the note of Dr. Arnold, and the plan embodied in his work, for the topography of Minoa, which has now ceased to be au island, and is a hill oc the mainland near the shore.