Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/123

105 AMPHIPOLIS. 100 urges his countrymen to make the requisite military effort, and prevails upon them in part to do so, but the attempt disgracefully fails ; partly through his own incompetence as commander, whether his undertaking of that duty was a matter of choice or of constraint, partly through the strong opposition and antipathy against him from so large a portion of his fellow-citizens, which rendered the military force not hearty in the enterprise. Next; Nikias, Laches, and Alkibiades, all concur in making peace and alliance with the Lacedaemonians, with express promise and purpose to procure the restoration of Amphipolis. But after a series of diplomatic proceedings, which display as much silly credulity in Nikias as selfish deceit in Alkibiades, the result becomes evident, as Kleon had insisted, that peace will not restore to them Amphipolis, and that it can only be regained by force. The fatal defect of Nikias is now conspicuously seen : his inertness of character and incapacity of decided or energetic effort. When he discovered that he had been out-manoeuvred by the Lacedaemonian diplomacy, and had fatally misadvised his countrymen into making important cessions on the faith of equiv- alents to come, we might have expected to find him spurred on by indignant repentance for this mistake, and putting forth his own strongest efforts, as well as those of his country, in order to recover those portions of her empire which the peace had prom- ised, but did not restore. Instead of which he exhibits no effec- tive movement, while Alkibiades begins to display the defects of his political character, yet more dangerous than those of Nikias, the passion for showy, precarious, boundless, and even perilous novelties. It is only in the year 417 B.C., after the defeat of Mantineia had put an end to the political speculations of Alkibi- ades in the interior of Peloponnesus, that Nikias projects an ex- pedition against Amphipolis ; and even then it is projected only contingent upon the aid of Perdikkas, a prince of notorious per- fidy. It was not by any half-exertions of force that the place could be regained, as the defeat of Kleon had sufficiently proved. We obtain from these proceedings a fair measure of the foreign politics of Athens at this time, during what is called the Peace of Nikias, preparing us for that melancholy catastrophe which will be developed in I lie coming chapters, where she is brought