Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/300

282 282 HISTORY OF GREECE. effect which wo should suppose it likely to produce upon the Athenians, would be a vehement burst of wrath and displeasure against Mkias. Upon the most candid and impartial scrutiny, he deserved nothing less. And when we consider, farther, the character generally ascribed by historians of Greece to the Athe- nian people, that they are represented as fickle, ungrateful, and irritable, by standing habit ; as abandoning upon the most trifling grounds those whom they had once esteemed, forgetting all prior services, visiting upon innocent generals the unavoidable misfor- tunes of war. and impelled by nothing better than demagogic excitements, we naturally expect that the blame really deserved by Nikias would be exaggerated beyond all due measure, and break forth in a storm of violence and fury. Yet what is the actual resolution taken in consequence of his despatch, after the full and free debate of the Athenian assembly ? Not a word of blame or displeasure is proclaimed. Doubtless there must have been individual speakers who criticized him as he deserved. To suppose the contrary, would be to think meanly indeed of the Athenian assembly. But the general vote was one not simply imputing no blame, but even pronouncing continued and unabated confidence. The people positively refuse to relieve him from the command, though he himself solicits it in a manner sincere and even touching. So great is the value which they set upon his services, and the esteem which they entertain for his character, that they will not avail themselves of the easy opportunity which he himself provides to get rid of him. It is not by way of compliment to the Athenians that I make these remarks on their present proceeding. Quite the contrary. The misplaced confidence of the Athenians in Nikias, on more than one previous occasion, but especially on this, betrays an incapacity of appreciating facts immediately before their eyes, and a blindness to decisive and multiplied evidences of incompe- tency, which is one of the least creditable manifestations of their political history. But we do learn from it a cle;ir lesson, that the habitual defects of the Athenian character were very different from what historians commonly impute to them. Instead of being fickle, we find them tenacious in the extreme of confidence once bestowed, md of schemes once embarked upon: instead of ingrat- itude for ;i vices actually rendered, we find credit given for ser-