Page:National Life and Character.djvu/275

 charged with the command of an expedition might find his plans disconcerted by omens that disheartened the forces, and was almost certain to be recalled on the smallest check. Scarcely any man was more popular than Nicias, who was religious and liberal, and whom all instinctively felt to be "a safe man"; yet Nicias, having a nervous temperament, is said to have lived in such constant disquietude, that he walked the streets day by day with a hang-dog look. Fortunately, Nicias was the rare exception, and the typical Athenian of those days, as we know him, was a man of reckless political and moral courage, setting his fortunes at stake fearlessly in the incessant contest for political power, going to any extreme against his opponents, and speaking his mind about government or religion without regard to the probability that he might be prosecuted. In fact, to take modern parallels, the freedom of thought resembled that of Paris during the last half-century of the monarchy, and the energy of initiative that of the English statesmen who created the Indian Empire. The most simple explanation is, that the Athenian of those days saw magnificent possibilities of fame and power before him. It was possible, even probable, that Athens might become the queen city of the western world, whose commands would be obeyed from Sicily to the shores of the Euxine. In that case the men who had made Athens would have a harvest of immortal glory, and if they lived to see their work done, would be the most enviable of men, rewarded by praise, wealth, and power. The vision quickened those who beheld it to immortal action.