Nicias

It was either because he feared such signs as these, or because, from mere human calculation, he was alarmed about the expedition, that the astrologer Meton, who had been given a certain station of command, pretended to be mad and set his house on fire. Some, however, tell the story in this way: Meton made no pretence of madness, but burned his house down in the night, and then came forward publicly in great dejection and begged his fellow citizens, in view of the great calamity which had befallen him, to release from the expedition his son, who was about to sail for Sicily in command of a trireme.

To Socrates the wise man also, his divine guide, making use of the customary tokens for his enlightenment, indicated plainly that the expedition would make for the ruin of the city. Socrates let this be known to his intimate friends, and the story had a wide circulation.

Not a few also were somewhat disconcerted by the character of the days in the midst of which they dispatched their armament. The women were celebrating at that time the festival of Adonis, and in many places throughout the city little images of the god were laid out for burial, and funeral rites were held about them, with wailing cries of women, so that those who cared anything for such matters were distressed, and feared lest that powerful armament, with all the splendor and vigor which were so manifest in it, should speedily wither away and come to naught.

Now, that Nicias should oppose the voting of the expedition, and should not be so buoyed up by vain hopes nor so crazed by the magnitude of his command as to change his real opinion,—this marked him as a man of honesty and discretion. But when he availed naught either in his efforts to divert the people from the war or in his desire to be relieved of his command,—the people as it were picking him up bodily and setting him over their forces as general,—