For this reason he had a large retinue of people who wanted his money, and who got it too; for he gave to those who could work him harm no less than to those who deserved his favours, and in general his cowardice was a source of revenue to the base, as his liberality was to the good.

Witness to this can be had from the comic-poets.

Telecleides composed the following verses on a certain public informer:—So then Charicles gave a mina that he might not tell of himHow he was his mother’s first-born,—and her purse-born child at that.Minas four he got from Nicias, son of rich Niceratus;But the reason why he gave them, though I know it very well,I’ll not tell; the man’s my friend, and I think him wise and true.From a play of unknown name. Kock, i. p. 219.

And the personage who is held up to ridicule by Eupolis, in his Maricas,A caricature of the demagogue Hyperbolus. Kock, i. p. 308. fetches in a sort of lazy pauper, and says:— MaricasHow long a time now since you were with Nicias?PauperI have not seen him,—saving just now on the Square.MaricasThe man admits he actually did see Nicias!Yet what possessed him thus to see him if he was not treacherous?Chorus?Ye heard, ye heard, my comrades, O!Our Nicias was taken in the very act!PauperWhat! you? O crazy-witted folk!You catch a man so good in sin of any sort?

And the Cleon of Aristophanes, 358. It is not Cleon, but his adversary, the rampant sausage-seller, who utters the verse. blusteringly says:— I’ll bellow down the orators, and Nicias I’ll rattle. And Phrynichus plainly hints at his lack of courage and his panic-stricken air in these verses:— He was a right good citizen, and I know it well;He wouldn’t cringe and creep as Nicias always does.From a play of unknown name. Kock, i. p. 385.