Comparison of Nicias and Crassus

However, in this there is more ground for praising Nicias than for blaming Crassus. The former brought into play the experience and calculation of a wise leader, and did not share the deceitful hopes of his fellow-citizens, but insisted that it was beyond his power to take Sicily; whereas Crassus made the mistake of entering upon the Parthian war as a very easy undertaking.

And yet his aims were high; while Caesar was subduing the West,—Gaul and Germany and Britain,—he insisted on marching against the East and India, and on completing the reduction of Asia which had been begun by Pompey and Lucullus. Now these were men of good intentions and honourably disposed towards all, and yet they elected the same course as Crassus, and adopted the same principles.

For Pompey met with opposition from the senate when his province was allotted to him, and when Caesar routed three hundred thousand Germans, Cato moved in the senate that he should be delivered up to those whom he had vanquished, and so bring upon his own head the punishment for his breach of faith; but the people turned contemptuously from Cato, sacrificed to the gods for fifteen days in honour of Caesar’s victory, and were full of joy.

What, then, would have been their feelings, and for how many days would they have sacrificed to the gods, if Crassus had written to them from Babylon that he was victorious, and had then overrun Media, Persia, Hyrcania, Susa, and Bactria, and declared them Roman provinces?

For if wrong must be done,

and hidden themselves away like birds in another territory, but let a high price be demanded for the wrongdoing, and let not justice be thrown to the winds lightly, nor on the first best terms, as if it were some trifling or insignificant thing. Those who have praise for Alexander’s expedition, but blame for that of Crassus, unfairly judge of a beginning by its end.