biography
pronunciation:
[nikias, nisias]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (?–413 BC)
|
| biography:
| Wealthy politician and general, from Athens, prominent during the Peloponnesian War. A political moderate, he was opposed to the strident warmongering of Cleon and Alcibiades, and arranged the short-lived peace named after him (421 BC). Appointed commander in Sicily (416 BC), his lack of sympathy with his mission, along with bad luck, ill health, and sheer incompetence, led to the total destruction of the Athenian forces, and his own death at the hands of the Syracusans. |
|
|
