Nicias

Nicias , d. 413 BC, Athenian political leader and general. After Pericles' death he emerged as the primary rival of Cleon and his war party. He was a moderate democrat, not an oligarch, and he wanted peace with Sparta. In 421 he arranged the Peace of Nicias. When the expedition to Syracuse was urged by Alcibiades , Nicias tried to discourage it, but Athens nevertheless made him commander, along with Alcibiades and Lamachus. Alcibiades was soon recalled, and Lamachus died, leaving the expedition in Nicias's care. Nicias vacillated in his policies in the siege. When the Spartan Gylippus arrived, and only retreat from Syracuse was feasible, Nicias refused to allow a retreat until it was too late. The Athenian fleet and expedition were shortly overwhelmed by the Syracusans, and Nicias was captured in a hasty retreat on land and subsequently executed.

Nicias. Greek painter, active in Athens during the latter part of the 4th century bc, a younger contemporary of the sculptor Praxiteles, some of whose statues he coloured. None of his work survives, but it is described in some detail by Pliny and he is ‘the first Greek painter of whose work some echo can probably be identified in Roman painting’ ( Martin Robertson, A History of Greek Art, 1975). He was famous for his skill in chiaroscuro and in painting female figures, and he held that a great artist should concentrate on noble and heroic themes.