Nicias

In the year 413 BC, the Athenian general Nicias postponed a much-needed retreat because of a lunar eclipse.

Abbe said, “We have this wonderful anecdote from Praxiteles, the Greek sculptor from the fourth century B.C. When he’s asked which of his sculptures he liked the best, he names those that the premier painter of the day, Nicias, ‘applied his hand to.’

Command then passed to the less talented Nicias, the invasion was a disaster and the Athenians later lost the war.

The tenor Aaron Short sang with flair as Nicias, a libidinous nobleman and Thaïs’s temporary lover.

In course of time admission to the rank of a hero became far more common, and was even accorded to the living, such as Lysimachus in Samothrace and the tyrant Nicias of Cos.