4.4
Telecleides composed the following verses on a certain public informer:—So then Charicles gave a mina that he might not tell of him How 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, Com. Att. Frag. i. p. 219.
4.5
And the personage who is held up to ridicule by Eupolis, in his Maricas,A caricature of the demagogue Hyperbolus. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. i. p. 308. fetches in a sort of lazy pauper, and says:— Maricas How long a time now since you were with Nicias? Pauper I have not seen him,—saving just now on the Square. Maricas The 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! Pauper What! you? O crazy-witted folk! You catch a man so good in sin of any sort?
4.6
And the Cleon of AristophanesKnights, 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, Com. Att. Frag. i. p. 385.
