3.1
When, however, a man wields superior power in a city which is open to the appeals of virtue, he should not give a footing to the base, nor command to those who are no commanders at all, nor confidence to those who deserve no confidence. But this is just what Nicias did when, of his own motion, he set Cleon in command of the army, a man who was nothing more to the city than a shameless brawler from the bema.
3.2
I do not, indeed, commend Crassus, in the war with Spartacus, for pressing forward into action with greater speed than safety, although it was natural for a man of his ambition to fear that Pompey would come and rob him of his glory, just as Mummius had robbed Metellus of Corinth; but the conduct of Nicias was altogether strange and terrible. For it was not while it afforded him good hopes of success, or even of ease, that he renounced his ambition to hold the command in favour of his enemy, but when he saw that his generalship involved him in great peril, then he was content to betray the common good at the price of his own safety.
3.3
And yet Themistocles, during the Persian wars, to prevent a worthless and senseless man from ruining the city as one of its generals, bought him off from the office; and Cato stood for the tribuneship when he saw that it would involve him in the greatest toil and danger in behalf of the city.
