cloak, slapping his thigh, and walking up and down while speaking,
which led to the total disregard of decency and good manners among
public speakers, and eventually was the ruin of the state.

IX. About this time Alkibiades began to gain credit in Athens as a
public speaker, less licentious than Kleon, and like the soil of Egypt
described by Homer, which bears

"A mingled crop of good and bad alike."

Thus Alkibiades, with immense powers both for good and evil, produced
great changes in the affairs of Athens. Nikias, even if he had been
freed from the opposition of Kleon, could not now have quietly
consolidated the power of the state, for as soon as he had arranged
matters in a fair way to produce peace and quiet, Alkibiades, to
satisfy his own furious ambition, threw them again into confusion and
war. This was brought about by the following circumstances. The two
chief hindrances to peace were Kleon and Brasidas; as war concealed
the baseness of the former, and added to the glory of the latter.
Kleon was able to commit many crimes undetected, and Brasidas
performed many great exploits while the war lasted; wherefore, when
both of these men fell before the walls of Amphipolis, Nikias,
perceiving that the Spartans had long been desirous of peace, and that
the Athenians no longer hoped to gain anything by continuing the war,
and that both parties were weary of it, began to consider how he might
reconcile them, and also pacify all the other states of Greece, so as
to establish peace upon a durable and prosperous basis. At Athens, the
richer classes, the older men, and the country farmers all wished for
peace. By constantly arguing with the others he gradually made them
less eager for war, and at length was able to intimate to the Spartans