over this bridge, with his chorus very richly dressed, and singing as
they passed over the strait. After the sacrifice, the public games,
and the banquet, he set up the brazen palm-tree as an offering to the
god, and also set apart an estate which he had bought for ten thousand
drachmas, as sacred to the god. With the revenues of this land the
people of Delos were to offer sacrifice and to provide themselves with
a feast, and were to pray the gods to bestow blessings on Nikias. All
these injunctions to the people of Delos were inscribed upon a pillar
which he left there to guard his bequest. The palm-tree was afterwards
overturned by a high wind, and in its fall destroyed the great statue
which had been set up by the people of Naxos.

IV. These acts of Nikias may have been prompted by ambition and desire
for display, but when viewed in connection with his superstitious
character they seem more probably to have been the outcome of his
devotional feelings; for we are told by Thucydides that he was one who
stood greatly in awe of the gods, and was wholly devoted to religion.
In one of the dialogues of Pasiphon, we read that he offered sacrifice
daily, and that he kept a soothsayer in his house, whom he pretended
to consult upon affairs of state, but really sought his advice about
his own private concerns, especially about his silver mines. He had
extensive mines at Laurium, the working of which afforded him very
large profits, but yet was attended with great risks. He maintained a
large body of slaves at the works; and most of his property consisted
of the silver produced by them. For this reason he was surrounded by
hangers-on, and persons who endeavoured to obtain a share of his
wealth, and he gave money to all alike, both to those who might do him
harm, and to those who really deserved his liberality, for he gave to
bad men through fear, and to good men through good nature. We may find
proof of this in the writings of the comic poets. Telekleides,