A general of [the] Athenians.[1] This man captured the island of Kythera[2] and made the Lakedaimonians afraid about Sparta, such that they actually set up a guard in the polis.[3] But he obtained a fifty-year peace for the poleis; for he was a man of peace, such that he was actually considered to be a coward on account of this. But the peace was broken in the seventh year, when Alkibiades[4] broke it. He made an expedition to Sicily with Alkibiades, and, weakened and distressed by kidney disease, he wrote to the Athenians either to send for the force already in existence or to dispatch another. They dispatched another under the general Demosthenes,[5] who was himself also defeated. Some fled, but the generals were taken alive, and after being pursued they were captured. Nikias and Demosthenes were led off as prisoners of war, but the Sicilians killed them.[6]