Comparison of Nicias and Crassus (1.1-1.2)

In comparing the men, first, the wealth of Nicias was acquired in a more blameless manner than that of Crassus. For although it is true that the working of mines cannot be highly regarded, since most of it is carried on by employing malefactors or Barbarians, some of whom are kept in chains and done to death in damp and unwholesome places, still, when compared with the public confiscations of Sulla and the making of contracts where fire is raging, it will appear in the more favourable light.

For Crassus openly utilized these opportunities as men do agriculture and money-lending. And as for the practices which he denied when on trial, namely, taking bribes for his voice in the senate, wronging the allies, circumventing weak women with his flatteries, and aiding base men to cloak their iniquities, no such charges, even though false, were ever made against Nicias; nay, he was rather laughed at for spending his money lavishly on informers out of cowardice, a practice unbecoming, perhaps, in a Pericles and an Aristides, but necessary for him, since he was not well stocked with courage.