The Peloponnesian war went on much in the same way for some years after the death of Pericles.  There was no such great man left in Athens. Socrates, the wise and deep-thinking philosopher, did not attend to state affairs more than was his duty as a citizen; and the leading man for some years was Nikias.  He was an honest, upright man, but not clever, and afraid of everything new, so that he was not the person to help in time of strange dangers.