sue, or retreat,
or wash, or eat, they should all act together and in obedience to
orders. We should practise from our youth upwards the habits of command
and obedience. All dances, relaxations, endurances of meats and drinks,
of cold and heat, and of hard couches, should have a view to war, and
care should be taken not to destroy the natural covering and use of the
head and feet by wearing shoes and caps; for the head is the lord of
the body, and the feet are the best of servants. The soldier should have
thoughts like these; and let him hear the law:--He who is enrolled shall
serve, and if he absent himself without leave he shall be indicted for
failure of service before his own branch of the army when the expedition
returns, and if he be found guilty he shall suffer the penalty which the
courts award, and never be allowed to contend for any prize of valour,
or to accuse another of misbehaviour in military matters. Desertion
shall also be tried and punished in the same manner. After the courts
for trying failure of service and desertion have been held, the generals
shall hold another court, in which the several arms of the service will
award prizes for the expedition which has just concluded. The prize is
to be a crown of olive, which the victor shall offer up at the temple
of his favourite war God...In any suit which a man brings, let the
indictment be scrupulously true, for justice is an honourable maiden,
to whom falsehood is naturally hateful. For example, when men are
prosecuted for having lost their arms, great care should be taken by the
witnesses to distinguish between cases in which they have been lost from
necessity and from cowardice. If the hero Patroclus had not been killed
but had been brought back alive from the field, he might have been
reproached with having lost the divine armour. And a man may lose
his arms in a storm at sea, or from a fall, and under many other
circumstances. There is a distinction of language to be observed in the
use of the two terms, 'thrower away of a shield' (ripsaspis), and 'loser
of arms' (apoboleus oplon), one being the voluntary, the other the
involuntary relinquishment of them. Let the law then be as follows:--If
any one is overtaken by the enemy, having arms in his hands, and he
leaves them behind him voluntarily, choosing base life instead of
honourable death, let justice be done. The old legend of Caeneus, who
was changed by Poseidon from a woman into a man, may teach by