ily health. No gymnastics could be better or harder exercise;
and this, and the art of riding, are of all arts most befitting to a
freeman; for they only who are thus trained in the use of arms are
the athletes of our military profession, trained in that on which the
conflict turns. Moreover in actual battle, when you have to fight in a
line with a number of others, such an acquirement will be of some use,
and will be of the greatest whenever the ranks are broken and you have
to fight singly, either in pursuit, when you are attacking some one who
is defending himself, or in flight, when you have to defend yourself
against an assailant. Certainly he who possessed the art could not meet
with any harm at the hands of a single person, or perhaps of several;
and in any case he would have a great advantage. Further, this sort of
skill inclines a man to the love of other noble lessons; for every man
who has learned how to fight in armour will desire to learn the proper
arrangement of an army, which is the sequel of the lesson: and when he
has learned this, and his ambition is once fired, he will go on to learn
the complete art of the general. There is no difficulty in seeing that
the knowledge and practice of other military arts will be honourable and
valuable to a man; and this lesson may be the beginning of them. Let me
add a further advantage, which is by no means a slight one,--that this
science will make any man a great deal more valiant and self-possessed
in the field. And I will not disdain to mention, what by some may be
thought to be a small matter;--he will make a better appearance at the
right time; that is to say, at the time when his appearance will strike
terror into his enemies. My opinion then, Lysimachus, is, as I say, that
the youths should be instructed in this art, and for the reasons which
I have given. But Laches may take a different view; and I shall be very
glad to hear what he has to say.

LACHES: I should not like to maintain, Nicias, that any kind of
knowledge is not to be learned; for all knowledge appears to be a good:
and if, as Nicias and as the teachers of the art affirm, this use of
arms is really a species of knowledge, then it ought to be learned; but
if not, and if those who profess to teach it are deceivers only; or if
it be knowledge, but not of a valuable sort, then what is the use of
learning it? I say this, because I think that if it had been really
valuable, the Lacedaemonians, whose wh