I will also tell, if you please--and indeed I am bound
to tell--of his courage in battle; for who but he saved my life? Now
this was the engagement in which I received the prize of valour: for I
was wounded and he would not leave me, but he rescued me and my arms;
and he ought to have received the prize of valour which the generals
wanted to confer on me partly on account of my rank, and I told them so,
(this, again, Socrates will not impeach or deny), but he was more eager
than the generals that I and not he should have the prize. There was
another occasion on which his behaviour was very remarkable--in the
flight of the army after the battle of Delium, where he served among the
heavy-armed,--I had a better opportunity of seeing him than at Potidaea,
for I was myself on horseback, and therefore comparatively out of
danger. He and Laches were retreating, for the troops were in flight,
and I met them and told them not to be discouraged, and promised to
remain with them; and there you might see him, Aristophanes, as you
describe (Aristoph. Clouds), just as he is in the streets of Athens,
stalking like a pelican, and rolling his eyes, calmly contemplating
enemies as well as friends, and making very intelligible to anybody,
even from a distance, that whoever attacked him would be likely to
meet with a stout resistance; and in this way he and his companion
escaped--for this is the sort of man who is never touched in war; those
only are pursued who are running away headlong. I particularly observed
how superior he was to Laches in presence of mind. Many are the marvels
which I might narrate in praise of Socrates; most of his ways might
perhaps be paralleled in another man, but his absolute unlikeness to any
human being that is or ever has been is perfectly astonishing. You
may imagine Brasidas and others to have been like Achilles; or you may
imagine Nestor and Antenor to have been like Pericles; and the same may
be said of other famous men, but of this strange being you will never be
able to find any likeness, however remote, either among men who now are
or who ever have been--other than that which I have already suggested of
Silenus and the satyrs; and they represent in a figure not only himself,
but his words. For, although I forgot to mention this to you before,
his words are like the images of Silenus which open; they are ridiculous
when you first hear them; he clothes himself in language that is like
the skin of the want