Soc. I will endeavour to explain; you would call a man courageous who remains
at his post, and fights with the enemy?
La. Certainly I should.
Soc. And so should I; but what would you say of another man, who fights
flying, instead of remaining?
La. How flying?
Soc. Why, as the Scythians are said to fight, flying as well as pursuing; and
as Homer says in praise of the horses of Aeneas, that they knew "how to
pursue, and fly quickly hither and thither"; and he passes an encomium on
Aeneas himself, as having a knowledge of fear or flight, and calls him "an
author of fear or flight."
La. Yes, Socrates, and there Homer is right: for he was speaking of chariots,
as you were speaking of the Scythian cavalry, who have that way of fighting;
but the heavy-armed Greek fights, as I say, remaining in his rank.
Soc. And yet, Laches, you must except the Lacedaemonians at Plataea, who, when
they came upon the light shields of the Persians, are said not to have been
willing to stand and fight, and to have fled; but when the ranks of the
Persians were broken, they turned upon them like cavalry, and won the battle
of Plataea.
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