ns--just like
them, I say--to go and elect, not me, who ever since my name first
appeared on the muster-roll have literally worn myself out with military
service--now as a captain, now as a colonel--and have received all these
wounds from the enemy, look you! (at the same time, and suiting the
action to the word, he bared his arms and proceeded to show the scars
of ancient wounds)--they elect not me (he went on), but, if you please,
Antisthenes! who never served as a hoplite (2) in his life nor in the
cavalry ever made a brilliant stroke, that I ever heard tell of; no! in
fact, he has got no science at all, I take it, except to amass stores of
wealth.

(2) Cf. Lys. xiv. 10.

But still (returned Socrates), surely that is one point in his
favour--he ought to be able to provide the troops with supplies.

Nic. Well, for the matter of that, merchants are good hands at
collecting stores; but it does not follow that a merchant or trader will
be able to command an army.

But (rejoined Socrates) Antisthenes is a man of great pertinacity, who
insists on winning, and that is a very necessary quality in a general.
(3) Do not you see how each time he has been choragos (4) he has been
successful with one chorus after another?

(3) See Grote, "Plato," i. 465 foll.

(4) Choir-master, or Director of the Chorus. It was his duty to
provide and preside over a chorus to sing, dance, or play at any
of the public festivals, defraying the cost as a state service of
{leitourgia}. See "Pol. Ath." iii. 4; "Hiero," ix. 4; Aristot.
"Pol. Ath." 28. 3.

Nic. Bless me! yes; but there is a wide difference between standing at
the head of a band of singers and dancers and a troop of soldiers.

Soc. Still, without any practical skill in singing or in the training
of a chorus, Antisthenes somehow had the art to select the greatest
proficients in both.

Nic. Yes, and by the same reasoning we are to infer that on a campaign
he will find proficients, some to marshal the troops for him and others
to fight his battles?

Soc. Just so. If in matters military he only exhibits the same skill in
selecting the best hands as he has shown in matters of the chorus, it is
highly probable he will here also bear away the palm of victory; and we
may presume that if he expended so much to win a choric victory with a
single tribe, (5) he will be ready to expend more to secure a victory in
war with the whole state to back him.

(5) See Dem. "