how difficult it was to get up again and stretch
one's legs. After this personal experience, whenever I saw any one
else seated in slack and lazy mood, I tried to spur him on. The mere
movement and effort to play the man caused warmth and moisture,
whereas it was plain that sitting down and keeping quiet helped the
blood to freeze and the toes to mortify, calamities which really
befell several of the men, as you yourselves are aware.

"I can imagine a third case, that of some straggler stopping behind,
merely to rest for rest's sake, and hindering you in front and us
behind alike from pressing on the march. If he got a blow with the
fist from me it saved him a thrust with the lance from the enemy. In
fact, the opportunity they enjoy to-day of taking vengeance on me for
any treatment which I put upon them wrongfully, is derived from their
salvation then; whereas, if they had fallen into the enemy's hands,
let them ask themselves for what outrage, however great, they could
expect to get satisfaction now. My defence," he continued, "is simple:
if I chastised any one for his own good, I claim to suffer the same
penalties as parents pay their children or masters their boys. Does
not the surgeon also cauterise and cut us for our good? But if you
really believe that these acts are the outcome of wanton insolence, I
beg you to observe that although to-day, thank God! I am heartier than
formerly, I wear a bolder front now than then, and I drink more wine,
yet I never strike a soul; no, for I see that you have reached smooth
water. When storm arises, and a great sea strikes the vessel
amidships, a mere shake of the head will make the look-out man furious
with the crew in the forecastle, or the helmsman with the men in the
stern sheets, for at such a crisis even a slight slip may ruin
everything. But I appeal to your own verdict, already recorded, in 21
proof that I was justified in striking these men. You stood by, sirs,
with swords, not voting tablets, in your hands, and it was in your
power to aid the fellows if you liked; but, to speak the honest truth,
you neither aided them nor did you join me in striking the disorderly.
In other words, you enabled any evilly-disposed person among them to
give rein to his wantonness by your passivity. For if you will be at
pains to investigate, you will find that those who were then most
cowardly are the ringleaders to-day in brutality and outrage.

"There is Boiscus the boxer, a Thess