(), an Athenian, son of Melanopus, was joined with
Charoeades in the command of the first expedition sent by the Athenians to Sicily, in B. C. 427. His colleague was soon after slain in battle, and Laches,
being left sole general, took Messina, and gained some slight advantages over the Epizephyrian
Locrians. In B. C. 426 he was superseded by Pythodorus, with whom
Sophocles and Eurymedon were shortly joined, and was recalled, apparently to stand his trial
on a charge of peculation in his command, brought against him by Cleon. (Thuc. 3.86, 88,90,99,103, 115, 6.1, 6, 75; Just. 4.3; Arist. Vesp. 240, 836, 895, 903, 937;
Dem. c. Tim. § 145; Schol. ad Arist. Vesp. 240,
836.) The Scholiast thinks that Aristophanes, in the
Wasps, meant no reference
to Laches in the arraignment of the dog Labes, for cheese-stealing. But
the name of Laches' demus Aexone (comp. Plat. Lach. p. 197), and the
special mention of Sicilian cheese, seem to fix the allusion beyond
dispute, while by the accusing dog, the κύων
Κυδαθηναιεύς, himself as great a filcher, Cleon is as evidently intended. Laches,
we find from Plato (Lach. p. 181), was present at the battle of Delium,
in B. C. 424. In B. C. 421 he was one of
the commissioners for concluding the fifty years' truce between Athens and Sparta, as well as
the separate treaty between these states in the same year. He was also one of the commanders
of the force sent to Argos, in B. C. 418, when Alcibiades induced
the Argives to break the truce made in their name with the Lacedaemonians, by Thrasyllus and
Alciphron; and in the same year he fell at the battle of Mantineia, together with his
colleague Nicostratus. (Thuc. 5.19, 24, 61, 74.) In the dialogue
of Plato which bears his name, he is represented as not over-acute in argument, and with
temper on a par with his acuteness. His son Melanopus was one of those whom, being in
possession of some prize-money, which was public property, the law of Timocrates would have
shielded. (See Dem. c. Tim. p. 740.) [E.E]