Memorabilia

Further, when there is some danger before you, will you order them to draw the enemy into the sandy ground where your manoeuvres are held, or will you try to carry out your training in the kind of country that the enemy occupy?Oh yes, that is the better way.

And again, will you pay much attention to bringing down as many of the enemy as possible without dismounting?Oh yes, that too is the better way.Have you thought of fostering a keen spirit among the men and hatred of the enemy, so as to make them more gallant in action?Well, at any rate, I will try to do so now.

And have you considered how to make the men obey you? Because without that horses and men, however good and gallant, are of no use.True, but what is the best way of encouraging them to obey, Socrates?

Well, I suppose you know that under all conditions human beings are most willing to obey those whom they believe to be the best.[*](Cyropaedia III. i. 20.) Thus in sickness they most readily obey the doctor, on board ship the pilot, on a farm the farmer, whom they think to be most skilled in his business.Yes, certainly.Then it is likely that in horsemanship too, one who clearly knows best what ought to be done will most easily gain the obedience of the others.

If then, Socrates, I am plainly the best horseman among them, will that suffice to gain their obedience?Yes, if you also show them that it will be safer and more honourable for them to obey you.How, then, shall I show that?Well, it’s far easier than if you had to show them that bad is better than good and more profitable.

Do you mean that in addition to his other duties a cavalry leader must take care to be a good speaker?Did you suppose that a commander of cavalry should be mum? Did you never reflect that all the best we learned according to custom — the learning, I mean, that teaches us how to live — we learned by means of words, and that every other good lesson to be learned is learned by means of words; that the best teachers rely most on the spoken word and those with the deepest knowledge of the greatest subjects are the best talkers?

Did you never reflect that, whenever one chorus is selected from the citizens of this state — for instance, the chorus that is sent to Delos — no choir from any other place can compare with it, and no state can collect so goodly a company?True.