Jowett: warfare

Soc. As to their origin, I believe that they are natives of this part of the world, and have migrated from Chios to Thurii ; they were driven out of Thurii, and have been living for many years past in these regions. As to their wisdom, about which you ask, Crito  , they are wonderful-consummate ! I never knew what the true pancratiast was before ; they are simply made up of fighting, not like the two Acarnanian brothers who fight with their bodies only, but this pair of heroes, besides being perfect in the use of their bodies, are invincible in every sort of warfare ; for they are capital at fighting in armour, and will teach the art to any one who pays them ; and also they are most skilful in legal warfare ; they will plead themselves and teach others to speak and to compose speeches which will have an effect upon the courts. And this was only the beginning of their wisdom, but they have at last carried out the pancratiastic art to the very end, and have mastered the only mode of fighting which had been hitherto neglected by them ; and now no one dares even to stand up against them : such is their skill in the war of words, that they can refute any proposition whether true or false. Now I am thinking, Crito, of placing myself in their hands ; for they say that in a short time they can impart their skill to any one. EUTHYDEMUS  

Ath. But war, whether external or civil, is not the best, and the need of either is to be deprecated ; but peace with one another, and good will, are best. Nor is the victory of the state over itself to be regarded as a really good thing, but as a necessity ; a man might as well say that the body was in the best state when sick and purged by medicine, forgetting that there is also a state of the body which needs no purge. And in like manner no one can be a true statesman, whether he aims at the happiness of the individual or state, who looks only, or first of all, to external warfare ; nor will he ever be a sound legislator who orders peace for the sake of war, and not war for the sake of peace. LAWS BOOK I

Ath. Come now and let us all join in asking this question of Tyrtaeus : O most divine poet, we will say to him, the excellent praise which you have bestowed on those who excel in war sufficiently proves that you are wise and good, and I and Megillus and Cleinias of Cnosus do, as I believe, entirely agree with you. But we should like to be quite sure that we are speaking of the same men ; tell us, then, do you agree with us in thinking that there are two kinds of war ; or what would you say ? A far inferior man to Tyrtaeus would have no difficulty in replying quite truly, that war is of two kinds one which is universally called civil war, and is as we were just now saying, of all wars the worst ; the other, as we should all admit, in which we fall out with other nations who are of a different race, is a far milder form of warfare. LAWS BOOK I

Ath. Would not many generations living on in a simple manner, although ruder, perhaps, and more ignorant of the arts generally, and in particular of those of land or naval warfare, and likewise of other arts, termed in cities legal practices and party conflicts, and including all conceivable ways of hurting one another in word and deed ; — although inferior to those who lived before the deluge, or to the men of our day in these respects, would they not, I say, be simpler and more manly, and also more temperate and altogether more just ? The reason has been already explained. LAWS BOOK III

Ath. Remember, my good friend, what I said at first about the Cretan laws, that they look to one thing only, and this, as you both agreed, was war ; and I replied that such laws, in so far as they tended to promote virtue, were good ; but in that they regarded a part only, and not the whole of virtue, I disapproved of them. And now I hope that you in your turn will follow and watch me if I legislate with a view to anything but virtue, or with a view to a part of virtue only. For I consider that the true lawgiver, like an archer, aims only at that on which some eternal beauty is always attending, and dismisses everything else, whether wealth or any other benefit, when separated from virtue. I was saying that the imitation of enemies was a bad thing ; and I was thinking of a case in which a maritime people are harassed by enemies, as the Athenians were by Minos   (I do not speak from any desire to recall past grievances) ; but he, as we know, was a great naval potentate, who compelled the inhabitants of Attica to pay him a cruel tribute ; and in those days they had no ships of war as they now have, nor was the country filled with ship-timber, and therefore they could not readily build them. Hence they could not learn how to imitate their enemy at sea, and in this way, becoming sailors themselves, directly repel their enemies. Better for them to have lost many times over the seven youths, than that heavy-armed and stationary troops should have been turned into sailors, and accustomed to be often leaping on shore, and again to come running back to their ships ; or should have fancied that there was no disgrace in not awaiting the attack of an enemy and dying boldly ; and that there were good reasons, and plenty of them, for a man throwing away his arms, and betaking himself to flight — which is not dishonourable, as people say, at certain times. This is the language of naval warfare, and is anything but worthy of extraordinary praise. For we should not teach bad habits, least of all to the best part of the citizens. You may learn the evil of such a practice from Homer, by whom Odysseus is introduced, rebuking Agamemnon because he desires to draw down the ships to the sea at a time when the Achaeans are hard pressed by the Trojans — he gets angry with him, and says : LAWS BOOK IV

[975e] And when all these have been performed, there may yet remain assistance, in countless forms and countless cases : the greatest and most useful is called warfare, the art of generalship ; most glorified in time of need, requiring most good fortune, and assigned rather to a natural valor than to wisdom. EPINOMIS   BOOK XII