CHAPTER I. OF THE QUALIFICATIONS OF A GENERAL.


Let us now see how Socrates was serviceable to those who were desirous to
qualify themselves for employments of trust and honour, by advising them
to apply themselves diligently to the study of their duty, that they
might acquire a perfect knowledge of it.

Having heard that there was arrived at Athens one Dionysodorus, who
undertook to teach the art of war, he made the following discourse to one
of his friends, who pretended to one of the highest posts in the army:--

"It were a scandalous thing," said Socrates to him, "for a man who aims
to be chief over others, to neglect to learn how to command, when so fair
an opportunity offers; nay, I think he would rather deserve to be
punished, than the man who should undertake to make a statue without
having learnt the sculptor's trade; for as in war the whole fortune of
the Republic is trusted to the general, it is to be presumed that his
good conduct will procure success, and that his faults will be followed
with great losses. And, therefore, a man who should neglect to make
himself capable of such an employment, and yet pretend to it, ought to be
severely punished." By these reasons he persuaded this young man to get
himself instructed.

After the youth had imagined that he had acquired some knowledge of the
art, he returned to pay Socrates a visit, who, jesting him, addressed the
company that were present in this manner:--"Do not you think, gentlemen,
that as Homer, when speaking of Agamemnon, gives him the surname of
venerable, we ought also to bestow the same epithet on this young man,
who justly deserveth to be called by that name, since, like him, he has