3 The Laches

Approaching the Laches, we immediately observe the cast of charac­ters. Lysimachus, son of Aristides, and Melesias, son of Thucydides (the politician, not the historian), have come to the prominent generals Laches and Nicias to seek their help in determining the proper educa­tion of their children. Lysimachus explains that he and Melesias never amounted to anything in life because their extremely famous fathers spoiled them; what can they do, they ask the generals, to give their sons an education that will improve them? Laches suggests that they beg Socrates to help them inasmuch as Socrates has already proven his value as a finder of teachers by finding a music teacher for his son. And so the dialogue begins.

What an extraordinary scene—the obscure sons of renowned fathers blaming their fathers for the sons’ obscurity and asking advice from famous generals! As the dialogue is written long after the fictive date, Plato’s audience will of course know that all the interlocutors are dead: Socrates by execution on charges of corrupting the youth and of inventing new gods; Nicias in the failed Sicilian Expedition, a failure that cannot be disassociated from the perfidy of Alcibiades, whose Socratic affiliation was well known to all; and Laches, who fell fighting against the Spartans in their great victory at Mantinea in 418. The famous grandfathers are themselves noteworthy on two counts: each, after some political success, was ostracized from Athens—Aristides in 482, Thucydides in 443; and, of course, it is clear from the text that each failed to bring up his own son in such a way as to enable him to achieve success in life: in short, both failed as fathers.^[1] What dramatic irony there is when Lysimachus and Melesias ask these three particular individuals-Laches, Nicias, and Socrates-how to make their sons successes in life! It will not be possible for Plato’s readers to forget this grim record of failure as they read the comedy Laches.

Though from the same deme as Socrates and though Socrates’ and Lysimachus’ fathers were friends, Lysimachus is unacquainted with Socrates himself (180D-E). Still, he is happy to consult Socrates, believing on the authority of Nicias and Laches that he will be a good adviser. Laches says that he fought with Socrates at Delium, a notable Athenian defeat in 424, a defeat that would never have taken place, Laches adds, if others had fought as well as Socrates.^[2]

Socrates agrees to help if he can, deferring to his elders’ wishes. The others will, however, express their views first. Nicias begins with what he perceives to be the advantages of the children’s learning to fight in armor. The advantages are that such fighting is useful for defending oneself, propaideutic to the art of generalship, likely to make a man more daring, and likely to make him more fearful to the enemy in battle. Laches speaks next, arguing that the skill of the fencer is useless without valor; he gives as evidence his knowledge that no fencing master has ever been distinguished in war. One is reminded of the scene in Terence’s Adelphoe, where a father asks friends for advice on how to bring up his son and receives completely contradictory advice from each. Like the father in Terence, Lysimachus is at a loss and asks Socrates to break the tie with his vote.

The question of whether a child should take fencing lessons seems on the surface a rather mundane question. That Laches and Nicias, two generals, should disagree diametrically on the question is quite provocative, for one would assume that on such a question military men might agree. That Lysimachus should simply seek a vote to make his decision easier tells us of the shallowness of his mind and perhaps shows us the popular insipidity of submitting the care of minds to democratic mechanisms. Of course, given the dramatic date of the dialogue and the fact that Athens was a radical democracy-largely because the fathers of Lysimachus and Melesias had been defeated by the radical democratic parties-it is not surprising perhaps to find a purely democratic mechanism proposed for deciding the matter.

Socrates then converses a bit with the other father, Melesias, who agrees with Socrates that the opinion of a wise man is better than a majority vote, and Socrates shows them that the question prior to the question about the value of fencing is the nature of the art for which they want to find teachers. It is essential, he says, to seek the purpose of education before the means, for the end is the soul of youths. Laches casts doubts upon the whole educational business, observing have. Socrates claims that since he has always been too poor to afford sophists, he has never had a teacher of virtue. (Can he be the sort of person that Laches had in mind, the sort who, having had no teachers, is more skilled than those who have?)

Lysimachus urges Nicias and Laches to argue with Socrates. Nicias, familiar with Socrates’ style of arguing, agrees; Laches, who though unfamiliar with Socrates’ arguing is familiar with Socrates’ exemplary behavior during the military campaign at Delium, and averring that he loves a harmony between a man’s words and deeds, agrees. Since virtue is too large a subject, there is a general agreement to explore just a part of virtue-courage.

Socrates’ first interlocutor is Laches, who, like so many interlocu­tors throughout the dialogues, shows an inability to form definitions. Instead of giving a general definition, he gives a specific instance of courage-sticking to one’s post. After an explanation about the correct way of defining, he understands, and his second definition—an endur­ance of the soul—is much better. Here too, however, there is a problem, for some endurances are wise, others stupid, and if courage be a virtue, the endurance must not be stupid. A foolish endurance is rashness; a wise endurance doesn’t seem at all courageous: if one knows, for example, that he will be victorious or that the odds greatly favor his side, what need is there for courage? Finally, despite Socra­tes’ exhortation to philosophic courage (194A), Laches admits an inability to express himself, still maintaining that he knows what courage is (194B).

Nicias becomes the interlocutor. He claims that courage is the knowledge that inspires fear or confidence in war or anything. Here (195A) and again (e.g., 196B) Laches jumps on Nicias’s response, now chiding Nicias for answering in a silly way with his identification of wisdom and courage, later accusing Nicias of equivocating and refus­ing to admit that he is speaking nonsense.

When Nicias denies that brute creatures, despite their reputation, can actually be courageous (196E), Laches excitedly observes that Nicias is denying the virtues traditionally attributed to the animals. Nicias defends his position by distinguishing between courage and fearlessness; he claims that those whose actions he would admit are courageous, like those of Laches and Lamachus, are wise. The men­tion of Lamachus also resonates, for he was Nicias’s colleague on the ill-fated Sicilian Expedition and met his death by rashly meeting a Syracusan foray (Thucydides 6.101). In case we have forgotten the fate of his cast of characters, Plato, by the addition of the name Lamachus, gently reminds us.

Socrates observes that Laches has learned the distinction between courage and rashness from Damon, a colleague of Prodicus, the sophist famous for making distinctions. Socrates rather easily refutes Nicias by pointing out that if one knows what to fear and hope for (Nicias’ s latest definition of courage), that is, knows what is good or bad in the future, one would similarly know what is good or bad in the past and present. One would, in effect, have a complete knowledge of good and bad and thus possess all of wisdom. By this reasoning, courage would be coextensive with wisdom and virtue instead of merely a part of virtue. Laches points out with relish to Nicias that he has fallen in argument too, and Nicias chides him for taking delight that another has proven as ignorant as he.

The dialogue concludes with Nicias and Laches agreeing that it would be wise for Lysimachus and Melesias to send their children to Socrates for an education. Socrates points out that adults should care first for their own souls and then for the souls of the youths and that one is never too old to go to school. Here he echoes Solon’s remark about growing old learning new things, a remark that has been alluded to twice before in the dialogue (188B and189A). Lysimachus expresses his willingness to go back to school along with the boys and invites Socrates to come to his house on the next day.

Despite the background of failure that pervades the dialogue, there are several elements of farce: the two old men, self-confessed failures, asking two prominent generals for help in raising their sons; Laches’ account about how the fencing master Stesilaus, whom they have all just been watching, once made himself ridiculous fighting with a new­ fangled scythe-spear; the two generals bickering with each other and delighting ungraciously when the other blundered in argument; and finally the image of the elderly Lysimachus-an ancient Rodney Dangerfield—going back to school with his youngsters.

If we were to see this dialogue presented as a little play on the stage, what would we conclude about it? We have generals—generals!—men who have studied the art of warfare, who have participated in actual battles and still cannot define the basic virtue of the soldier. Indeed, they have also revealed an inability to form definitions or to think in a systematic way. What is most startling, I think, is the way in which they bicker with each other, like children, delighting when the other has made a mistake or appeared foolish. Indeed, in argument with Socrates both Nicias and Laches have behaved like little children.

Now surely, if he had wanted, Plato could have chosen as interlocu­tors people whose reputations were not so wholly bathed in failure. That he chose these individuals must have meaning, and that meaning perhaps is that they failed in life because they failed philosophically. Laches had insisted that there be a harmony between words and deeds (188C-D). Yet he himself admits that he cannot put into words what he means by courage (194A-B). Perhaps Plato is suggesting that, yes, there ought to be such a correspondence, but since neither general can adequately put his understanding of courage into words there is an intellectual failing that disrupts that Dorian harmony the generals extol. Perhaps Plato is suggesting to us why these generals failed: their inability to think through the principles of their own art in the conversation with Socrates foreshadows their inability to make the proper decisions later on the battlefield.

Socrates, in his final speech to Lysmachus, says:

… [L]et me offer you a piece of advice-and this need not go farther than ourselves. I maintain, my friends, that every one of us should seek out the best teacher whom he can find, first for ourselves who are greatly in need of one, and then for the youths, regardless of expense or anything. But I cannot advise that we remain as we are. And if anyone laughs at us for going to school at our age, I would quote to them the authority of Homer, who says, ‘Modesty is not good for a needy man.’ Let us, then, regardless of what may be said of us, concern ourselves with our own education and that of the youths, together. (Tr. B. Jowett)

Here, in his challenge to find the best possible teachers, we see an appeal to the audience of the dialogue. The dialogue may very well constitute an advertisement for the Academy. The Laches implicitly warns: find good teachers and learn philosophy properly or you may end up like Laches and Nicias. Thus, despite its tone of failure, the dialogue ends with a note of hope: find good teachers. Readers of the dialogue would know where to enroll for such teachers.^[3]

The dialectical parts of the dialogue will themselves have provided additional incentives for enrollment in the Academy, as various hints and directions have been given to a solution of the problem of courage. Socrates has shown Laches that if one has complete or very great knowledge about a situation, since he feels very little risk, courage is not required. On the other hand, if one knows that he will lose, endurance is foolish and the action is rash, not courageous. With Nicias it has been shown that if courage be a form of wisdom and knowledge, it must somehow not be coextensive with all knowledge, or courage would not be distinct, a separate thing.

In dialogues where various extreme positions are rejected, Plato is, I think, suggesting that the answer lies somewhere in between. Con­cerning courage, the solution is perhaps that it is a mean between knowledge and ignorance. There must be ignorance about the out­ come, about whether the endurance will be successful or unsuccessful; and there must be knowledge that the outcome is uncertain, that is, there must be knowledge that we do not know the outcome. Knowledge about ignorance allows for courageous behavior. In this way, courage is a particularly Socratic virtue.^[4] Now this solution to the problem of courage, hinted at by the failure to reach a conclusion when extreme positions are taken, is not of course worked out fully in the dialogue. Perhaps, had Lysimachus and his son——and Nicias and Laches too—studied with Socrates, they might have reached this and other conclu­sions and been saved.