[182e]
if this skill in arms is an accomplishment, as they say who teach it, and as Nicias terms it, it ought to be learnt; while if it is not an accomplishment, and those who promise to give it are deceiving us, or if it is an accomplishment, but not a very important one, what can be the good of learning it? I speak of it in this way from the following point of view: I conceive that if there were anything in it, it would not have been overlooked by the Lacedaemonians, whose only concern in life is to seek out and practise
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 8 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1955.
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