[404a]
“Perhaps.” “Nay,” said I,
“that is a drowsy habit and precarious for health. Don't you
observe that they sleep away their lives,1 and that
if they depart ever so little from their prescribed regimen these athletes
are liable to great and violent diseases?” “I
do.” “Then,” said I, “we need some
more ingenious form of training for our athletes of war, since these must be
as it were sleepless hounds, and have the keenest possible perceptions of
sight and hearing, and in their campaigns undergo many changes2
[404b]
in their drinking water, their food, and
in exposure to the heat of the sun and to storms,3
without disturbance of their health.” “I think
so.” “Would not, then, the best gymnastics be akin to
the music that we were just now describing?” “What do
you mean?” “It would be a simple and flexible4 gymnastic, and especially so in the training for
war.” “In what way?” “One could
learn that,” said I, “even from Homer.5 For you are aware that in the banqueting of the heroes
on campaign he does not
[404c]
feast them on
fish,6 nor on boiled meat, but only on roast, which is what soldiers
could most easily procure. For everywhere, one may say, it is of easier
provision to use the bare fire than to convey pots and pans7 along.”
“Indeed it is.” “Neither, as I believe, does
Homer ever make mention of sweet meats. Is not that something which all men
in training understand—that if one is to keep his body in good
condition he must abstain from such things altogether?”
“They are right,”
[404d]
he
said, “in that they know it and do abstain.”
“Then, my friend, if you think this is the right way, you
apparently do not approve of a Syracusan table8 and Sicilian variety of made dishes.”
“I think not.” “You would frown, then, on a
little Corinthian maid as the chère
amie of men who were to keep themselves fit?”
“Most certainly.” “And also on the seeming
delights of Attic pastry?” “Inevitably.”
“In general, I take it, if we likened that kind of food and
regimen to music and song expressed in the pan-harmonic mode and
[404e]
in every variety of rhythm it would be a fair
comparison.” “Quite so.” “And here
variety engendered licentiousness, did it not, but here disease? While
simplicity in music begets sobriety in the souls, and in gymnastic training
it begets health in bodies.” “Most true,” he
said. “And when licentiousness
1 Cf.Ἐράσται132 Cκαθεύδων πάντα τὸν βίον. Xenophanes, Euripides, Aristotle, and the medical writers, like Plato, protest against the exaggerated honor paid to athletes and the heavy sluggishness induced by overfeeeding and overtraining.
2 Laws 797 D. Cf. 380 E. Aristotle's comment on μεταβολή, Eth. Nic. 1154 b 28 ff., is curiously reminiscent of Plato, includiong the phrase ἁπλῆ οὐδ᾽ ἐπιεικής.
3 Perhaps in the context “cold.”
4 Literally “equitable,” if we translate ἐπιεικής by its later meaning, that is, not over-precise or rigid in conformity to rule. Adam is mistaken in saying that ἐπιεικής is practically synonymous with ἀγαθή. It sometimes is, but not here. Cf. Plutarch, De san. 13ἀκριβὴς . . . καὶ δι᾽ ὄνυχος.
5 So Laws 706 D. The καί is perhaps merely idiomatic in quotation.
6 Homer's ignoring of fish diet, except in stress of starvation, has been much and idly discussed both in antiquity and by modern scholars. Modern pseudo-science has even inferred from this passage that Plato placed a “taboo” on fish, though they are at the sea-side on the Hellespont, which Homer calls “fish-teeming,”Iliad ix. 360.
7 Cf. Green, History of English People, Book II. chap. ii., an old description of the Scotch army: “They have therefore no occasion for pots and pans, for they dress the flesh of the catlle in their skins after they have flayed them,” etc. But cf. Athenaeus, i. 8-9 (vol. i. p. 36 L.C.L.), Diogenes Laertius viii. 13ὥστε εὐπορίστους αὐτοῖς εἶναι τὰς τροφάς.
8 Proverbial, like the “Corinthian maid” and the “Attic pastry.” Cf. Otto, Sprichw. d. Rom. p. 321, Newman, Introduction to Aristotle's Politics, p. 302. Cf. also Phaedrus 240 B.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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