Kitap 3
1.6
But then that is only a small part of generalship. For a general must also be capable of furnishing military equipment and providing supplies for the men;Cyropaedia I. vi. 14. he must be resourceful, active, careful, hardy and quick-witted; he must be both gentle and brutal, at once straightforward and designing, capable of both caution and surprise, lavish and rapacious, generous and mean, skilful in defence and attack; and there are many other qualifications, some natural, some acquired, that are necessary to one who would succeed as a general.
1.7
It is well to understand tactics too; for there is a wide difference between right and wrong disposition of the troops,ibid. VI. iii. 25. just as stones, bricks, timber and tiles flung together anyhow are useless, whereas when the materials that neither rot nor decay, that is, the stones and tiles, are placed at the bottom and the top, and the bricks and timber are put together in the middle, as in building, the result is something of great value, a house, in fact.
1.8
Your analogy is perfect, Socrates, said the youth; for in war one must put the best men in the van and the rear,ibid. VII. v. 4. and the worst in the centre, that they may be led by the van and driven forward by the rearguard.
1.9
Well and good, provided that he taught you also to distinguish the good and the bad men. If not, what have you gained by your lessons? No more than you would have gained if he had ordered you to put the best money at the head and tail, and the worst in the middle, without telling you how to distinguish good from base coin.I assure you he didn’t; so we should have to judge for ourselves which are the good men and which are the bad.
