Kitap 3
2
It is this citizen courage which inspires the heroes portrayed by Homer, like Diomede and Hector: Polydamas will be the first to flout me;Hom. Il. 22.100 ( Hector)—Alas, should I retire within the gates, Polydamas, . . . and Diomede says Hector will make his boast at Troy hereafter: “By me was Tydeus’ son . . .”Hom. Il. 8.148—By me was Tydeus’s son routed in flight Back to the ships.
3
This type of courage most closely resembles the one described before, because it is prompted by a virtue, namely the sense of shame,For this emotion see 2.7.14, 4.9.1, where it is said not to be, strictly speaking, a virtue. and by the desire for something noble, namely honor, and the wish to avoid the disgrace of being reproached.
4
The courage of troops forced into battle by their officers may be classed as of the same type, though they are inferior inasmuch as their motive is not a sense of shame but fear, and the desire to avoid not disgrace but pain. Their masters compel them to be brave, after Hector’s fashion: Let me see any skulking off the field— He shall not save his carcase from the dogs!Hom. Il. 2.391, but the words are Agamemnon’s, and are slightly different in our Homer.
5
The same is done by commanders who draw up their troops in front of them and beat them if they give ground, or who form them in line with a trench or some other obstacle in the rear; all these are using compulsion. A man ought not to be brave because he is compelled to be, but because courage is noble.
