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 whatever study or pursuit will give them an advantage over others in war. And if they have overlooked it, at any rate these teachers of it cannot have overlooked the obvious fact that the Lacedaemonians are more intent on such matters than any of the Greeks, and that anybody who won honour among them for this art would amass great riches elsewhere, just as a tragic poet does who has won honor among us. And for this reason he who thinks himself a good writer of tragedy does not tour round with his show in a circuit of the outlying Attic towns, but makes a straight line for this place and exhibits to our people, as one might expect. But I notice that these fighters in armour regard Lacedaemon as holy ground where none may tread, and do not step on it even with the tips of their toes, but circle round it and prefer to exhibit to any other people, especially to those who would themselves admit that they were inferior to many in the arts of war. Furthermore, Lysimachus, I have come across more than a few of these persons in actual operations, and I can see their quality. Indeed, we can estimate it offhand: for, as though it were of set purpose, not one of these experts in arms has ever yet distinguished himself in war. And yet in all the other arts, the men who have made a name are to be found among those who have specially pursued one or other of them; while these persons, apparently, stand out from the rest in this particularly hapless fate of their profession. Why, this man Stesilaus, whom you watched with me in that great crowd as he gave his performance and spoke in those high terms of himself before us, I have watched elsewhere giving a finer entertainment in the form of a very real display that he made against his will. The ship on which he was serving struck a transport vessel, and he was using in the fight a combination of a scythe and a spear—a remarkable weapon that suited so remarkable a man. Well, the story of this fellow’s doings is hardly of enough interest in the main, but you must hear the upshot of his device of a scythe fixed to a spear. As he was fighting, it stuck somehow in the other ship’s rigging, and held fast; so Stesilaus pulled at it in the hope of getting it free, but he could not, and the ships were passing by each other.