{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "plato.laches",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/plato/laches/reference-201/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Laches",
    "author": "Plato",
    "date": "c. 399-380 BCE",
    "summary": "Two fathers consult Nicias and Laches about military education for their sons; Socrates returns the decision to a definition of courage. Endurance, knowledge of dangers, and battlefield conduct are tested without a final answer.",
    "learning": "Compare endurance with knowledge of danger, understand why military expertise alone does not define courage, and follow aporia’s educational function.",
    "long_summary": "The generals’ military experience first seems to grant authority, but disagreement shows that professional example is insufficient. Laches identifies courage with endurance, while Nicias calls it knowledge of what should be feared or hoped.\n\nEach definition expands or breaks under cases beyond battle. Aporia does not cancel the educational project: the adults acknowledge their need to learn. The dialogue joins intellectual courage, collective examination, and responsibility toward the next generation.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "Classical Greek world, 5th century BCE",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Bronze, iron, pottery, simple cranes, and shipbuilding sustain cities. Power still comes mainly from people, animals, wind, and water.",
        "science": "Geometry, astronomy, inquiry into nature, and rational argument advance without modern measuring instruments or standardized experiments.",
        "medicine": "Practitioners observe symptoms, diet, and seasons; healing sanctuaries and ritual treatment also remain common.",
        "transport": "Walking and animals dominate on land. Sailing ships and triremes connect islands, ports, and colonies.",
        "agriculture": "Small farms, grain, vines, olives, goats, and sheep shape the diet; harvests remain vulnerable to weather and war.",
        "communication": "Public speech, messengers, and handwritten letters carry news. Theatre, the civic square, and the banquet are major social media.",
        "clothing": "Women and men drape wool or linen as chitons, peploi, and cloaks. Garments are pinned, belted, and shaped by status rather than tailored like modern clothes."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/03-431-bce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Bronze, iron, pottery, simple cranes, and shipbuilding sustain cities. Power still comes mainly from people, animals, wind, and water. Geometry, astronomy, inquiry into nature, and rational argument advance without modern measuring instruments or standardized experiments. Practitioners observe symptoms, diet, and seasons; healing sanctuaries and ritual treatment also remain common."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/03-431-bce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "Walking and animals dominate on land. Sailing ships and triremes connect islands, ports, and colonies. Public speech, messengers, and handwritten letters carry news. Theatre, the civic square, and the banquet are major social media."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/03-431-bce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Small farms, grain, vines, olives, goats, and sheep shape the diet; harvests remain vulnerable to weather and war."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/03-431-bce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Women and men drape wool or linen as chitons, peploi, and cloaks. Garments are pinned, belted, and shaped by status rather than tailored like modern clothes."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "platonism",
        "label": "Socratic and Platonic thought"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "ancient",
        "label": "Antiquity"
    },
    "languages": [
        "grc",
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/plato/laches/representations/grc.ndjson",
            "language": "grc",
            "records": 24,
            "role": "original",
            "sha256": "3a7a027094cb3f17b315eb70a7b239ff02d19962292eadc43ba3765af38ca412",
            "source_id": "perseus-plato-laches-grc"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/plato/laches/representations/en.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 24,
            "role": "historical_translation",
            "sha256": "3ec27e6a4d6f7b08429268f8147a6ac4360f45942d9feb34aecef94ec071bd40",
            "source_id": "perseus-plato-laches-en"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/plato/laches/representations/fr.ndjson",
            "language": "fr",
            "records": 24,
            "role": "historical_translation",
            "sha256": "f6980d758c6f40b83fae37279fdc07c95df3ad02e32d944d6476bab3197efa32",
            "source_id": "wikisource-cousin-laches-fr-01"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "anger",
            "label": "Anger"
        },
        {
            "id": "care_of_soul",
            "label": "Care of the soul"
        },
        {
            "id": "courage",
            "label": "Courage"
        },
        {
            "id": "dialectic",
            "label": "Dialectic"
        },
        {
            "id": "ether_field",
            "label": "Ether and field"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "forms",
            "label": "Intelligible forms"
        },
        {
            "id": "god",
            "label": "God"
        },
        {
            "id": "logos_nature",
            "label": "Logos of nature"
        },
        {
            "id": "mindfulness",
            "label": "Mindfulness"
        },
        {
            "id": "pleasure",
            "label": "Pleasure"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "id": "time",
            "label": "Time"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "plato.laches"
    ],
    "passages": 24,
    "word_count": 11014,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 11014,
        "fr": 10201,
        "grc": 7960
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "plato-stephanus-page-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "stephanus_page",
                "label_fr": "Page Stephanus",
                "label_en": "Stephanus page"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Passage",
        "leaf_en": "Passage"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:plato.laches:201",
    "canonical_ref": "201",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "grc",
            "text": "ΣΩ. ἐμοὶ μὲν οὖν δὴ αὐτῷ δοκεῖ οὐδένα· ἀλλʼ ἐπειδὴ ταῦτα οὕτως ἔχει, σκέψασθε ἄν τι δόξω συμβουλεύειν ὑμῖν. ἐγὼ γάρ φημι χρῆναι, ὦ ἄνδρες —οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἔκφορος λόγος—κοινῇ πάντας ἡμᾶς ζητεῖν μάλιστα μὲν ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς διδάσκαλον ὡς ἄριστον—δεόμεθα γάρ—ἔπειτα καὶ τοῖς μειρακίοις, μήτε χρημάτων φειδομένους μήτε ἄλλου μηδενός· ἐᾶν δὲ ἡμᾶς αὐτοὺς ἔχειν ὡς νῦν ἔχομεν οὐ συμβουλεύω. εἰ δέ τις ἡμῶν καταγελάσεται, ὅτι τηλικοίδε ὄντες εἰς διδασκάλων ἀξιοῦμεν φοιτᾶν, τὸν Ὅμηρον δοκεῖ μοι χρῆναι προβάλλεσθαι, ὃς ἔφη οὐκ ἀγαθὴν Hom. Od. 17.347 εἶναι αἰδῶ κεχρημένῳ ἀνδρὶ παρεῖναι . καὶ ἡμεῖς οὖν ἐάσαντες χαίρειν εἴ τίς τι ἐρεῖ, κοινῇ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν καὶ τῶν μειρακίων ἐπιμέλειαν ποιησώμεθα. ΛΥ. ἐμοὶ μὲν ἀρέσκει, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἃ λέγεις· καὶ ἐθέλω, ὅσῳπερ γεραίτατός εἰμι, τοσούτῳ προθυμότατα μανθάνειν μετὰ τῶν νεανίσκων. ἀλλά μοι οὑτωσὶ ποίησον· αὔριον ἕωθεν ἀφίκου οἴκαδε καὶ μὴ ἄλλως ποιήσῃς, ἵνα βουλευσώμεθα περὶ αὐτῶν τούτων, τὸ δὲ νῦν εἶναι τὴν συνουσίαν διαλύσωμεν. ΣΩ. ἀλλὰ ποιήσω, ὦ Λυσίμαχε, ταῦτα, καὶ ἥξω παρὰ σὲ αὔριον, ἐὰν θεὸς ἐθέλῃ.",
            "edition": "perseus-plato-laches-grc",
            "source_id": "perseus-plato-laches-grc",
            "translation_type": "original"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "Soc. In my own opinion, none of us should; and this being so, perhaps you will allow me to give you a piece of advice. I tell you, gentlemen—and this is confidential—that we ought all alike to seek out the best teacher we can find, first for ourselves—for we need one—and then for our boys, sparing neither expense nor anything else we can do: but to leave ourselves as we now are, this I do not advise. And if anyone makes fun of us for seeing fit to go to school at our time of life, I think we should appeal to Homer, who said that shame is no good mate for a needy man. Hom. Od. 17.347 So let us not mind what anyone may say, but join together in arraging for our own and the boys’ tuition. Lys. I gladly approve of your suggestions, Socrates; and as I am the oldest, so I am the most eager to have lessons with the young ones. Now this is what I ask you to do: come to my house tomorrow at daybreak; be sure not to fail, and then we shall consult on this very matter. For the present, let us break up our meeting. Soc. I will not fail, Lysimachus, to come to you tomorrow, God willing.",
            "translator": "Benjamin Jowett",
            "edition": "perseus-plato-laches-en",
            "source_id": "perseus-plato-laches-en",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "[201a] que nous ne la méritons ni les uns ni les autres. Cela étant, voyez si je ne vais pas vous donner un bon conseil : je suis d’avis, chers Athéniens (et personne n’est là pour nous trahir et divulguer notre secret), que nous cherchions tous ensemble le meilleur maître, premièrement pour nous, qui en avons besoin, et ensuite pour ces jeunes gens, sans épargner pour cela ni soin ni dépense ; car de rester dans l’état où nous sommes, c’est ce que je ne puis conseiller. Si quelqu’un se moque de nous, [201b] de ce qu’à notre âge nous prenons encore des maîtres, alors, je pense, il faudra nous mettre à l’abri sous l’autorité d’Homère, qui dit en quelque endroit : la honte n’est pas bonne à qui est dans l’indigence. Et sans faire attention à ceux qui pourraient y trouver à redire, nous aurons soin de nous et de ces enfans. LYSIMAQUE. Ce que tu dis là me plaît, Socrate, et pour moi, si je suis le plus vieux, je veux être aussi le plus empressé à m’instruire en même temps que ces jeunes gens. Fais-moi donc ce plaisir, et viens chez moi demain matin [201c] sans faute, afin que nous avisions aux moyens d’exécuter ce que nous avons résolu. maintenant il est temps de nous séparer. SOCRATE. Je n’y manquerai pas, Lysimaque, et demain j’irai chez toi de bonne heure, s’il plaît à Dieu. Notes [modifier]",
            "translator": "Victor Cousin",
            "edition": "wikisource-cousin-laches-fr-01",
            "source_id": "wikisource-cousin-laches-fr-01",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        }
    ],
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}