More Eager Than the Generals
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Alcibiades — ἀνθρώπων ἢ οὗτος, τετρωμένον οὐκ ἐθέλων ἀπολιπεῖν, ἀλλὰ συνδιέσωσε καὶ τὰ ὅπλα καὶ αὐτὸν ἐμέ. καὶ ἐγὼ μέν, ὦ Σώκρατες, καὶ τότε ἐκέλευον σοὶ διδόναι τἀριστεῖα τοὺς στρατηγούς, καὶ τοῦτό γέ μοι οὔτε μέμψῃ οὔτε ἐρεῖς ὅτι ψεύδομαι— ἀλλὰ γὰρ τῶν στρατηγῶν πρὸς τὸ ἐμὸν ἀξίωμα ἀποβλεπόντων καὶ βουλομένων ἐμοὶ διδόναι τἀριστεῖα, αὐτὸς προθυμότερος ἐγένου τῶν στρατηγῶν ἐμὲ λαβεῖν ἢ σαυτόν. ἔτι τοίνυν, ὦ ἄνδρες, ἄξιον ἦν θεάσασθαι Σωκράτη, ὅτε ἀπὸ Δηλίου
of men than this man, who, wounded, refused to leave me, but saved both my armor and me myself. And I, Socrates, urged the generals then too to give you the prize for valor — and this, at least, you won't blame me or say that I'm lying — but in fact, the generals, looking to my rank and wanting to give me the prize, you yourself were more eager than the generals that I should get it, rather than yourself. And further, gentlemen, it was worth seeing Socrates, when from Delium…
Alcibiades finishes the ἀριστεῖον episode begun in 220d: Socrates, though the two of them fought side by side and Alcibiades alone was wounded, refused to let the generals award the prize for valor to anyone but Alcibiades. The unit then pivots, in a single unfinished sentence, to a second exhibit — Socrates at the rout of Delium — which the manuscript breaks off before describing.
Alcibiades closes the ἀριστεῖον story the way a man closes an account: he lists what Socrates did (carried him wounded off the field, weapons and all), what he himself did in return (put Socrates' name forward for the prize), and what the generals did instead (voted for Alcibiades on the strength of his standing, not his conduct). The word he uses for that standing is axiōma — the same root that later gives Greek its word for a logical premise, a thing laid down as worthy of acceptance. Here it means something closer to rank or reputation, the social credit a well-born young Athenian carries into a battle line whether he has earned it that day or not. Socrates, Alcibiades says, was more eager than the generals that the credit go to Alcibiades rather than to himself — a man declining the one prize a soldier is supposed to want.
The move from that scene to Delium is abrupt in the Greek and Alcibiades does not soften it — ἔτι τοίνυν, ὦ ἄνδρες — "and further, gentlemen" — is the entire transition, the phrasing of a man ticking off a second exhibit. It matters that Delium was a rout and Potidaea was not. The trance under the stars showed Socrates doing nothing under no pressure at all; the retreat will show him doing something under the worst pressure there is, an army breaking around him. Alcibiades is building toward that contrast on purpose, and the manuscript breaks off at the name of the place, mid-thought, as if even Apollodorus's memory of the story paused there before the harder scene.
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