The Retreat from Delium
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Alcibiades — φυγῇ ἀνεχώρει τὸ στρατόπεδον· ἔτυχον γὰρ παραγενόμενος ἵππον ἔχων, οὗτος δὲ ὅπλα. ἀνεχώρει οὖν ἐσκεδασμένων ἤδη τῶν ἀνθρώπων οὗτός τε ἅμα καὶ Λάχης· καὶ ἐγὼ περιτυγχάνω, καὶ ἰδὼν εὐθὺς παρακελεύομαί τε αὐτοῖν θαρρεῖν, καὶ ἔλεγον ὅτι οὐκ ἀπολείψω αὐτώ. ἐνταῦθα δὴ καὶ κάλλιον ἐθεασάμην Σωκράτη ἢ ἐν Ποτειδαίᾳ— αὐτὸς γὰρ ἧττον ἐν φόβῳ ἦ διὰ τὸ ἐφʼ ἵππου εἶναι— πρῶτον μὲν ὅσον περιῆν
In flight the army was retreating — for I happened to be there with a horse, while he carried hoplite arms. So they retreated, the men already scattered — he and Laches together; and I came upon them, and seeing them at once I urged them both to keep their courage, and said I would not abandon them. There indeed I watched Socrates even more closely than at Potidaea — for I myself was less afraid, since I was on horseback — first, how far he surpassed…
Continuing Alcibiades' catalogue of Socrates on campaign — 220e, not yet drafted, closes the Potidaea ἀριστεῖον story — the memory shifts to a second battle: the Athenian retreat from Delium. Alcibiades, mounted, watches Socrates and the general Laches withdraw on foot amid the general rout.
Alcibiades has a horse; Socrates carries hopla, the hoplite's shield and spear. That gap in equipment is a gap in status — cavalry service in Athens went to men who could afford a mount, hoplite service to the wider citizen body — and it explains why Alcibiades can claim, a few lines on, that he watched Socrates kallion, ‘more closely,’ than at Potidaea: a mounted man runs less risk in a rout, so he has the leisure to look. He also casts himself as the one steadying the infantry, urging Socrates and Laches to keep their courage and promising not to abandon them. The claim lands oddly straight after 220d, where he has just finished admitting that no one but Socrates ever saved him in battle; here he auditions, briefly, for the reverse role.
Laches is not a random name to drop into a retreat. He gives his name to Plato's dialogue on courage, and putting him beside Socrates in an actual rout, rather than a debate about one, is its own quiet joke. The sentence breaks off mid-comparison — prōton men hoson periên, ‘first, how far he surpassed…’ — and what completes it in 221b will borrow, almost word for word, the mockery Aristophanes aimed at Socrates in the Clouds: the swaggering walk, the sidelong glance. There it got him laughed at in the street. Here, on a battlefield, the same posture is what keeps a man alive.
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