Strutting Through the Rout
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Alcibiades — Λάχητος τῷ ἔμφρων εἶναι. ἔπειτα ἔμοιγʼ ἐδόκει, ὦ Ἀριστόφανες, τὸ σὸν δὴ τοῦτο, καὶ ἐκεῖ διαπορεύεσθαι ὥσπερ καὶ ἐνθάδε, βρενθυόμενος καὶ τὠφθαλμὼ παραβάλλων, ἠρέμα παρασκοπῶν καὶ τοὺς φιλίους καὶ τοὺς πολεμίους, δῆλος ὢν παντὶ καὶ πάνυ πόρρωθεν ὅτι εἴ τις ἅψεται τούτου τοῦ ἀνδρός, μάλα ἐρρωμένως ἀμυνεῖται. διὸ καὶ ἀσφαλῶς ἀπῄει καὶ οὗτος καὶ ὁ ἑταῖρος— σχεδὸν γάρ τι τῶν οὕτω διακειμένων ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ οὐδὲ ἅπτονται, ἀλλὰ τοὺς προτροπάδην
than Laches in being level-headed. Then it seemed to me, Aristophanes — that very word of yours — he went along there just as here, strutting and his eyes darting, quietly watching out for both friends and enemies, clear to everyone, even from far off, that if anyone should lay a hand on this man, he'd defend himself quite vigorously. And so he and his companion got away safely — for people hardly even touch those so disposed in war, but the ones headlong…
Continuing directly from 221a, where Alcibiades, watching from horseback during the disorderly Athenian retreat from Delium (424 BC), began comparing Socrates' composure to that of the general Laches beside him. This unit completes that comparison and adds the vivid detail — the unhurried, watchful bearing that Alcibiades says is what kept anyone from attacking either man. The sentence breaks off mid-clause and is completed in 221c.
Alcibiades interrupts his own description to hand credit where he thinks it belongs: “that word of yours,” he tells Aristophanes, before calling Socrates’ gait on a collapsing battlefield brenthyesthai, ‘strutting.’ It is a stage word, the kind Old Comedy keeps for a self-satisfied bird or a puffed-up braggart, and it sits oddly next to a man walking through a routed army. The oddity is the point: Socrates crosses the collapse of the Athenian line the same unhurried way he crosses a room at a party, eyes moving between the men on his own side and the men chasing them, and the strangeness of that composure is what keeps anyone from testing it.
The tactical detail that follows carries real weight: in a rout, soldiers cut down the men who run and leave alone the ones who look ready to turn and fight. The companion who gets away beside Socrates here is Laches, the same man Plato later makes the title figure of a dialogue built entirely around defining courage, a definition neither speaker in that conversation manages to reach. Here the definition goes undebated — it is simply a man walking, in full view of both armies, as if nothing were wrong. Alcibiades draws no such conclusion himself; he is still cataloguing Socrates’ oddities, and files this one under nerve rather than wisdom.
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