PLATO'S REFERENCE TO LAMACHUS

The only reference to the Athenian general Lamachus in the Platonic corpus is at Laches 197c6 where Nicias compares Laches to him. In response to Laches' criticism that Nicias is embellishing himself with his words (sigma epsilon? ? o?, La. 197c3), and trying to deny that those agreed to be courageous are indeed courageous, Nicias says:<disp-quote> ?upsilon sigma epsilon, ? sigma, ?? epsilon? phi? sigma epsilon epsilon? sigma phi o, ? o epsilon, epsilon?epsilon ?sigma? ?epsilon?, ? ?upsilon sigma epsilon sigma upsilon?sigma ?.(La. 197c6-8) </disp-quote