Much consideration and many regulations are necessary about military expeditions; the great principal of all is that no one, male or female, in war or peace, in great matters or small, shall be without a commander.  Whether men stand or walk, or drill, or pursue, or retreat, or wash, or eat, they should all act together and in obedience to orders.  We should practise from our youth upwards the habits of command and obedience.  All dances, relaxations, endurances of meats and drinks, of cold and heat, and of hard couches, should have a view to war, and care should be taken not to destroy the natural covering and use of the head and feet by wearing shoes and caps; for the head is the lord of the body, and the feet are the best of servants.  The soldier should have thoughts like these; and let him hear the law:—­He who is enrolled shall serve, and if he absent himself without leave he shall be indicted for failure of service before his own branch of the army when the expedition returns, and if he be found guilty he shall suffer the penalty which the courts award, and never be allowed to contend for any prize of valour, or to accuse another of misbehaviour in military matters.  Desertion shall also be tried and punished in the same manner.  After the courts for trying failure of service and desertion have been held, the generals shall hold another court, in which the several arms of the service will award prizes for the expedition which has just concluded.  The prize is to be a crown of olive, which the victor shall offer up at the temple of his favourite war God...In any suit which a man brings, let the indictment be scrupulously true, for justice is an honourable maiden, to whom falsehood is naturally hateful.  For example, when men are prosecuted for having lost their arms, great care should be taken by the witnesses to distinguish between cases in which they have been lost from necessity and from cowardice.  If the hero Patroclus had not been killed but had been brought back alive from the field, he might have been reproached with having lost the divine armour.  And a man may lose his arms in a storm at sea, or from a fall, and under many other circumstances.  There is a distinction of language to be observed in the use of the two terms, ‘thrower away of a shield’ (ripsaspis), and ’loser of arms’ (apoboleus oplon), one being the voluntary, the other the involuntary relinquishment of them.  Let the law then be as follows:—­If any one is overtaken by the enemy, having arms in his hands, and he leaves them behind him voluntarily, choosing base life instead of honourable death, let justice be done.  The old legend of Caeneus, who was changed by Poseidon from a woman into a man, may teach by contraries the appropriate punishment.  Let the thrower away of his shield be changed from a man into a woman—­that is to say, let him be all his life out of danger, and never again be admitted by any commander into the ranks of his army; and let him pay a heavy fine according to his class.  And any commander who permits him to serve shall also be punished by a fine.