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.