Note 234 — Chapter LXXI · PROCEEDINGS OF THE TEN THOUSAND GREEKS, FROM THE TIME THAT THEY REACHED TRAPEZUS, TO THEIR JUNCTION WITH THE LACEDÆMONIAN ARMY IN ASIA MINOR.
Reading edition
The idea that great pugilists were not good soldiers in battle, is as old among the Greeks as the Iliad. The unrivalled pugilist of the Homeric Grecian army, Epeius, confesses his own inferiority as a soldier (Iliad, xxiii 667).
Ἆσσον ἴτω, ὅστις δέπας οἴσεται ἀμφικύπελλον· Ἡμίονον δ᾽ οὔ φημί τιν᾽ ἄξεμεν ἄλλον Ἀχαιῶν, Πυγμῇ νικήσαντ᾽· ἐπεὶ εὔχομαι εἶναι ἄριστος. Ἦ οὐχ ἅλις, ὅ,ττι μάχης ἐπιδεύομαι; οὐδ᾽ ἄρα πως ἦν Ἐν πάντεσσ᾽ ἔργοισι δαήμονα φῶτα γενέσθαι.