Just like the Greats.

When I lived on the South Coast of England, a geographical area known for its eccentrics, I had to walk up a narrow dividing alley between my house and my neighbours.  This neighbour kept
a couple of very large and  lean Alsatian dogs.  I would make sure to exit from my house when the dogs were not around.  But one day I misjudged it and the dogs appeared as I hurried along the alley.

They barked and snarled ferociously I turned to face them back against wall and then found that I could not move.  'My God' I thought, I am frozen, my legs wont move. Moments later I disentangled my jacket from the nail in the wall which had been restraining me.

I though of this story while reading of  Demosthenes. Demosthenes not only never held this office, he rarely carried arms. He stands alone in the great gallery of heroes formed by Plutarch’s Lives in having won no battlefield glory; the one time he saw action was at the battle of Chaeronea in 338, where – according to reports accepted by Plutarch  – he threw away his shield and ran from danger, then begged for his life when his cloak caught on a bramble bush and he thought that
his pursuers had caught him up.