Thucydides: The Melian Dialogue: 5.84-116 (416 BCE)The leaders of Melos faced a terrible choice: have their countrymen die as freemen or live as slaves. The powerful Athenian generals and their fleet of thirty-eight shipscarrying heavy infantry and archers waited at the shores of Melos ready for action asthe Melians deliberated.It was 416 BCE, the sixteenth year of the Peloponnesian War but for the last sixyears the two great feuding empires headed by Athens and Sparta (Lacedaemon) hadavoided open hostile action against each other. Ten years into the War they had signeda treaty of peace and friendship; however, this treaty did not dissipate the distrust thatexisted between them. Each feared the others’ hegemonic designs on the Peloponneseand sought to increase its power to thwart the others’ ambitions. Without openlyattacking the other, each used persuasion, coercion, and subversion to strengthen itselfand weaken its rival. This struggle for hegemony by Athens and Sparta was felt mostacutely by small, hitherto “independent” states who were now being forced to take sidesin the bi-polar Greek world of fifth century BCE. One such state was Melos.Despite being one of the few island colonies of Sparta, Melos had remainedneutral in the struggle between Sparta and Athens. Its neutrality, however, wasunacceptable to the Athenians, who, accompanied by overwhelming military and navalpower, arrived in Melos to pressure it into submission. After strategically positioning theirpowerful fleets, the Athenian generals sent envoys to Melos to negotiate the island’ssurrender.The commissioners of Melos agreed to meet the envoys in private. They wereafraid the Athenians, known for their rhetorical skills, might sway the people if allowed apublic forum. The envoys came with an offer that, if the Melians submitted and becamea part of the Athenian empire, their people and their possessions would not be harmed.The Melians argued that by the law of nations they had the right to remain neutral, andno nation had the right to attack without provocation. Having been a free state for sevenhundred years they were not ready to give up that freedom. Thucydides captures theexchange between the Melians and the Athenians in 5.84-116.15.84[1] The next summer Alcibiades sailed with twenty ships to Argos and seized thesuspected persons still left of the Lacedaemonian faction to the number of threehundred, whom the Athenians forthwith lodged in the neighboring islands of theirempire. The Athenians also made an expedition against the isle of Melos with thirtyships of their own, six Chian, and two Lesbian vessels, sixteen hundred heavy infantry,three hundred archers, and twenty mounted archers from Athens, and about fifteenhundred heavy infantry from the allies and the islanders. [2] The Melians are a colony ofLacedaemon that would not submit to the Athenians like the other islanders, and at firstremained neutral and took no part in the struggle, but afterwards upon the Atheniansusing violence and plundering their territory, assumed an attitude of open hostility. [3]Cleomedes, son of Lycomedes, and Tisias, son of Tisimachus, the generals, encampingin their territory with the above armament, before doing any harm to their land, sentenvoys to negotiate. These the Melians did not bring before the people, but bade themstate the object of their mission to the magistrates and the few; upon which theAthenians spoke as follows:-- 5.85Athenians: ‘Since the negotiations are not to go on before the people, in order that wemay not be able to speak straight on without interruption, and deceive the ears of themultitude by seductive arguments which would pass without refutation (for we know thatthis is the meaning of our being brought before the few), what if you who sit there wereto pursue a method more cautious still! Make no set speech yourselves, but take us upat whatever you do not like, and settle that before going any farther. And first tell us ifthis proposition of ours suits you.’5.86The Melians answered:--Melians: ‘To the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you propose there isnothing to object; but your military preparations are too far advanced to agree with whatyou say, as we see you are come to be judges in your own cause, and that all we canreasonably expect from this negotiation is war, if we prove to have right on our side andrefuse to submit, and in the contrary case, slavery.’5.87Athenians: ‘If you have met to reason about presentiments of the future, or for anythingelse than to consult for the safety of your state upon the facts that you see before you,we will give over; otherwise we will go on.’5.88Melians: ‘It is natural and excusable for men in our position to turn more ways than oneboth in thought and utterance. However, the question in this conference is, as you say,the safety of our country; and the discussion, if you please, can proceed in the waywhich you propose.’25.89Athenians: ‘For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences--either ofhow we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Persians, or are nowattacking you because of wrong that you have done us--and make a long speech whichwould not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influenceus by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or thatyou have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the realsentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, isonly in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and theweak suffer what they must.’5.90Melians: ‘As we think, at any rate, it is expedient--we speak as we are obliged, sinceyou enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest--that you should not destroy whatis our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fairand right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to passcurrent. And you are as much interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal forthe heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon.’5.91Athenians: ‘The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival