The next summer Alcibiades sailed with twenty ships to Argos and seized the suspected
persons still left of the Lacedaemonian faction to the number of three hundred, whom the
Athenians forthwith lodged in the neighbouring islands of their empire. The Athenians also
made an expedition against the isle of Melos with thirty ships of their own, six Chian, and
two Lesbian vessels, sixteen hundred heavy infantry, three hundred archers, and twenty
mounted archers from Athens, and about fifteen hundred heavy infantry from the allies and
the islanders. The Melians are a colony of Lacedaemon that would not submit to the
Athenians like the other islanders, and at first remained neutral and took no part in the
struggle, but afterwards upon the Athenians using violence and plundering their territory,
assumed an attitude of open hostility. Cleomedes, son of Lycomedes, and Tisias, son of
Tisimachus, the generals, encamping in their territory with the above armament, before
doing any harm to their land, sent envoys to negotiate. These the Melians did not bring
before the people, but bade them state the object of their mission to the magistrates and
the few; upon which the Athenian envoys spoke as follows:
Athenians. Since the negotiations are not to go on before the people, in order that we
may not be able to speak straight on without interruption, and deceive the ears of the
multitude by seductive arguments which would pass without refutation (for we know that
this is the meaning of our being brought before the few), what if you who sit there were to
pursue a method more cautious still? Make no set speech yourselves, but take us up at
whatever you do not like, and settle that before going any farther. And first tell us if this
proposition of ours suits you.
The Melian commissioners answered:
Melians. To the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you propose there is nothing
to object; but your military preparations are too far advanced to agree with what you say,
as we see you are come to be judges in your own cause, and that all we can reasonably
expect from this negotiation is war, if we prove to have right on our side and refuse to
submit, and in the contrary case, slavery.
Athenians. If you have met to reason about presentiments of the future, or for anything
else 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.
Melians. It is natural and excusable for men in our position to turn more ways than one
both 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 way which you
propose.
Athenians. For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences- either of how
we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you
because of wrong that you have done us- and make a long speech which would not be
believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that
you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no
wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you
know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in
power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
Melians. As we think, at any rate, it is expedient- we speak as we are obliged, since you
enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest- that you should not destroy what is our
common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and
right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to pass current.
And you are as much interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the
heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon.
Athenians. The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival empire like
Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the
vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers. This,
however, is a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show you that we
are come here in the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what we are now going
to say, for the preservation of your country; as we would fain exercise that empire over
you without trouble, and see you preserved for the good of us both.
Melians. And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule?
Athenians. Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the
worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.
Melians. So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies,
but allies of neither side.
Athenians. No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an
argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.
Melians. Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with
you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some
conquered rebels?
Athenians. As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that if
any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not molest
them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain in
security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others
rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of the
sea.
Melians. But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate?
For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey your
interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide.
How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at case from it
that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater the
enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise
have never thought of it?
Athenians. Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm; the liberty
which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is rather islanders
like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke, who would be
the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious danger.
Melians. Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to get rid
of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free not to try
everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke.
Athenians. Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with honour
as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not
resisting those who are far stronger than you are.
Melians. But we know that the fortune of war is sometimes more impartial than the
disproportion of numbers might lead one to suppose; to submit is to give ourselves over to
despair, while action still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect.
Athenians. Hope, danger's comforter, may be indulged in by those who have abundant
resources, if not without loss at all events without ruin; but its nature is to be extravagant,
and those who go so far as to put their all upon the venture see it in its true colours only
when they are ruined; but so long as the discovery would enable them to guard against it, it
is never found wanting. Let not this be the case with you, who are weak and hang on a
single turn of the scale; nor be like the vulgar, who, abandoning such security as human
means may still afford, when visible hopes fail them in extremity, turn to invisible, to
prophecies and oracles, and other such inventions that delude men with hopes to their
destruction.
Melians. You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of contending
against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the gods may
grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that
what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians, who are
bound, if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred. Our confidence,
therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational.
Athenians. When you speak of the favour of the gods, we may as fairly hope for that as
yourselves; neither our pretensions nor our conduct being in any way contrary to what men
believe of the gods, or practise among themselves. Of the gods we believe, and of men we
know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as
if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing
before us, and shall leave it to exist for ever after us; all we do is to make use of it,
knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the
same as we do. Thus, as far as the gods are concerned, we have no fear and no reason to
fear that we shall be at a disadvantage. But when we come to your notion about the
Lacedaemonians, which leads you to believe that shame will make them help you, here we
bless your simplicity but do not envy your folly. The Lacedaemonians, when their own
interests or their country's laws are in question, are the worthiest men alive; of their
conduct towards others much might be said, but no clearer idea of it could be given than
by shortly saying that of all the men we know they are most conspicuous in considering
what is agreeable honourable, and what is expedient just. Such a way of thinking does not
promise much for the safety which you now unreasonably count upon.
Melians. But it is for this very reason that we now trust to their respect for expediency to
prevent them from betraying the Melians, their colonists, and thereby losing the confidence
of their friends in Hellas and helping their enemies.
Athenians. Then you do not adopt the view that expediency goes with security, while
justice and honour cannot be followed without danger; and danger the Lacedaemonians
generally court as little as possible.
Melians. But we believe that they would be more likely to face even danger for our sake,
and with more confidence than for others, as our nearness to Peloponnese makes it easier
for them to act, and our common blood ensures our fidelity.
Athenians. Yes, but what an intending ally trusts to is not the goodwill of those who ask
his aid, but a decided superiority of power for action; and the Lacedaemonians look to this
even more than others. At least, such is their distrust of their home resources that it is only
with numerous allies that they attack a neighbour; now is it likely that while we are masters
of the sea they will cross over to an island?
Melians. But they would have others to send. The Cretan Sea is a wide one, and it is
more difficult for those who command it to intercept others, than for those who wish to
elude them to do so safely. And should the Lacedaemonians miscarry in this, they would
fall upon your land, and upon those left of your allies whom Brasidas did not reach; and
instead of places which are not yours, you will have to fight for your own country and your
own confederacy.
Athenians. Some diversion of the kind you speak of you may one day experience, only to
learn, as others have done, that the Athenians never once yet withdrew from a siege for
fear of any. But we are struck by the fact that, after saying you would consult for the safety
of your country, in all this discussion you have mentioned nothing which men might trust in
and think to be saved by. Your strongest arguments depend upon hope and the future, and
your actual resources are too scanty, as compared with those arrayed against you, for you
to come out victorious. You will therefore show great blindness of judgment, unless, after
allowing us to retire, you can find some counsel more prudent than this. You will surely not
be caught by that idea of disgrace, which in dangers that are disgraceful, and at the same
time too plain to be mistaken, proves so fatal to mankind; since in too many cases the very
men that have their eyes perfectly open to what they are rushing into, let the thing called
disgrace, by the mere influence of a seductive name, lead them on to a point at which they
become so enslaved by the phrase as in fact to fall wilfully into hopeless disaster, and incur
disgrace more disgraceful as the companion of error, than when it comes as the result of
misfortune. This, if you are well advised, you will guard against; and you will not think it
dishonourable to submit to the greatest city in Hellas, when it makes you the moderate
offer of becoming its tributary ally, without ceasing to enjoy the country that belongs to
you; nor when you have the choice given you between war and security, will you be so
blinded as to choose the worse. And it is certain that those who do not yield to their
equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on
the whole succeed best. Think over the matter, therefore, after our withdrawal, and reflect
once and again that it is for your country that you are consulting, that you have not more
than one, and that upon this one deliberation depends its prosperity or ruin.
The Athenians now withdrew from the conference; and the Melians, left to themselves,
came to a decision corresponding with what they had maintained in the discussion, and
answered: "Our resolution, Athenians, is the same as it was at first. We will not in a
moment deprive of freedom a city that has been inhabited these seven hundred years; but
we put our trust in the fortune by which the gods have preserved it until now, and in the
help of men, that is, of the Lacedaemonians; and so we will try and save ourselves.
Meanwhile we invite you to allow us to be friends to you and foes to neither party, and to
retire from our country after making such a treaty as shall seem fit to us both."
Such was the answer of the Melians. The Athenians now departing from the conference
said: "Well, you alone, as it seems to us, judging from these resolutions, regard what is
future as more certain than what is before your eyes, and what is out of sight, in your
eagerness, as already coming to pass; and as you have staked most on, and trusted most
in, the Lacedaemonians, your fortune, and your hopes, so will you be most completely
deceived."
The Athenian envoys now returned to the army; and the Melians showing no signs of
yielding, the generals at once betook themselves to hostilities, and drew a line of
circumvallation round the Melians, dividing the work among the different states.
Subsequently the Athenians returned with most of their army, leaving behind them a certain
number of their own citizens and of the allies to keep guard by land and sea. The force
thus left stayed on and besieged the place.
About the same time the Argives invaded the territory of Phlius and lost eighty men cut off
in an ambush by the Phliasians and Argive exiles. Meanwhile the Athenians at Pylos took
so much plunder from the Lacedaemonians that the latter, although they still refrained from
breaking off the treaty and going to war with Athens, yet proclaimed that any of their
people that chose might plunder the Athenians. The Corinthians also commenced hostilities
with the Athenians for private quarrels of their own; but the rest of the Peloponnesians
stayed quiet. Meanwhile the Melians attacked by night and took the part of the Athenian
lines over against the market, and killed some of the men, and brought in corn and all else
that they could find useful to them, and so returned and kept quiet, while the Athenians
took measures to keep better guard in future.
Summer was now over. The next winter the Lacedaemonians intended to invade the
Argive territory, but arriving at the frontier found the sacrifices for crossing unfavourable,
and went back again. This intention of theirs gave the Argives suspicions of certain of their
fellow citizens, some of whom they arrested; others, however, escaped them. About the
same time the Melians again took another part of the Athenian lines which were but feebly
garrisoned. Reinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under the
command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the siege was now pressed vigorously; and some
treachery taking place inside, the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who
put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for
slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists and inhabited the place
themselves.
