Thucydides – The Melian Dialogue

More than two thousand years ago, Thucydides described a conversation between a great power and a small island.

The setting is the Peloponnesian War, the long struggle between Athens and Sparta and their allies. In 416 BC, Athens was a powerful naval empire.

Melos was a small island that had tried to remain outside Athenian control. Although the Melians had originally remained neutral, Athens eventually sent a large military force to the island and demanded that Melos submit.

Before fighting, representatives of the two sides met.

What follows is known as the Melian Dialogue.

At first sight, it is a discussion about whether one small island should surrender to a much stronger power.

But the questions quickly become much larger.

What happens to justice when the two sides are not equally powerful?

The Athenians make their position very clear. They do not want to discuss who is morally right or wrong. They believe that such arguments matter only between sides of roughly equal strength.

Their argument is based on power and practical interest.

Athens is stronger. Melos is weaker. The Melians therefore have to consider what they can realistically achieve rather than what they believe they deserve.

For the Athenians, allowing Melos to remain independent would also create a problem for the empire. Other subject states might interpret Athenian tolerance as weakness. Athens therefore sees control of Melos not simply as a question about one island, but as part of maintaining its wider power. The introductory material describes Melos as the only Aegean island then remaining independent of the Athenian empire.

The Melians see the situation very differently.

They ask whether justice, fairness and freedom can simply be ignored because one side is stronger.

They also argue that accepting Athenian rule would mean giving up their independence without resistance. They prefer to hope that they may survive.

This creates one of the central tensions of the dialogue:

Is it wiser to accept an unjust reality or to resist it despite terrible odds?

The Athenians repeatedly warn the Melians against hope.

Hope, they argue, can be dangerous if it is not supported by real power. A strong state may be able to take risks. A weak state risking everything may discover too late that hope was not enough.

The Melians, however, refuse to see their hope as entirely unreasonable.

They believe that justice is on their side. They hope that the gods will favour their cause. They also expect Sparta, with which they have historical and cultural ties, to come to their aid.

The Athenians reject both arguments.

They claim that power has always shaped human behaviour. In their view, those who have the ability to rule generally do so. They even argue that the Melians themselves would probably behave in the same way if they possessed Athenian power.

They are equally sceptical about Sparta.

States, they argue, ultimately act according to their own interests. Friendship, honour, shared history and moral obligations may matter, but the Athenians do not believe the Spartans will take serious risks simply to save Melos.

Here Thucydides raises another question that remains deeply relevant:

Can a small state safely depend on the promises or interests of a stronger ally?

The dialogue therefore presents two very different ways of seeing political reality.

The Athenians emphasise power, calculation, self-interest and survival.

The Melians emphasise justice, independence, dignity and hope.

Neither side persuades the other.

The Melians refuse to surrender.

The consequences are catastrophic.

After a siege, Athens captures Melos. The adult men are killed, the women and children are enslaved, and Athenian settlers are sent to occupy the island.

This ending makes the dialogue deeply uncomfortable.

The Athenians were correct about the immediate balance of power. Melos could not successfully resist them.

But does being correct about power make Athens morally right?

And does the destruction of Melos prove that the Melians were wrong to resist?

These are very different questions.

The wider historical setting adds another dimension. The events at Melos came at an extreme point of Athenian imperial power. Yet Athens would ultimately lose the Peloponnesian War and fall into political and economic crisis.

Power, therefore, is real.

But power is not necessarily permanent.

The Melian Dialogue leaves us with questions that have never disappeared.

Does strength create rights?

Can justice have meaning between unequal powers?

Should weaker states compromise to survive?

Is hope courageous if the chances of success are very small, or can hope become dangerous?

Do powerful states have moral responsibilities precisely because they possess greater power?

And can a policy that appears rational today ultimately weaken the power it is designed to protect?

Perhaps the deepest question is even simpler:

If power tells us what can be done, what tells us what should be done?

Thucydides does not give us an easy answer.

He gives us the arguments.

The judgement remains ours.

• Hera Patiniott, Alumnus, Agora Dialogue
• Dinos Toumazos, Chief Executive Officer, Agora Dialogue