CHAPTER XVII.
Sixteenth Year of the War - The Melian Conference - Fate of Melos
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 canand 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 withouttrouble, 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 thatdelude 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.
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