the melean dialogue 416 BC by thiddies the next summer alabid sailed with 20 ships to Argos and seized the suspected persons still left of the lonian faction to the number of 300 whom the Athenians forth with lodged in the neighboring islands of their empire the Athenians also made an expedition against the Isle of mos with 30 ships of their own six Chen and two lesbian vessels 1600 heavy infantry 300 archers 20 mounted archers from Athens and about 1500 heavy infantry from the allies and the Islanders the melians are a colony of lassad Damon that would not submit to the Athenians like the other Islanders at first it remained neutral and took no part in the struggle but afterwards upon the Athenians using violence and plundering the territory assumed an attitude of open hostility cleomedes son of lydes and tus son of tisy Marcus 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 B them State the object of their mission to the magistrates and the few upon which the Athenian Envoy 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 reputation 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 for yourselves but take us up at whatever you do not like and settle that before going any further and first tell us if this proposition of ours suits you the melian Commissioners answered to the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you propose there is nothing to object but your military preparations are far too advanced to agree with what you say as we see you are come to be judges in your own cause if we prove to have right on our side and refuse to submit and in which country case slavery Athenians if you have met to reason about presentiments of the future or 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 Millions 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 should will not trouble you with specious pretenses either of how we have a right to our Empire because we overthrew the me or are now attacking you because of a wrong you have done to us and make a long speech which would not be believed in return we hope that you instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the lonians although they're 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 Millions 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 even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to past current and you are as much interested in this as any as your fall would be a signal to the heaviest Vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon Athenians the end of our Empire if it should end does not frighten us a rival Empire like Lass Damon even if lassad Damon 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 for 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 millions and how pray could it turn out as good for us to serve you 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 Millions so that you would not consent to being our neutral friends of instead of enemies but allies of neither side Athenians no your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness and your emnity of our power Millions is that your subject's 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 that one has as much of it as the other and that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong and if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid so that besides extending our Empire we should gain 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 Millions 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 then we must also 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 the case from that it one day or another you will attack them and what is this but to make greater the enemies you have already and to force others to become so who would otherwise have never have 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 the themselves and us into obvious danger milons well then if you risk so much to retain your Empire and your subjects to get rid of it it was 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're well advised the contest not being an equal one with honor as the prize and shame as the penalty but question of self-preservation and of not resisting those who are far stronger than you are milons but we know that the fortune of war is sometimes more impartial than the disproportionate 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 the dangerous 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 colors only when they are ruined but for so long as the discovery would enable them to guard against it it is never found wanting let this not be the case with you who are weak and hang on the 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 to oracles and to other such inventions that delude men with hopes to their destruction Millions 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 as Fortune as good as yours since we are just men fighting against unjust and that what we want in power will be made up for by the alliance of the lacedemonians 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 favor 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 practice amongst 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 ever after us all we do is to make use of it knowing that you and everyone 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 to disadvantage but when we come to your notion about the lass of demoni which leads you to believe that shame will make them help you here we bless your Simplicity but do not envy your folly the lacedemonians when their own interests or their country's laws are in question of 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 all of the men we know they are the most conspicuous in considering what agreement is Honorable and what expedient is just such a way of thinking does not promise much for the safety that you now under reasonably count upon Millions but it is for this very reason that we now trust to their respect for expediency to prevent them from betraying the melons their colonists and thereby losing the confidence of their friends in helas and helping their enemies Athenians then you do not adopt the view that expediency goes with security while Justice and honor cannot be followed without danger and danger the lonians generally caught as little as possible milons but we believe they would be more likely to face even danger for our sake and with more confidence than for others as our nearness to the ppines 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 lonians look to this even more than others at least such as their distrust of their home resources that it is only with numerous allies that they attack a neighbor now it is likely that while we are the masters of the sea will they ever cross over to an island Millions but they would have others to send the creeton sea is a wide one 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 lassard demoni miscarry in this they would fall upon your land and upon those left of your allies whom Bradas 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 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 AR raay 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 find some counsel more prudent than this you will surely not be caught by the idea of disgrace which in dangers that are disgraceful and at the same time too plain to be mistaken Pro so fatal to mankind since in too many cases the very men that have had their eyes perfectly open to what they're rushing into let the thing called disgrace by the mere influence of a seductive name lead them on to a point at which they have become so enslaved by the phrase as to in fact fall willfully 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 dishonorable to submit to the greatest City in Hass 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 to 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 moderates 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 your country that you are Consulting that you have not more than one and 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 700 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 lacedemonians and so we will try and save ourselves meanwhile we invite you to allow us to be friends to you and foes to NE the 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 milons the Athenians now departing from the conference said well you alone 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 as you have staked most on and trusted most in the lonians your fortune and your hopes so will you be most completely deceived the Athenian now returned to the Army and the melons showing no signs of yielding the generals at once betook themselves to hostilities and drew a line of circumvallation around the melons dividing the work among many of the different states subsequently the Athenians returned with most of their army leaving behind 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 phus and lost 80 men cut off in an ambush by the thasians and the argive Exiles meanwhile the Athenians at pilos took so much plunder from the lacedemonians 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 choose might plunder the Athenians the Corinthians also commenced hostilities with the Athenians for private quarrels of Their Own but the rest of the pelian stayed quiet meanwhile the melians attacked by night and took part of the Athenian lines over against the market and killed some of the men and brought in corn and all else they could find useful to them and so returned and kept quiet while the Athenians took measures to keep a better guard in future summer was over now the next winter the lacedemonians intended to invade the argive territory but arriving at the front here found sacrifices for crossing unfavorable and went back again this intention of theirs gave the argive suspicions of certain of their fellow citizens some of whom they arrested others however escaped 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 Demus 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 500 colonists and inhabited the place themselves