JimHerranThucydides Spring 2007

The Melian Dialogue and the Problem of Justice

The Melian dialogue reveals two understandings of justice - the Athenian and the

Spartan – and ultimately vindicates the Athenian, not without a certain ambiguity, given

the apparent judgment of Athens as represented by the failure of the Sicilian expedition.

But a close look at the Melian dialogue reveals that it is a scathing criticism of Spartan

(or Melian) justice, not of Athenian hubris; in fact, the Athenians are revealed as selfless

and noble. The problem of justice or right involves teleology, relations of power, the

common good, and the common good distinguished by foreign and domestic policies.

The Spartan understanding of justice is that it is fixed and non-teleological or good in

itself. The Athenian understanding is that it is not fixed: it depends on relations of power;

also, it is teleological or based on considerations of interest – especially safety, but

ultimately the happiness that belongs to the best civilizations. Thucydides vindicates

Athenian justice over Spartan justice. This work does not address the problem of justice

concerning foreign and domestic policies, in which appears to be the link to the failure of

the Sicilian expedition. It suffices to show that the logic within the Melian dialogue

vindicates Athenian justice.

The conflict with Melos takes place in the summer of the 16th year of the war. We

must remember that Melos is a colony of Sparta, but nominally neutral in the war. But we

are told that in reaction to Athenian plundering, they now assumed “an attitude of open

hostility” (5.84.3). Thus, the Athenian’s send an expedition with the clear intent of

subjugating Melos by any means, but “before doing any harm to their land, [the generals]

send envoys to negotiate” (5.84.3). The Melian oligarchs, however, do not allow the

Athenians to speak before the demos. The Athenian envoys begin by saying that they

understand why they are kept from making a speech to the people, and intend to go a step

further. The demos would be swayed by the seductive rhetoric of a set speech; let us not

only be limited by addressing the few, but to be “more cautious still,” and have a

dialogue, free of deceiving and seductive rhetoric (5.85). The Athenians hereby

demonstrate that they intend to be as open as the Athenian speakers at Sparta (1.72-78).

As Laurie M. Johnson says, “the dialogue itself is a denial of the worth of the

explanations, justifications, and ornamentations of rhetoric.”1 Moreover, the assumption

is that the Melian oligarchs will be better persuaded by a dialogue than by speeches, in

which they must fear deception and hypocrisy. We must not hesitate to identify at the

outset the dialogue form with the Athenian thesis and expediency, in contradistinction to

Spartan speeches focused on justice. We are reminded of the parallel conflict between

Sparta and Plataea (2.71-74).

Here we see a striking contrast. We are told that Archidamus, without even a

warning, was about to lay waste the country when the Plataeans hastily sent out an envoy

to plead their case. The weaker instead of the stronger city here seeks negotiations, and

the Plataeans then make a set speech about justice qua justice. “Archidamus and

Spartans,” they say, “in invading the Plataean territory you do what is wrong in itself

[…]” (2.71.2). The Plataeans appeal not to Spartan interest, but to the oaths that were

made during the Persian war that secured Plataean neutrality and to what is right in itself.

1 Laurie M. Johnson, Thucydides, Hobbes, and the Interpretation of Realism, (DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1993), 124.

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The Spartan reply hides all concerns of self interest; Archidamus says it is the Plataeans

who fall short of justice. The grant of Pausanias presupposed that they would always help

in liberating Hellas. Sure they helped against the Mede, but now Athens is the new tyrant

(2.72). The Plataeans are eventually destroyed, but Thucydides tells us explicitly that the

Spartan concern for justice is hypocritical. “The adverse attitude of the Spartans in the

whole Plataean affair was mainly adopted to please the Thebans, who were thought to be

useful in the war at that moment raging” (3.68.4). In this light, not only do we see the

higher nobility of Athenian frankness compared to Spartan hypocrisy, but that the

Athenians, even in this supposed summit of their callousness and cruelty, are truly much

more humane than the Spartans. They go out of their way to attempt to persuade the

Melians to save themselves, when the Spartans never even intended moderation towards

Plataea. As David Bolotin says, the Athenians

showed an extraordinary concern to be worthy of their imperial rule, and to be noble. Indeed, despite appearances to the contrary, their imperialistic thesis itself is in large measure the result of their concern with justice and with nobility […].2

Can the Athenian thesis as such be reconciled in any way to justice, or do the Athenians

simply betray a little bit of human kindness that has nothing to do with their political

principles? Also, does Thucydides, conversely, actually mean to link considerations of

justice qua justice with injustice?

The Melians answer that, given the power with which the Athenians make their

presence, it is evident that there will be war if they “prove to have right on [their] side,”

for they will refuse to submit to slavery. Thus, the Melians assume that the end of the

dialogue will be to discover who is in the right as such (5.86). The Athenians then explain

2 History of Political Philosophy, ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), 19.

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that this dialogue will be about nothing at all if not for the consideration of the Melians’

safety (5.87). It is only at this point that the Athenians explicitly bring up the Athenian

thesis. We recall the exposition of the Athenian thesis by the Athenian envoys at Sparta.

They defend the charge of injustice against the Athenian empire by saying that

it was not a very remarkable action, or contrary to the common practice of mankind [including that of Sparta], if we did accept an empire that was offered to us, and refused to give it up under the pressure of three of the strongest motives, fear, honor, and interest. And it was not we who set the example, for it has always been the law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger (1.76.2).

When the Athenians say that it has always been the law that the weaker should be subject

to the stronger, they don’t mean law as related to proclamation, punishment, and right in

itself, but more like scientists today might speak of the “laws of nature.” Human beings

can’t help but act according to expediency as related to fear, honor, and interest. There is

nothing unjust in looking after the interests of one’s city and, presumably, of one’s self.

Both the Athenians and Thucydides himself tell us that even selfless Sparta, the liberator

of Hellas, acts according to this natural law. What is “remarkable” is that the Athenian

generals at Melos say that the purpose of the dialogue is solely to discuss the safety, not

of themselves, but of the Melians. The Athenians have already thought about their

interest: Melos is to be subdued no matter what; they later explain why it is in their

interest of safety to subdue Melos. The question is whether they serve their own interest

at all in engaging in the dialogue; why not attack Melos directly, as Archidamus had

meant to do in Plataea?

The generals do maintain that it is in Athenian interest not to destroy Melos in 5.93,

but this interest is merely to avoid the trouble of besieging the city. Michael Palmer raises

an important question, “Who has the greater interest in the Melians submitting to avoid

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destruction? The Melians.”3 That is, they ought to have the greater interest. It is not the

issue of Athenian callousness that is shocking, but the Melians’ hard-headed neglect of

their safety. Palmer also explains a difficulty. Why did the Athenian’s have to destroy the

men of Melos when they surrendered? The Athenians had to rely on the threat of force to

try to motivate the Melians into making the right decision.4 Certainly it will not do for

Athens to make the threat of force and not deliver when it comes to it.

There is no question that the destruction of the Melians itself is ultimately

blameworthy and opposed to Thucydides view of justice, especially in view of his

apparent praise of the Athenians in their moderation towards Mytilene and the apparent

punishment of Athens with failure in Sicily. Johnson says that the act of destroying the

Melians “would have been considered cruel and excessive by the standards eventually

arrived at in the Mytilenean Debate.” Likewise, “The Melian Dialogue,” says Johnson,

“is followed by the Sicilian Expedition, in which the Athenians in their hubris go too far.

How could the Melians’ lives have purchased any more meaning?”5 Bolotin says that

Thucydides invites us to view Athens’ defeat as punishment for injustice.6 Johnson goes

as far as to say that the deaths of the Melians “illustrate the failure of the Athenian thesis

when that thesis is taken to its ultimate conclusions.”7 But given Thucydides apparent

agreement with the Athenian thesis, is it not likely that Athens’ failing is not the Athenian

thesis as such? In opposition to Johnson, Strauss says that “the Melians’ resistance to the

Athenians’ demand was a foolish act and the fate of the Melians is therefore not tragic.”8

3 Michael Palmer, Love of Glory and the Common Good (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1992), 67.4 Palmer, 67.5 Johnson, 132,133.6 History, 15.7 Johnson, 133.8 Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), 189.

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We will see that the dialogue is in fact meant to be a criticism by Thucydides of the

Melians more than of the Athenians. The dialogue so far, upon close consideration,

actually puts the Athenians in a very favorable light.

In the next step the Melians acknowledge the terms of the dialogue, but point out

that in their situation they could resort to many different arguments (5.88). This simple

statement actually anticipates the Athenian (and possibly Thucydidean) view of justice

that is about to be revealed. The arguments that the Melians would bring up, of course,

are arguments about justice qua justice, as the Plataeans had used before them. Strauss

comments that “it seems to be the case for right or the appeal to right is made only by

those Thucydidean speakers who are either completely helpless or else unjust.”9 By the

unjust, Strauss refers to the Spartans in general (especially as revealed in their conduct

towards the Plataeans) and Cleon, who appeals to justice in itself in his defense of the

measure to destroy the Mytilineans. The Athenians respond by making it clear that they

have no interest in arguments about the right of their empire or about the wrong they, the

Melians, have done them. Right, say the Athenians, “is only the question between equals

in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” (5.89).

We see now that the question of justice is not altogether relinquished; it has a place in the

Athenian thesis.

The Athenian thesis must not be understood as a denial of the existence or even of

the authority of justice in itself. Certainly, as Johnson says, “There is a fine line between

admitting that neither gods nor men can help themselves and making out of justice an

empty shell.”10 But when the Athenian envoys at Sparta say that no city regards justice

9 Strauss, 190,191.10 Johnson, 131.

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sufficiently to refrain from ruling when given the chance, they intend to show the

difference between self-interest disguised as selfless justice and genuine justice. For they

go on to say that “praise is due to all who, if not so superior to human nature as to refuse

dominion, yet respect justice more than their position compels them to do” (1.76.3).

Palmer says, “The Athenians do not pretend to be more just than they really are and do

not claim that imperialism per se is just. But they believe sincerely that no city behaves

more justly than Athens.”11 The Athenians hold that justice must always be viewed within

the context of power. The observation that the strong rule the weak is not an observation

that might makes right; but the human condition is such that considerations of justice will

often be neglected when the difference in power is great. Only when powers are more or

less equal will both parties, with more frequency, consider justice and the common good.

Under this understanding, Athens’ moderate treatment of her allies by means of impartial

laws (1.77.1), their change of heart about destroying the Mytilineans, and their attempt to

persuade the Melians to save themselves are all examples of genuine justice, to be

paralleled by no other city in the History.

Strauss and Palmer point out an interesting corollary to this understanding of

justice. An important implication [of this argument],” says Palmer,

is that only a strong, ruling city can display its concern for justice unambiguously, because for all other cities exhortations to justice are self-serving, hence suspect. Strength is a requisite for the practice of virtue.12

Strauss elaborates and draws a link to Aristotle’s understanding of virtue. “Just as the

individual,” he says, “the city cannot act nobly or virtuously if it lacks the necessary

11 Palmer, 55.12 Palmer, 55.

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equipment, i.e. power, or, in other words, virtue is useless without sufficient armament.”13

Thus, the contrast between Sparta and Athens is magnified. Never mind Melos and

Plataea and all weak cities that speak about justice; Sparta, whom these Athenian

generals admit to be powerful in Athens’ standard, are conspicuous above all cities, in

their foreign policy, in regarding as noble what is pleasant, and as just what is expedient

(5.105.4).

One may object, however, that this is no justice at all. Gomme argues that the

Athenians deliver here a “sophistic and cynical argument.” It may be a justice befitting a

king of Persia who might be “wise or benevolent as well as capable, but he does not in

the strict sense administer justice, but pardons or punishes, taxes or does not tax,

according to his will, can be generous but not (properly speaking) just […].”14 This is a

fair criticism; the Athenians certainly do not mean, when they say that they act with

justice in these cases, that they act as rulers of a world polis. There remains a distinction

to be made between the Athenian understanding of justice and the Spartan or Melian

understanding.

From 5.90 to the question of hope and the gods in 5.103, the Melians seem to try to

come to grips with the Athenian understanding of justice. The Melians now argue that it

is, in fact, in Athens interest “not to destroy what is our common protection, namely, the

privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right […]” (5.90). Athens

and every other city are fated to weaken and to fall, but Athens’ hubris will draw upon

itself the “heaviest vengeance.” It is notable that the Melians follow Athens’ example in

attempting to vindicate the common understanding of justice by means of expediency,

13 Strauss, 189.14 A.W. Gomme, A.Andrews, K.J. Dover, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, Volume IV (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1970), 163.

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but they make it clear that they are obliged to use this argument. They will appeal again

to justice in itself in 5.94. This shifting by the Melians seems to vindicate the Athenian

point that the weak are compelled to identify justice with their self-interest. The response

of the Athenians is simply to reiterate that they, the Melians, as opposed to the Spartans,

for example, are a weak power. There is no reason to fear that they will be in a position to

punish the Athenians, and why would any other possible conqueror wish to vindicate a

wrong done to the Melians? Whatever city conquers Athens in the future will only think

of its own interest. Speaking of which, the Athenians clarify that they have come here in

the interest of their empire; meaning, Melos will be subdued the easy way or the hard

way. But the common good in this case lies strictly in the preservation of the lives of the

Melians (5.91).

The Melians’ response here should be frustrating in light of what we have

considered: “And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule”

(5.92)? The Athenians simply respond, “Because you would have the advantage of

submitting before the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you” (5.93). As

mentioned above, how is it possible that the Melians are less keen on preserving their

lives than the Athenians are in not taking the trouble to set up a siege? We recall the

frustration of the Athenian envoys at Sparta when they say that generosity always goes

unappreciated. “Men’s indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by

violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being

compelled by a superior” (1.77.4). Perhaps the Melians would have preferred the

Athenians to kill everybody upfront. On the other hand there seems to be something very

noble in the Melians’ refusal to submit to “slavery”. The question is whether it is noble to

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deliver their women and children to true slavery when they had the chance to prevent it.

But this question is addressed in 5.100.

The Melians seem to concede the point, however, because they now make another

appeal to right: the right of neutrality. Why not be friends (5.94)? The Athenians’ answer,

surprisingly, does not mention the “open hostility” of the Melians that prompted the

expedition in the first place; and considering the importance that the Melians themselves

give to their ties with Sparta (5.108), it is hard to see how the Melians can truly be

neutral. The impossibility of being truly neutral in a war that clearly affects all of Hellas

is indicated, for example, by the Theban invasion of Plataea. The Thebans foresaw that

war was at hand and wished to surprise her old enemy (2.2). The indication is that Thebes

necessarily falls into the Spartan side of the conflict. We all must fall on one side or the

other, as Bolotin says, including ourselves, the readers of the History. “Thucydides asks

us to make our own judgments, and then to subject them to the testing that the war

provides.”15 Thucydides himself tells us what side he’s on in the first sentence of the

History. But the Athenians don’t make this answer. They say the Melians’ open hostility

is preferable to their neutrality because the latter would be an indication, to Athens’

allies, of Athenian weakness (5.95). This argument is not so strange if we consider the

Athenian thesis. Athens is the undisputed master of the sea, and a neutral Melos in the

middle of the Aegean stands out like a beacon in the night. It is evident that the allies

would assume that Athens is not strong enough if she does not subject a city that falls

naturally within her’ range of power. Athens was certainly prompted by Melian hostility,

but the Athenian’s here reveal the deeper cause of their expedition; namely, they are

15 History, 8,9.

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applying Diodotus’s policy of protection through careful administration (3.46.4).16 The

Melians seem not to understand the Athenians; perhaps they pretend not to understand.

Why would Athens’ subjects make such an inference if the Melians “have nothing to do”

with Athens, her colonists, and her “conquered rebels” (5.96)? The Athenians repeat their

thesis. If any city maintains independence it is because it is strong, and if any city does

not conquer it is because it is afraid. “Besides extending our empire,” they say, “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 thwarting the

masters of the sea” (5.97). In their last attempt to defend neutrality, the Melians argue

that the Athenians thus make an enemy out of every single neutral power; surely, this is

against their interest; and therefore, the right of neutrality and right itself “happen to

coincide” with interest and expediency (5.98). The Athenians explain once again that the

sea belongs to them; neutral cities in the mainland know it, expect it, and are therefore

not overly concerned about losing their liberty to them and will not take any

precautionary measures (5.99).

Now the Melians finally reveal their virtue or their folly. As Palmer points out, they

grant everything that the Athenians have argued by changing the subject.17 They now say

that they will be cowards if they do not “try everything that can be tried, before

submitting to [Athens’] yoke” (5.100). But as Palmer indicates, if justice depends on

relations of power, so does honor. The contest is not an equal one, say the Athenians,

“with honor 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” (5.101). If the Athenians are in

16 cf. Gomme, 157. Gomme seems to give little importance to the fact that the Melians are openly hostile. He finds “no reason why Athens should attack Melos in 416 rather than in any other year […].”17 Palmer, 68.

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the wrong here, it would never be appropriate to surrender. We begin to see how

dangerous the Melians’ non-teleological view of justice can be, for the right is very much

connected to the honorable. The Melian view of right sets up a false equality upon all

cities, and therefore an unrealistic expectation, armed with honor and shame, on all

weaker cities, to uphold that view of right. The Athenian view of right and honor is

teleological; there are certain ends, like self-preservation, that must be looked to when

determining what is right and what is honorable. Justice is about the good and about the

common good. But we see here that what the common good is between cities depends on

the relation of power. What is just varies in given circumstances, but the ends of justice

always remain the same. The variability of justice is even more striking when we

consider that the common good between and among separate cities must differ with the

common good within a particular city.

The Melians’ attempt to identify their view of justice with the present situation

between themselves and Athens fails because of their unequal circumstances. It is

potentially fatal to Athens’ safety to acknowledge Melian neutrality, which would only

prove to be disingenuous neutrality anyway. But traditional, non-teleological justice

certainly coincides with the common good between cities equal in power and even more

within a city. Johnson says that Thucydides’ account of the Corcyrean revolution reveals,

by way of contrast, what ends ought to be pursued in a city.

The ‘depravity’ Thucydides notes [in the Corcyrean stasis] includes a cruel sophistication that laughs at noble simplicity, the breaking of oaths, the forbearance of true piety while hypocritically masking one’s misdeeds so as not to be ‘worsted in words,’ and contempt of one’s opponents by reason of an overestimation of one’s own with (3.83)18

18 Johnson, 98.

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We see the same example in the description of the plague, as Palmer notes. Thucydides

“indicates what the requisites of a decent human society are by showing us the horror of a

human society lacking them.”19 We learn that fear of the gods, obedience to laws human

and divine, respect for noble sentiments, and moderation and stability are all requisites of

civil society. But Johnson is mistaken in implying that Thucydides view of justice is not

compatible with the Athenian thesis.20

The Melians accept the Athenians’ argument once again. All that is left for them to

argue, if they will not give in to Athens’ demands, is that the Athenians overestimate the

inequality. They say that chance is a great equalizer. “Fortune of war is sometimes more

impartial than the disproportion of numbers might lead one to suppose […]; while action

still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect.” (5.102). The Melians have now

strayed from the real and manifest consideration of power, to hope in immanifest things.

The question of chance prompts the Athenians to bring up the question of oracles. They

try to warn the Melians not to fall into the folly of trusting in hope, which is fatal to the

weak and dangerous to the powerful because “its nature is to be extravagant, and those

who go so far as to stake their all upon the venture see it in its true colors only when they

are ruined” (5.103). But one can have hope in visible things, like aid from Sparta, or

invisible things, like prophecies and oracles; the Athenians warn them against both. The

Melians will now speak of the gods explicitly.

19 Palmer, 32.20 cf. Johnson, 98, 131-133. Johnson argues that Diodotus, while trying to effect a moderate action by the Athenians, unwittingly sets a precedent in foreign policy that is revealed in Melos to be harsh and unjust. The Athenian thesis is revealed to be a failure in Melos. The Palmer holds the opposite view. Diodotus’ policy of careful administration is not an excuse for tyranny; it is moderate because “dictates that the Athenians should rule their empire in a manner that acknowledges that their enemies, too, labor under compulsions” (Palmer, 63).

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The Athenians, they say, are misguided if they think they can vaunt the superiority

of their position because justice is on the side of Melos and the gods favor the just; also,

because justice is on their side, the Spartans will honor their alliance with Melos, if only

for shame (5.104). The Melians are bent on not taking the advice of the Athenian

generals; as Palmer points out, “the Melians view chance as a vehicle of divine

providence […].”21 And justice is not expedient because it naturally brings about good

ends depending on the circumstances, but because the gods reward the just, which

enables justice to be the same in any situation. In their answer, the Athenians base their

view of justice, not on the gods, but on nature. “When you speak of the favor of the

gods,” they say,

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 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 […]. Thus as far as the gods are concerned, we have no fear and no reason to fear that we shall be at a disadvantage (5.105).

What the Athenians say is all in accord with the Athenian thesis as we’ve discussed it.

The Melians have debated in terms of the Athenian thesis all along, attempting to identify

non-teleological justice with expediency. Their final argument, that the gods make justice

expedient, is simply another way to say what they have been clinging to throughout the

dialogue because the gods are the very basis of non-teleological justice. The Athenians,

also, say nothing new; they merely make a space for the gods in their teleological, power-

dependant justice. If the gods exist (as they believe they do) they follow nature.

21 Palmer, 69.

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Regarding the Spartans, the Athenians seem hard put to suppress a chuckle. “Here

we bless your simplicity,” they say, “but do not envy your folly” (5.105). They explain,

as we’ve seen, that the Spartans above all cities look after their own interest in foreign

relations. But the Melians argue that it’s precisely Sparta’s interest not to abandon the

Melians, their colonists, lest they lose the confidence of her allies (5.106); moreover, they

are likely to risk the danger if it means helping their kin (5.108). The Athenians point out

the cautious nature of the Spartans; when they look to their interest, safety is the first

thing on the list (5.107). The Spartans will be motivated to act, not in proportion to the

justice of those who ask for her aid or on the closeness of their blood ties, but in

consideration of her interest and in proportion to the size of the army at her disposal –

that is, on the safety of the expedition – and it is highly unlikely that they’ll risk the

danger of a naval expedition while Athens remains master of the sea (5.109).

The Melians insist. Perhaps the Spartans will send others or, more likely, they

might invade Attica and complete Brasidas’ campaign (5.110). Palmer finds it telling that

in this final hope, the Melians mention Brasidas. “The Melians make the egregious error

of believing that there are other Spartans likes Brasidas, failing to recognize that Brasidas

was ‘a Spartan by mistake.’”22 The Athenians end the dialogue at this point. They ask the

Melians to think it over. The reality is that Athens will subdue Melos the hard way unless

they surrender or unless all their immanifest hopes come true. For their sake, they ask the

Melians to be prudent and to not let a too vague idea of disgrace lead them to true

disgrace. The Athenians conclude pithily:

In too many cases the very men that have their eyes perfectly open to what the are rushing into, let the thing called disgrace, by the mere influence of a seductive name, lead them to a point at which they

22 Palmer, 71.

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become so enslaved by the phrase as in fact to fall willfully into hopeless disaster, and incur disgrace more disgraceful as the companion of error, than when it comes as the result of misfortune […]. And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate toward their inferiors, on the whole succeed best (5.111).

This last sentence sums up the Athenian view of justice: it depends on relations of power

and its purpose is to make a city “succeed best” in every sense. It is even questionable

whether moderation towards inferiors has actually served Athens well. The Athenian

envoys at Sparta suggest that it only makes the inferiors demand more (1.77). Why do the

Athenians bend over backwards for inferiors more than any other city?

The Melians decide to stand with their hope in the gods and Sparta. The Athenians

say that they alone “regard what is future as more certain than what is before [their] eyes,

and what is out of sight, in [their] eagerness, as already coming to pass […]” (5.113). The

Athenians proceed to besiege Melos and in the winter of the same year put to death all

the grown men and sell the women and children as slaves (5.116). We must agree with

Strauss that the fate of the Melians is not a tragedy (in one sense). “One must blush to say

so,” says Strauss, “but one is compelled to admit to oneself that in Thucydides’ view the

Melians’ resistence to the Athenians’ demand was a foolish act and the fate of the

Melians is therefore not tragic.”23 Just as the Athenians had warned, a foolish view of

what is disgraceful will only bring on them true disgrace. But maybe the Melians are

vindicated after all. The Sicilian expedition immediately follows the Melian dialogue,

and Athens did lose the war. Is this presentation not Thucydides implicit teaching,

whether or not the gods punished Athens, that the Melian or Spartan understanding of

justice is ultimately superior and more expedient than the sophisticated and impious

23 Strauss, 189.

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Athenian understanding? The logic of the Melian dialogue itself vindicates Athenian

justice. The Athenians have the right understanding of justice, but we know, for instance,

that in foreign affairs, unlike the Melians, the Spartans act according to Athenian justice

(if less generous to inferior powers) while making a show of Melian justice. Athenian

justice may be correct, but we must recall that there is a place for justice qua justice

within the city and between cities of equal power. The Spartans resolve the conflict

between justice in the city and justice with other cities by lying, by being hypocrites.

What do the Athenians do to resolve the conflict? It is possible that the failure of the

Sicilian expedition is linked to this problem of justice, but in this work we leave it as an

open question.

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