Might is Right: The Melian Dialogue

Exclusive excerpt from How to Think Like Socrates

This is an excerpt from How to Think Like Socrates. You can listen to the audiobook on Audible. The Melian Dialogue provides a notorious example of political brutality, which stands in stark contrast to Socratic ethics. While other intellectuals, such as the Sophists, were encouraging this sort of amoral thinking, Socrates was warning his students that it would lead to disaster for themselves, and for the Athenian Empire.

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In the summer of 416, the Athenians sent a fleet of thirty-eight ships, carrying over three thousand hoplites, to besiege the wealthy island-state of Melos. Though originally colonized by the Spartans, Melos had chosen not to take sides in the recent conflict. The Athenians, in defiance of the Melians’ neutrality, blockaded the main city and laid waste to the surrounding countryside. They wanted to make an example of the Melians that would deter their subject states from rebelling, by showing them how severely they were willing to treat nonmembers of the alliance. Conquering the only major island in the Aegean that was still holding out against them would also secure Athenian naval dominance in the region.

What followed was one of the darkest incidents in the history of Athens’s foreign relations. When the Athenian envoys met with their Melian counterparts, they exhibited a degree of political cynicism and self-interest exceeding even that for which Cleon had been known. The poet Hesiod had written of a hawk who seized a nightingale in his claws. As she wept pitifully, he spoke to his prey, “Foolish bird, why are you crying out?” One far stronger has captured you, he said, and however you struggle, it is up to him whether he lets you go or carries you away for his dinner.

Stupid he who would wish to contend against those stronger than he is:
for he is deprived of the victory, and suffers pains in addition to his humiliations.

The Athenians likewise argued that it is futile for the weak to try to negotiate with the stronger—because might is right. They dropped any pretense that they had been injured and were seeking justice, or had any moral justification whatsoever for the invasion.

The Athenians warned the Melians not to waste their breath saying “we have done you no wrong” and to instead concentrate on negotiating the best terms they could realistically expect in defeat. If they surrendered and paid tribute to Athens, they might live; otherwise, they would face annihilation. You know as well as we do, the Athenians said, that justice, in the real world, is only a matter for discussion between those equal in power. “The strong do what they can,” they added, “and the weak suffer what they must.” The unnamed Athenian politicians leading this campaign, whoever they were, clearly viewed themselves as despots, and foreign subjects as slaves to be cowed by fear.

Having failed to appeal to justice, the Melians sought to persuade the Athenians that aggression was inconsistent with their own nation’s interests. “How can you avoid making enemies,” they said, “of all the other neutral cities, who will conclude that one day you will attack them too?” The Athenians brushed this aside, shortsightedly, saying that they were concerned solely about islands who could give them trouble, among whom Melos was the only remaining neutral state of note.

The Melian envoys said they considered it cowardice for a free state to voluntarily submit its people to a yoke that others had risked so much trying to escape. The Athenians replied that it was no shame to surrender to a superior force but rather dishonorable to attempt a futile battle and lose. The Melians hoped, however, that their cousins, the Spartans, would send aid. Despite facing overwhelming odds, moreover, they told the Athenians they saw themselves as just men fighting against the unjust and that they were willing to put their trust in the gods.

The Athenians replied once more that it was a law of nature and the will of the gods that the strong should rule the weak. On that basis, they did not fear that any god would grant good fortune to their enemies. Nor did they believe that the Spartans would risk helping the Melians. After going away to consider the terms, the islanders sent their response: “Our resolution, Athenians, is the same as it was at first.” They were unwilling to surrender the freedom of a city that had been inhabited for seven centuries. They would put their trust in fortune, the gods, and the hope that Sparta would come to their rescue. They chose to stand their ground and fight.

The Athenian generals began laying siege, blockading the island so that nothing could get in or out. At first the Melians fought back, making daring nighttime raids. However, Spartan assistance never materialized, whereas reinforcements from Athens soon joined the siege. In the winter of 417, after months of famine, the Melians finally surrendered. At the beginning of the war, Athens had shown mercy toward conquered cities such as Potidaea. More than a decade had passed since the demise of Pericles, and the policies of the Assembly had by now grown desperate and the actions of its generals cruel. At Melos, they did what Cleon had been prevented from doing at Mytilene: they enslaved all the women and children and slaughtered every adult male they could find. It would be one of the most notorious genocides in history. The city was handed over to Athenian colonists. The rhetoric of democracy and justice had been replaced with the rhetoric of tyranny and violence.