Week I: Introduction

Justice Between Nations At War

September 23, 6:00 PM - 7:30 pm

Reading: Thucydides, 5.84-116 (the Melian Dialogue)

The Melian Dialogue is the only conversation Thucydides shows us in his account of the long war between Athens and Sparta (431–404 BC). Melos was a former colony of Sparta that tried to remain neutral in the war, but the Athenians insist it submit to their rule, as the other island nations in the region had. In 416 BC, the Athenians are at Melos with their naval forces, trying to persuade the Melians to surrender without fighting. This takes the form of a private, and hence unusually frank, debate between the Athenian envoys and the Melian leaders—the Melian Dialogue. In it, you see the tremendous brilliance and daring of the Athenians, but also the moral corruption bred by their sophistication. The immediate aftermath of the dialogue is tragic: the enslavement or slaughter of all the inhabitants of a free city, Melos, by an imperial democracy, Athens. On the eve of that terrible deed, the Athenian envoys give one of the most famous and extreme defenses of realpolitik ever made—of a politics governed only by questions of advantage and freed from any consideration of justice (5.89-90).

  • Each side fails to persuade the other. Does that mean they are both wrong? Or can an argument be unpersuasive and true (as it can be persuasive and false, 5.85)? Is there an argument that you think would be persuasive here to either side?

  • The Athenians in general set as a rule for the debate that arguments on justice be excluded, and that only necessity and expediency (or advantage) be considered (5.87, 5.89, 5.98). Do the Athenians consistently maintain this position? Do you think “necessity” or “advantage” adequately explain why they pursue empire? (For example, is the “greatest city in Hellas,” 5.111.4, greatest because it is the best in calculating its advantage? Or “compelled” to be great? Is this what the Athenians, in their hearts, believe greatness to be?)

  • Conversely, when the Melians argue that they have justice on their side, do they understand by justice something fully separable from considerations of advantage or expediency? Why are hope, piety, and faith so decisive for the Melians (5.104, 5.112.2, 5.113)? Are the Athenians free of such considerations? What is the Athenian view of the gods? Are they in any sense pious?

Reading