Book 5
Which let not be your own case, you that are but weak and have no more but this one stake. Nor be you like unto many men, who, though they may presently save themselves by human means, will yet, when upon pressure of the enemy their most apparent hopes fail them, betake themselves to blind ones, as divination, oracles, and other such things which with hopes destroy men.
Mel. We think it, you well know, a hard matter for us to combat your power and fortune, unless we might do it on equal terms. Nevertheless we believe that, for fortune, we shall be nothing inferior, as having the gods on our side, because we stand innocent against men unjust; and for power, what is wanting in us will be supplied by our league with the Lacedaemonians, who are of necessity obliged, if for no other cause, yet for consanguinity's sake and for their own honour, to defend us. So that we are confident, not altogether so much without reason as you think.
Ath. As for the favour of the gods, we expect to have it as well as you; for we neither do nor require anything contrary to what mankind hath decreed, either concerning the worship of the gods or concerning themselves.
For of the gods we think according to the common opinion; and of men, that for certain by necessity of nature they will everywhere reign over such as they be too strong for. Neither did we make this law nor are we the first that use it made; but as we found it, and shall leave it to posterity for ever, so also we use it, knowing that you likewise, and others that should have the same power which we have, would do the same.
So that forasmuch as toucheth the favour of the gods, we have in reason no fear of being inferior. And as for the opinion you have of the Lacedaemonians, in that you believe they will help you for their own honour, we bless your innocent minds, but affect not your folly.
For the Lacedaemonians, though in respect of themselves and the constitutions of their own country they are wont for the most part to be generous; yet in respect of others, though much might be alleged, yet the shortest way one might say it all thus: that most apparently of all men, they hold for honourable that which pleaseth, and for just that which profiteth. And such an opinion maketh nothing for your now absurd means of safety.
Mel. Nay, for this same opinion of theirs, we now the rather believe that they will not betray their own colony, the Melians, and thereby become perfidious to such of the Grecians as be their friends and beneficial to such as be their enemies.
Ath. You think not, then, that what is profitable must be also safe, and that which is just and honourable must be performed with danger, which commonly the Lacedaemonians are least willing of all men to undergo [for others].
Mel. But we suppose that they will undertake danger for us rather than for any other; and that they think that we will be more assured unto them than unto any other, because for action, we lie near to Peloponnesus, and for affection, are more faithful than others for our nearness of kin.
Ath. The security of such as are at wars consisteth not in the good will of those that are called to their aid, but in the power of those means they excel in. And this the Lacedaemonians themselves use to consider more than any; and therefore, out of diffidence in their own forces, they take many of their confederates with them, though to an expedition but against their neighbours. Wherefore it is not likely, we being masters of the sea, that they will ever pass over into an island.
Mel. Yea, but they may have others to send; and the Cretic sea is wide, wherein to take another is harder for him that is master of it than it is for him that will steal by to save himself.
And if this course fail, they may turn their arms against your own territory or those of your confederates not invaded by Brasidas. And then you shall have to trouble yourselves no more about a territory that you have nothing to do withal, but about your own and your confederates.
Ath. Let them take which course of these they will that you also may find by experience and not be ignorant that the Athenians never yet gave over siege for fear of any diversion upon others.
But we observe that, whereas you said you would consult of your safety, you have not yet in all this discourse said anything which a man relying on could hope to be preserved by; the strongest arguments you use are but future hopes; and your present power is too short to defend you against the forces already arranged against you. You shall therefore take very absurd counsel, unless, excluding us, you make amongst yourselves some more discreet conclusion;
for [when you are by yourselves], you will no more set your thoughts upon shame, which, when dishonour and danger stand before men's eyes, for the most part undoeth them. For many, when they have foreseen into what dangers they were entering, have nevertheless been so overcome by that forcible word dishonour that that which is but called dishonour hath caused them to fall willingly into immedicable calamities, and so to draw upon themselves really, by their own madness, a greater dishonour than could have befallen them by fortune.
Which you, if you deliberate wisely, will take heed of, and not think shame to submit to a most potent city, and that upon so reasonable conditions as of league and of enjoying your own under tribute; and seeing choice is given you of war or safety, do not out of peevishness take the worse. For such do take the best course who, though they give no way to their equals, yet do fairly accommodate to their superiors, and towards their inferiors use moderation.
Consider of it, therefore, whilst we stand off; and have often in your mind that you deliberate of your country, which is to be happy or miserable in and by this one consultation.
So the Athenians went aside from the conference; and the Melians, after they had decreed the very same things which before they had spoken, made answer unto them in this manner:
Men of Athens, our resolution is no other than what you have heard before; nor will we, in a small portion of time, overthrow that liberty in which our city hath remained for the space of seven hundred years since it was first founded. But trusting to the fortune by which the gods have preserved it hitherto and unto the help of men, that is, of the Lacedaemonians, we will do our best to maintain the same.
But this we offer: to be your friends, enemies to neither side, and you to depart out of our land, after agreement such as we shall both think fit.
Thus the Melians answered. To which the Athenians, the conference being already broken off, replied thus: You are the only men, as it seemeth to us, by this consultation, that think future things more certain than things seen, and behold things doubtful, through desire to have them true, as if they were already come to pass. As you attribute and trust the most unto the Lacedaemonians, and to fortune and hopes, so will you be the most deceived.
This said, the Athenian ambassadors departed to their camp. And the commanders, seeing that the Melians stood out, fell presently to the war, and dividing the work among the several cities, encompassed the city of the Melians with a wall.
The Athenians afterwards left some forces of their own and of their confederates for a guard both by sea and land, and with the greatest part of their army went home. The rest that were left besieged the place.
About the same time the Argives, making a road into Phliasia, lost about eighty of their men by ambush laid for them by the men of Phlius and the outlaws of their own city.
And the Athenians that lay in Pylus fetched in thither a great booty from the Lacedaemonians. Notwithstanding which, the Lacedaemonians did not war upon them [as] renouncing the peace, but gave leave by edict only to any of their people that would to take booties reciprocally in the territory of the Athenians.
The Corinthians also made war upon the Athenians; but it was for certain controversies of their own, and the rest of Peloponnesus stirred not.
The Melians also took that part of the wall of the Athenians, by an assault in the night, which looked towards the market place, and having slain the men that guarded it, brought into the town both corn and other provision, whatsoever they could buy for money, and so returned and lay still. And the Athenians from thenceforth kept a better watch. And so this summer ended.
The winter following, the Lacedaemonians being about to enter with their army into the territory of the Argives, when they perceived that the sacrifices which they made on the border for their passage were not acceptable, returned. And the Argives, having some of their own city in suspicion in regard of this design of the Lacedaemonians, apprehended some of them, and some escaped.
About the same time the Melians took another part of the wall of the Athenians, they that kept the siege being then not many.
But this done, there came afterwards some fresh forces from Athens, under the conduct of Philocrates, the son of Demeas.
And the town being now strongly besieged, there being also within some that practised to have it given up, they yielded themselves to the discretion of the Athenians, who slew all the men of military age, made slaves of the women and children, and inhabited the place with a colony sent thither afterwards of five hundred men of their own.