The Melian Dialogue: A Meditation on Justice

Laura Jetter

GSI: Kuan Hwa 

When Athenian troops invaded the island of Melos during the Peloponnesian War, they sent envoys to attempt to persuade the Melians to surrender and pay tribute. Thucydides’s The Melian Dialogue presents the two opposing arguments rooted in logos and ethos from the Athenians and Melians, respectively. The Athenian logical argument appeals to the realm of the visible, of practicality and common sense; the powerful are just in exercising their strength on the weak. The Melians counter with an ethical appeal to the realm of the invisible, to decency and righteousness in the eyes of the gods.

            The Athenian envoys begin with a statement on the validity of justice, setting the theme for the debate to follow. They claim that “the question of justice only enters where the pressure of necessity is equal” (89). The “pressure of necessity” refers to which side has greater necessity for invoking justice in their case. The Athenians continue that “the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must” (89). The question of who is more powerful between the Melians and Athenians is not contested, as the latter is ubiquitous for their naval force. The Melians, as the “weak” in the aforementioned quote, have a greater necessity for invoking justice as a means defense. They demand in return that the Athenians respect a common good, that “when in peril a reasonable claim should be accounted a claim of right” (90). The Melians concede that they are the “man in peril”, whose reasonable claim of peace and independence as a neutral state should be treated as a right. However, it becomes clear that the Athenian conquest of Melos is not to fight their allies the Lacadaemonians, but to reinforce their own position of power and force in the eyes of their existing subjects and future colonies. To let Melos remain free would mean they did not “exact what they can” as the stronger entity and force the Melians to “grant what they must” as the weaker dominion, creating an upset in the natural order of power that threatens their hegemony. The Athenian logos appeals to natural order and strength, enforcing that surrender is the most logical choice for Melos in the face of their undeniable failure in a contest of might. However, this natural order only appeals to matters in the realm of the visible—of physicality and mortality. The ethical basis of the Melian argument for peace alludes to having superiority in the realm of the invisible—of morals and honor, which the gods hold dominion over. The Melian Dialogue transcends being a debate over freedom in wartime to a discussion of whether the visible or invisible holds true authority on the question of justice and status. The outcome of such determines who prevails in the discourse and the conquest.

            When the Melians refuse to forfeit on the grounds that fighting offers the “hope that we may stand upright”, the Athenians warn that when “visible grounds of confidence” have forsaken them, to invoke “recourse to the invisible” will “ruin men by the hopes which they inspire them” (102, 103). To the Athenian standpoint, trust in the invisible to determine justice and inspire hope creates fatal delusion in the face of a visible threat. The Melians invoke the invisible in their own argument, suggesting leverage from the “favour of heaven” as the “righteous” party against the “unrighteous” Athenians (104). The Melians imply that the outcome of the conquest will be determined from by the will of the gods, who must favor Melos for being honorable and righteous. To the Athenians, however, the gods and men alike abide a law of nature, “wherever they rule they will” (105). They re-appropriate the Melian argument to fit their agenda, interpreting the will of the gods to be in their favor on the basis on similar ideologies versus obeying ethics. In the end, neither side is swayed by the arguments of the other because they each appeal to completely separate and distinct domains of power. The Athenians and Melians differ in whether physical power and prudency or whether righteousness and patience have true authority on the question of justice. Upon refusing to forfeit, Athens easily conquers Melos, executing all military age citizens and colonizing the island. In the wake of Athens’s victory justice appears to lay in the realm of the visible, yet Sparta’s ultimate victory in the Peloponnesian war begs the question of whether the Melians foreshadowed Athenian defeat in their argument.

            The short-term and long-term outcomes of the Melian conquest and the Peloponnesian war as a whole transform the dialogue from a discussion on war and peace to an ideological argument between two prevalent realms of existence in Greek politics and society. Thus, the dialogue explores a dichotomy of power and authority. The interactions between the Athenians and Melians represent two sides of justice as a whole: the justice of the visible and invisible, respectively. As asserted in the beginning, justice only enters when there is equal “pressure of necessity”. From the Athenian standpoint, Melos has greater pressure of necessity since they are inferior in “visible ground of confidence”, such as military power. From the Melian standpoint, “pressure of necessity” is equal since they believe their cause to be in favor of the heavens on grounds of righteousness and morality, thus justice shall be the final judge. The Melian Dialogue explores the validity of justice in the presence of an imbalance and whether justice favors those who imbue their confidence in the realm of the visible or in the realm of the invisible.