Form and Meaning in the Melian Dialogue Author(s): C. W.

Macleod Reviewed work(s): Source: Historia: Zeitschrift fr Alte Geschichte, Bd. 23, H. 4 (4th Qtr., 1974), pp. 385-400 Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4435410 . Accessed: 12/06/2012 07:51
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ABHANDLUNGEN
FORM AND MEANING IN THE MELIAN DIALOGUE1 The analysis of a Thucydidean speech is a complex task of which at least three different aspects could be distinguished. First, justice must be done to the speech's rhetoric. It is obvious that Thucydides is well-versed in rhetorical theory and practice,2 and his speeches make use of them in a sophisticated and self-conscious way. Even the phrase cJg 6' a'v 606Xovv yoto Exaaroto 7rEpt Taw atEt ;apOVTWV rE'OVTa Ta yaaT' d7=ev (1.22.1), which tells us so much less than we might wish about the author's techniques and aims in writing his speeches,3 points at least to rhetoric; for it is precisely the power to say Ta' 68'ovTawhich rhetoricians try to impart and orators to display.4 Ta 6tovra is a notion as complex as rhetoric itself is complex. Partly it refers to the content of a speech which gives the 'necessary' advice in any given circumstances; this is no doubt the sense in which Pericles uses it of his own oratory (2.60.5). But in 1.22.1 it applies rather to those elements of a speech which make it coherent or persuasive, the valid presentation of a 'case.' It corresponds to what Aris-

totle in talking of dramacalls Ta lvovTa xat

Ta ap,o0TTrovTa (Poet. 1450b5);5

for used of drama, where, as in Thucydides, contradictory viewpoints are often presented, such a phrase cannot mean simply that the author endorses the speaker's views.6 What the historian does say is that every speech will be as apt and effective in its situation as is possible. Second, Thucydides' speeches are dramatic. They reveal the speaker and the situation they are set in. They come at moments of decision7 and illustrate vividly and in detail those factors which influence the decision. As accounts
1 I owe valuable criticism and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article to Mr. Francis Cairns, Dr. D.C. Innes, Dr. D.M. Lewis and Prof. Hugh Lloyd-Jones. 2 Cf. e.g. Moraux, Les itudes classiques 22 (1954), 3ff.; Zahn, Die erste Periklesrede (Diss. Kiel, 1934), 69-71, 73f.; Hudson-Williams, CQ 42 (1948), 76-81. Schadewaldt (1965), 53-77 = 'Thukydides' (Wegeder a Cf. Wille, Synusia,Feutgabefkr Wolfgang Forschung 98), 683-716. I refer to this volume in what follows as WF. 4 Cf. Gorg. Hel. 2; Isoc. 13.8; PI. Phdr. 234e6. See further on the rhetorical notion of xatp6k Radermacher on Artium ScriptoresB vii 24; and add Thuc. 4.17.1-2. 6 Cf. Winnington-Ingram, BICS 12 (1965), 80. 6 Cf. Winnington-Ingram, art. cit., 70. This aspect is usefully stressed by de Ste. Croix, The Originsof the Peloponnesian War (1972), Appendix iv.
25 Historia XXIII/4

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C. W. MACLEOD

of possible arguments in a situation, they may be seen as a complement to indications of motive in the narrative. The latter (e.g. 4.65.4; 6.24.3-4) tend simply to describe motives at a sub-rational level; the speeches embody them in argument and so directly present them at work. At the same time, the speakers have a character, at least in so far as they impinge on events; and this character is essential part of Thucydidean history. For he makes manifest Athenian imperialism through the mouths of Pericles, Cleon, Alcibiades and the rest; even when it is simply 'the Athenians' who speak, they are still doing so with something to say, something to hide, something to achieve at a particular time and place. So when Cleon (3.37.2) uses the same dictum as Pericles (2.63.2), that the empire is a tyranny, his conclusion is that revolts must be brutally punished, whereas Pericles had left it as a mere fact; or Hermocrates (4.61.5) can modify the law that the strong tend to rule the weaker (1.76.3; 5.105.2) so as to make it a recommendation to resist the imperial power. Thucydides is no schematic philosopher of history; universal laws or forces can only be operative as used or conditioned by the persons or circumstances they apply to. So by the dramatic element in the Thucydidean speech I mean, in the broadest terms, the way that the particular gives force and precision to the expression of the universal. Third, the speeches have a historical function. They suggest, however obliquely, a judgement of the author's; they also invite the reader to frame one himself. He can do this in part from the speeches in themselves, by weighing their arguments and sifting the cogent from the plausible.8 But Thucydides' history is a complex of )o'yot and i'pya (1.22); and if words are the teachers of deeds (3.42.2; 2.40.2), no less may facts be the touchstone of words. A speech may be fatally mistaken like Alcibiades' in 6. 16-18, it may be tragicaliy belied by events like the Funeral Speech,9 it may, like the Plataeans' speech, be a hopeless attempt to avert a predetermined doom. The speeches thus invite the reader's critical scrutiny, the result of which may be a sense not only of enlightenment, but of tragedy. For they move the reader by their fallibility no less than they illumine him by their penetration. Of course, these are not hard and fast distinctions. To observe the use of rhetorical structure and devices in a speech is to approach its dramatic individuality; and to isolate that individuality is already to begin forming a judgement on it. Let them serve, however, to clarify the brief account of the Melian Dialogue which now follows. It would be tiresome to the reader and unjust to Thucydides' art were they always rigidly observed and signalized; but they may give some preliminary notion of the requirements to which this paper, however inadequately, tries to conform.
8

(1956), 220-39. Cf. de Romilly, Hisloire el raisonchez Thucydide

9 Cf. Flashar, S.-B. d. Heidelb.Akad. d. Wiss., Phil.-Hist. KI., 1969, Abh. 1.

Form and Meaning in the Melian Dialogue

387

I The form of the Melian Dialogue is unique in Thucydides' history; and it is justified and laid down in a highly deliberate manner. Let us start, then, by examining the chapters in which this happens, 5.85-9. The Athenians begin by recommending, instead of a speech delivered all at once, a sort of dialogue: they will speak and the Melians are to interject as soon as they are dissatisfied with any Athenian proposal. HudsonWilliams in a valuable article (AJP 71 [1950], 156-69) has pointed out that the two alternatives contemplated here, the speech and the dialogue, are both embraced by sophistic technique. Further, the deceptiveness of the uninterrupted speech and the superior precision of dialogue are favourite themes of Plato's; and thinkers very different from Plato point out the capacity of public speaking to beguile an audience. Thus Herodotus (5.97.2)

in a wry comment on Aristagoras: oR)ov' yVap oIxE EtVat EV3'rETvrrTEpoV i e'va, et KAsojdvEa ,IoYvov oVXOTO'd Txv AaxE6atuo'VtOv ,UEv Tx E"YCVETO bafla,AAEtv 6ta1a9&lEtV, Tped 6U yvptad0a'A9vatwv 17rOt'r7aE TOVTO, or Gorgias (Hel. 13)
in his penetrating analysis of the Ao'yo!' and its works: d6t 6' ' tt&6 npoorT?VIwXy)v &rv7rt)oaTO 05a)w?lViJETO,pX 1saaeiv tovora T(6 A).6yp ... T.oiv advayE'vok~elk2 xalov5'6uaAo)ycov Ayo'r)oLVv oXyov rEpie mat brtEum,TiXVn ayCbvar YPwpdt, OV% dV0E' AEXtEti.10 But, as Hudson-Williams observes, the Melian Dialogue is not a pure sophisticus elenchus. One side does not consistently pose questions, in order to refute and overcome the other; and it is concerned with an affair of state rather than with the theoretical issues usually associated with dialectic. It is conceived rather as an ideal mode of common deliberation about a practical matter; and so in 5.101 the Athenians pointedly contrast the flovA)Lthey have undertaken with the aycov they have rejected: their concern is with prudent action, not noble gestures. So the Melian Dialogue, while shedding the public speech tendency to mislead, retains its practical and symbuleutic qualities. It thus aims at a decision: XpiVEIE (5.85) is the word used of the sovereign people in an assembly."1 Ch. 87 makes two further stipulations. It requires the Melians to reach a conclusion on the basis of present facts, not suppositions about the future; and it establishes the subject of the discussion, Melian survival (cTqw7pla). The first requirement is part of the methodology of practical deliberation;12 the second is a principle of rhetoric, also exemplified in Thucydides' speeches.13 A particularly striking comparison is the beginning of Socrates' 4 ta apXr' first long speech in the Phaedrus(237 b 7-d 2): Hep' =avTo'C, co rai,
10

Cf. also Th. 5.45.1.

11 Cf. Th. 1.87.2,120.2.; 2.40.2; 3.37.4,43.5; 6.39.1.

12 Cf. Th. 1.42.2. Analogous is the principle not to put any trust in the assumption that the

enemy will make mistakes: cf. Th. 1.84.4; 6.23.3; Isoc. 8.60. 13 Cf. Ar. Rhet. 1415a22ff.; Th. 3.44.1; 6.9.1.
25*

388 TOW'/IeAAOVatt Ka))

C. W. MACLEOD

flovAev'ceaOat. elgvat 6El7xepl oV3av n'7 flovA, n avr6 AsA0Ov (uapTavEtv OTr OVK .r aaq nv o&ilav t KaOTOV. avayK?/. TOV 6E woiv) 7 cKEtpEW', npOE20O V 'K aroE sO'x ' bioV o/oyovVat oiTyv ev ap'v lX T~ To' ElKo a O aI? diqOt av O/V O Moldacrv. OVIE yap EaVTOi co 6 dLAot icOcowEv aAA Ell) aOo Kat EiOi O Ayor np6KEcTat rqz6,UCoyEV, OtoV T' EaTct Kai 1v 7eEpt EpWTO' 7rorepa 6p6vtt7 ,u) ,uaAAovelr q)Alav iTEOV, TOVTO El' Itet vaujv, o,oAoytq OE,Uevol 6pov, G1oflAE'7ovT8 Kat dvaEpoVTEg vrKv OKEtvv 7root uE0a ElTe dW'pE)dav E7m Adflr7v 7"apOes. Socrates wants to

avoid the contradictions that would arise from failure to define the subject under discussion: similarly the Athenians use their delimitation of the subject to repudiate 'suppositions about the future.' For if that subject is survival or safety, plainly no faith ought to be placed in hypotheses about what might happen. It is perhaps also worth noting that one way the early sophists and rhetoricians glorified their art was to assert that it gave safety of person and property; and Plato attacked them for putting mere life before the quality of life.14 The Athenians thus represent a typically sophistic pragmatism. Ch. 89 goes on to lay down the terms in which the discussion is to be el E' OV-Tr& zTapa rd 6txatov ro conducted. As the Melians put it in 5.90: 4vuAp4pov .e'yetv v'ne4Ea0. Now justice and expediency are what in rhetorical qualities human action should aim to have.15 terms are called EAtxa' %eda'Aata, Rhetoricians often fuse them together, so as to make the course the speaker praises, advises or defends appear satisfactory from as many points of view as possible. Thus Gorgias' Palamedes (30) tries to show that his inventions minister to man's desire both for self-aggrandizement and for law and order, by calling tactics PEiyurrovd' aeovExTciraTa and laws q'vaxaj Tov btxaiov; or Isocrates, in arguing against empire (8.66), proposes to demonstrate OJg
OVTe yEvEiat btxala; dpXig 7l0vuo,v#EV oV'"IE

bvvaTnfg OVTE aVy(PEpOVCr?X

1#Jl.

This is also Cleon's method in the Mytilenean debate: the punishment of Mytilene, he claims, satisfies both justice and expediency. But, as is well known, it is particularly characteristic of Thucydides to contrapose the two. Thus in 1.32-43 the Corinthians represent, broadly speaking, TO btXatov while the Corcyreans represent 6o?vypiqpov. There is also a tendency for the latter kind of argument to undermine the former. So Diodotus, in a passage rather close to ours (3.44.1), attacks Cleon in these terms: 'Ey6 be napijAoov
OimE &drmp6v rEptpMvTlA?va1ov
OVTE xaTnyop)awv. oV yap

7rEpt T

Entd-

o ayd3v, El vCtl ab6xtad 77PTv

aAAa h7tp aa(vpOVOV1jsEV,

T?5 ?/ICETEpa5 EVflOVA)La.

14 Cf. PI. Hipp. Maj. 304a-b; Grg. 511bff.; Ar. Eq. 1377: aopdg, y' 6 Oata$ 6E&$C0 T' ovX dad0avev. Further, Heinimann, MH 18 (1961), 118f. 16 See further Radermacher, Artium ScriptoresC 62; Volkmann, Die Rhbeorik und der Griecben Rimer (1885), 299-314. On the combination or division of Trehxa xeq?data see e.g. Rb. ad Al. 1421b20-33; Auct. ad Her. 3.8.

Form and Meaning in the Melian Dialogue

389

Like Diodotus, the Athenians in 5.89 (cf. 5.101) refuse any forensic or moral standpoint and substitute for it a purely prudential one. Their insistence that the discussion be based on the 'real intentions' (1'4Jov cxarepot dA7tOC qpovoi4tev) of both parties corresponds to a form of sophistic refutation which invalidates accepted opinions by reference to actual wishes (Ar. Soph. El. 172b36-173a6; Rhet. 1399a30-4). So too their appeal to the law of nature in 5.105 nullifies, again in sophistic style, the Melians' reliance on conventional morality (cf. Soph. El. 173a7-18): this is also Diodotus' line of argument in 3.45.16a And their view of the purpose of the symbuleutic speech corresponds to that of an authoritative analyst of rhetoric, Aristotle, who writes (Rhet.1358b20-2): TeAoC. . . TCi [EV orvflovAEV)ovTr TO'avy1uepov xal %'aflepo'v. Thus far, then, the Melian Dialogue is an ideal form of deliberation. It combines the practicality of the public speech with the precision of dialectic. It clearly defines its subject, it is based on the facts of the case, not on idle speculation, and it aims to do no more than what those facts allow of, to discover what is possible or expedient. But this dialogue is not just a model of rhetorical technique. However striking and original Thucydides' synthesis of methods, it is only a part of the confrontation of two states in a moment of history. So let us reconsider the programmatic chapters in this light, seek out, that is, their dramatic and historical aspects. The Athenians' opening words already veil or distort the facts. Their casual yLyvdkmaxoyev yaip o'nt-roito q'pOVel ?7JOSV q 4 ro'i 6?yovg' dyawy chooses to assume that the Melians' purposes must be the same as their own; in reality, as Thucydides' own narrative allows us to infer, the reason why the Melians took their adversaries into a private conclave, was to avoid any danger of their demos' welcoming Athenian domination.16 So the Athenians deliberately ignore this fact, in order to impose upon the negotiations the form they wish. Also misleading is the xptVerE, emphatically delayed, which concludes their opening remarks. The Athenians are claiming to give the Melians the chance of a free, rational and practical decision. But the Melians' echo of this word reveals its hollowness; 6pJiwmv yap av1To -re ?xptrar7 fxov5 . .o. is bitterly ironical. The superior power of Trac dg -rcovA8Xtaou Athens drains the Melians' decision of significance. If they do not resist, the Athenians will enslave them; if they do, the Athenians will make war on them - and defeat will also mean slavery and even worse (5.116.4).18 Likewise ironical is i Inetsxaa -rot 6uaxetv xatP qvXiav d'ALrIovg'. The Melians presuppose here a distinction between instruction and persuasion
See also PI. Grg. 483 aff. 16 Cf. MWautis,REG 48 (1935), 254f. There is the same irony in LXaaTda; in 1.37.3 and 6taAAax'k in 4.60.1. I8 Cf. Bartoletti, RFIC N. S. 17 (1939), 304f.
I6a 17

390

C. W. MACLEOD

rather like Plato's19 (Phdr. 275 a, 277 c, e; cf. Grg. 454ae-455a): 6Laxetv xai#' 'orvxav is typical of dialectic and the reverse of what the Athenians have just rejected, a deceptive speech to a large audience. But the coming show, jdAAovra) xa'ov3 ;tapo'v-ra discussion, as the facts (Ta ToV =oAEyov 46hq

of advice.It is a battle,as theirchoiceof cannotbe a peacefulexchange

. netcclt

knowwhatis in storefor them. that,since,win or lose, the Melians retortin 5.87by pickingup the Melians' own wordsin a The Athenians spirit. The Melianshave made clearthat any polemicaland sophistical the idealof calmdiscussion negotationwould be a fraudand contrasted to contrast use an analogous of the case.The Athenians with the realities see they mustendureis Whatthe islanders objections. dampthe Melians'
treated as mere 'suppositions about the future' (i7tovota~ TCovueAA0c'VovrV

vocabularyimplies (=Eptysvoydvott..

... .20),

and a sham battle at

echoestheir %aTa' TO sarcastically

ElxO);

of the while theirunderstanding

xat covopaTE) is taken to imply that they present situation(ImTCi)vnapo'vrcov

in the face of the must be concerned only with survival(i.e. surrender) the alternative the is usedto invalidate threat. The termacuTqpt'a Athenian It knocksawaythe possibility of see beforethem,war or slavery. Melians - for how couldthatbe compatible for theMelians, withsurvival resistance who are obviouslythe weakerparty?- and it glosses over the fact that in ch. 92 when This is powerfully expressed survivalentailsenslavement. with 3ovdistinction U'ptat. . . acrwfvat the Melians'echo the Athenians' if to win that are Melians had observed the they ... Further, Ae)caai dptat. so the the debateit would be by an appealto justice(5.86 TCi btxatco); This replyalso servesto block off resortto any suchargument. Athenian in 5.89. Therethe more emphatically trainof thoughtis then continued thusremoving of theirownaction, to offeranyjustification refuse Athenians they any chanceof an appealto justice.Apparently fromtheirantagonists the the same treatment: and the Melians are therebygiving themselves create the illusion to bothparties, andb6tpapadaeaat, applied words6vvara of equalityin the face of brutefacts;but this cannotmaskthat what is possible for Athens is conquestwhereaswhat is possiblefor Melos is the Melians are the realagentswhereas surrender and that the Athenians is dissolved out when The truthcomes tanpaciarsaOat mustsimplyendure.
into its two real elements: ot npoVXovmre7paoovalt xat
poVCJov.
0 a'ot EVEr $VyXW-

and bullyingtheiradversaries, are browbeating In short,the Athenians from that of soin this respectis not very different and theirprocedure
Cf. Deininger, Der Melier-Dialog (Diss. Erlangen, 1939), 7. n. 12. Cf. the language of battle and victory in A. Ag. 940-3,956 (cf. 1236 f.). Clytemnestra's altercation with Agamemnon is comparable as a whole to the Melian Dialogue, in so far as there too a victory in words prefigures the victory of force.
20

"I

Form and Meaning in the Melian Dialogue

391

phistic

specalists in refutation (though here, ironically, it is not the questioners who hold the whip-hand). The way Euthydemus and Dionysodorus force Socrates to reply in their own terms (P1. Euthyd. 287b-d, 295 b-C)21 is an analogous malpractice in the sphere of logic to what the Athenians, in that of practical reasoning, are doing here. Another and closer parallel is in Thucydides' own Plataean Debate. There too the Thebans reject long speeches as deceptive (3.67.6-7) and support the Spartans' requirement that their captives answer only one 'brief question' (3.52.4); there too that question permits no appeal to moral issues and so debilitates in advance any reply (cf. 3.53), for the Plataeans, who are not on the Peloponnesian side, can hardly be in a position to claim that they have done the Spartans and their allies any good in the present war; and there too the judgement is naturally based on consideration of nothing but expediency (3.68.4). The domineering method of the Athenians reveals the Melians' real weakness; but it reveals also a weakness of their own. Their refusal to look into the future is far removed from the foresight (npo6vota)which characterizes the Thucydidean statesman. We might contrast what Diodotus, a no less realistic but more enlightened speaker, conceives to be the object of political deliberation (3.44.3): voYIdw bE Ep' TOi3 Ze')AovroO'jUCEC ,zd1taov T roV napo'v-coC. So too for Aristotle (Rhet. 1358bl3-15) the flov2iev'caat future is its proper sphere. There thus emerges an ambiguity in the terms napovTa and y.zWovra as used in 5.86-7. On the one hand the future is the domain of hope (cf. 6.31.6); so to concern yourself with 1s49Aovra is idle speculation (cf. 1.42.2; 5.111.2,113). This is the implication of the terms that the Athenians are trying to make use of. But, as we saw, a concern for the future is also characteristic of statesmanlike forethought (cf. further 1.138.3; 2.65.6), and so to concentrate on the present may be simply shortsighted (cf. 1.42.4). And in the Melian Dialogue there is in fact an important question about Athens' future which comes to the fore in 5.90: the question of her empire's security. The Athenians have to defend their empire as the Melians their city: the Athenians must have a care for their own safety as the Melians for their own survival; and so the key-words of the dialogue, daca'Aetaand ocvwnrpla, apply to both sides. In short, the Athenians' motive for conquest is, above all, fear. The character of this motive is illustrated in 5.90-9. In ch. 90 the Melians produce an appeal for pity, based on the notion that the Athenians too may one day stand in need of such compassion.22 The Athenians retort that it is
22

2X Cf. csp. 287d 5: ;TWrT&QV ToL'vW, KY 6'eyw',maldvayxtis? ?olxv (sc. a7CoxpivaafraL). av yap dpXes. Cf. Ar. Rhet. 1385b 13: gaTco 6iw ,a2v aft6go npoa6oRSOg Avnr0 Ti ri p7awvo,-viw axco . . . o6

x'aeuev aV naOELvi TC6Vav'ro6 Ttva. Th. 5.90 is a good example of the application of rhetorical psychology like Aristotle's. For the idea, cf. Soph. Aj. 121 ff., 0. C. 565ff., Phil. 501ff.

392

C. W. MACLEOD

not Sparta, but their own allies whose vindictiveness they would have to fear, and they go on to argue that in subduing Melos they will in fact find greater security against their own subjects. The example of an independent Melos, they claim, will encourage their allies to believe that an Aegean island can stay outside Athens' rule of the seas, and so generate revolt. Thus there emerges a paradox: precisely because the Melians are weaker than other islanders (5.97), and precisely because resistance such as theirs is irrational (5.99), they must be crushed. For the more vulnerable the city that remains independent of Athens, the more striking the demonstration of the imperial power's weakness; and rational reflection, as the Athenians see it, can only lead to surrender to the superior power. But there is a tragic flaw in the Athenians' argumentation. It is their empire that makes them afraid; like the tyrant, they are preoccupied for their own safety because they are hated.23 But the only safeguard they can see against the dangers empire creates is to enlarge it, and the very hate of their subjects which is the source of their fear they take to be the guarantee of security (5.95). Pericles too had seen that an empire must be hated (2.64.5); but he had combined this insight with a cautious, non-expansive policy in war (1.144.1; 2.65.7) and had done nothing to foster antagorism among the allies to his own city.24 Moreover, the consequences of aggrandizement are shortly to become clear in Books vi-vii, where Thucydides again gives some prominence to the motive of fear (6.18.2-3; 6.82-7).25 The Athenians in 5.99 discount the intervention of Sparta and, in general, are unconcerned about free states who are not islanders. But the Sicilian expedition brings Sparta back into action and so imposes on Athens the intolerable pressure of two wars (7.28.3) ;28 and in Sicily the Athenians learn that a free state, though slow to defend herself, may also enjoy advantages against the imperial power (7.55.2; cf. 6.20.2):27
23 Cf. Th. 1.17; Isoc. 8.111-3,10.324; Ar. Rhel. 1366a4-6. On the Athenian empire as tyranny, and AtbenianImperialism(Eng. tr., 1963), 124-8, 313-5. de Romilly, Thucydides 24 Cf. Deininger, op. cit., 75f. 26 See further Andrewes, PCPS N.S. 6 (1960), 2f. 26 Cf. Liebeschuetz, JHS 88 (1968), 75; Herter, Rh. Mus. 97 (1954), 321 ff. = WF 374ff. 27 Tr Eevfpq themdefending in dilatory be will in 5.99 gives a reason why the mainlanders selves. It is related to what seems a commonplace in the comparison of constitutions, that democracies are slower to act than autocracies. Cf. Isoc. 3.22: xai yap nrapaaxeva'rawrtai 6vvdjuet; xat Tav'raig care xai Aaieiv mat qthvat (Coral: Oqfrvas codd.) ... idAAovat TvpavvP5t4 xpriaaaoaa here cf. Th. 2.39.1; Hdt. 3.82.2). And indeed the otai Tr'e'av (with Aaaieiv T6ov a6,UWv 0oA)TeLCOv Syracusans would have been slow to act were it not for prompt, but unauthorized, action by their arpaTryOi (6.41). But in the Dialogue, as at Syracuse, another sort of freedom is primarily concerned, freedom from the pressure of the Athenian empire. This mainlanders have because the empire is based on seapower. So they are less likely than islanders, being less vulnerable, to move fast. Now the structure of the sentence groups the free islanders with the subject cities: this is because though not part of the empire, they are dominated by it almost as much as the states it has already engrossed. For the same reason they are given the grudging epithet 'unruled'

Form and Meaning in the Melian Dialogue

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Athens cannot work, as she clearly did at Melos (5.116.3), on the democratic party in the city she is attacking.28 Moreover, the Syracusans who were at first mainlanders, militarily speaking (6.86.3; cf. 6.21-3), at last crushingly defeat the Athenians at sea.29It is also the final disaster in the West which creates the conditions for what the Athenians do confess to fear at Melos, large-scale revolt by the allies, and makes their own survival the crucial issue in the war.30 The unmasking of Athens' weakness is accompanied and emphasized by a modification in the dialogue's formal requirements; for the subject as established in 5.87 has acquired an extra dimension. The Athenians tacitly admit this when they restate the theme of the discussion in ch. 91: now they are speaking with a view not merely to the Melians' survival, but also to the benefit of their own empire. This is not the only place where Thucydides modifies the pattern laid down for a speech, using a formal anomaly for expressive purposes. A striking parallel is the Athenians' speech in 1.73-8. In 73.1 and 3 they insist that their intention is not to answer the accusations levelled at them, and yet the speech, from 75.1 onwards, has clearly become a self-justification: they are worthy, in virtue of their previous services to Greece, not to be hated now (75.1), they are compelled partly by their allies, partly by human nature to seek empire (75.2-76.2), they are moderate in their exercise of power (76.3-77.6). All along they are warning the Spartans of what they may be like if they too become an imperial power; but equally it is clear that the whole line of argument is also a self-defence, and indeed already in 1.73.3, o&e &etOIT) has an apologetic implication: for edX6Trw is here, like ra etxoora in 5.90,31 a substitute for 6txatw'a,designed to imply, but mask, a justification or appeal to morality. The dramatic point is that,
(dvdpxTov;:

contrast T6i E'Aev6Ehpcp just before). The Athenians can hardly bear to contemplate such a thing as a free island in the Aegean. The text of this sentence has sometimes been doubted. But the scholion, which contrasts
'p;T&pcT6V

-roV E,1xv01Fpovg t&v

with To0g EiVTaig v4aotg, C'vOpovg,

is simply a paraphrase of the

superficial meaning; it is no warrant for the emendation TrdV iAevdpcwv. Such a change would also blur the important antithesis TrO EAEVOIp . . . tig adpX?71T advayxa1coand spoil the implication that islanders cannot be free. A more attractive emendation is Kruger's TOV5 for nov before avapxrovc; but see Poppo-Stahl ad loc. nov ('if there are any free islanders anywhere') also reinforces the grudgingness of dvdpxrov;. Since nov two lines above has the same tone, though a different sense ('presumably'), the repetition of the particle is not suspect, but dramatically effective: cf. repeated yowv and y' . . . o&v in 1.76.1 and 1. 77.5-6 or Kairot in S. El. 328-40. 28 On the traitors there were in Syracuse, see 7.48.2 and Dover ad loc. 21 Note also 7.21.3. When Hermocrates tells the Syracusans that their adversaries are more 'mainlanders' than themselves, this is part of a rhetorical attempt to show that they can outdo Athens at her own speciality, sea-fighting. But the rhetorical point comes true. 80 acorvpta is applied in Bks. vii-viii almost exclusively to Athens or her forces: see B6tant's Lexicon. In 411 B.C. it becomes something of a political catch-word (cf. further Ath. Pol. 29.2). 31 Hermann rightly deleted Xai (om. ABFM) 6bxata there: cf. Poppo-Stahl ad loc.

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despite their hauteur,they cannot but seek to defend themselves, because they are sensitive to the hate and envy empire arouses in others and aware that the urge to acquire it is scarcely resistible, since it consists of the most elemental human motives: they are, in other words, not super-men, but all-too-human. Yet, with artful rhetoric, they disguise their defence, which has to admit they have in some sense done wrong, as a defiant warning. Or again in 4.10 Demosthenes begins by saying that rational calculation can have no place in a situation like the present one; but he goes on to give an acute analysis of the advantages the Athenians possess. The initial words stress what Thucydides stresses in most of the Pylos episode, that Athens' success was not due to careful planning.32 But at the same time that success cannot be a pure stroke of luck: Demosthenes knew how to exploit the situation and some factors he at least had foreseen33 weighed in the Athenians' favour. So this speech excellently describes the mixture of chance and calculation which determined the outcome. It is also a fine example of Ta'&ovTa. The orator exploits the urgency of the situation to exclude consideration of its difficulties and to awaken an unthinking courage in his audience; at the same time those factors which favour the Athenians allow him to create a rational confidence. The speech is effective because it appeals both to instinct and to reflection. And not least it reveals the enterprise of Demosthenes and his men.34 A still more striking departure from the 'rules' is in chs. 100-1l; for here the Melians are constantly appealing to those moral sanctions and those speculations about the future which the Athenians had ruled out. In 5.100 they are afraid to appear cowardly; in 102 they cling to an irrational hope;35 in 104 they put their faith in the gods and in the Spartans. If all these supports are shown to be inadequate, that reveals the obvious weakness of the Melians. In the latter half of the dialogue they can only make helpless gestures, while the Athenians' replies unmask their words as irrational and impracticable.38Here too the Athenians are the mouthpieces of a critical and disiliusioned rhetoric. The Melians' arguments are reminiscent of Rhet. ad Al. 1425 a 9ff., where the author lists all the possible advantages to mention in advocating war. To ch. 100, compare his ev'bo$1av (1425 a 15) ;37 to ch. 102, J4' his Tr& neTaflo)Ak xal noAAa)t Tar ?v it5 rapa')oyot(1425b3-4: roAyo, iSCV Evcvotav, used there with the reverseintention);38 to ch. 104,his zv TCrV6

(Zetemala40, 1966), 140-54. Cf. H.-P. Stahl, Thukydides Cf. Sieveking, Klio 42 (1964), 74-97, esp. 80, 92 f. 34 Cf. Luschnat, Die Feldherrnreden Philol. Supp. xxxiv, vol. 2 des Tbukydides, im Geschicbiswerk 3 Cf. p. 387 n. 12 above. (1942), 35-9. and Athenian Imperialism,290-3. 36 Cf. de Romilly, Thucydides 31 Also Th. 1.122.1; 2.11.4; 7.61.3. 37 Also Th. 1.86.5,144.4; 2.11.9.
32

33

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v E xvtav t1sel aaoiofiev (1425a21-2)39 and avjuaXcov ape8 v (1425a24).40 But the Athenians demolish these with the same rigour that they showed in ch. 87. And within its limits their realism is convincing. There is no means of salvation for the Melians that reason would approve; and the Spartans will never run a risk to save them.41 The subsequent narrative (5.115.3,116.1) and scarcely allow us to reveals how right the Athenians were about Sparta,42 think that the Melians' resistance, keen though it is, could ultimately succeed. In this latter half of the dialogue, even more than before, Thucydides shows up the Athenians' violent ruthlessness. But this ruthlessness should not be confused with bybris,if that term implies an overweening convicdion of superiority, because they are at pains to stress that their actions conform to the normal pattern of men and perhaps even gods. They know that for the stronger to rule is natural (5.105): any other power as great as theirs would be like them.43 There is no pride in this statement; for they claim to be doing only the inevitable and they are duly cautious in speaking of the gods. Likewise they are quite prepared to contemplate the end of their empire (5.91); and this is far from that infatuation with his own success which characterizes the v?flptRwv (cf. Ar. Rhet. 1385 b 19-23). But if there is no hybris, there is a kind of blindness, of dflovAla, which stands in sharp contrast to their pretensions of good counsel. The Athenians are simply the victims of their own power, there is no attempt to do what Thucydides saw as Pericles' great achievement, to control the natural impulses of the Athenian people and empire. The Periclean spirit is still alive in Diodotus, but no longer after him; for Nicias, though clear-headed enough, has not the stomach to lead and speak for the imperial power, as Pericles does even in controlling it. Indeed at Melos the Athenians, though they use Diodotus' methods of argument, go clean against his policy of conciliation. And they will yet be reduced to invoke those very sanctions and powers they had dismissed from the discussion here; in the Sicilian disaster it is their turn to reach out vainly to hope and to the gods when all else has failed. It is hope too which had partly inspired the expedition to the West in the first place.44 In their defeat in Sicily they are enacting those same forces that contribute to their victory over Melos. There is no need for Thucydides to justify
40 Also Th. 1.86.3. Also Th. 1.86.5; 7.77.2,4. Thucydides is continually unmasking Spartan pretensions: e.g. the Plataeans' vain appeal to their dv6paya&a (3.57.1 with 3.68.4) or Brasidas' empty protestations of honour (4.86.5 with 4.132.3). Cf. Strasburger, Hermes 86 (1958), 37 n.4 = VF, 527 n.72; Diller, Gymnasium69 (1962), 189-204 = WF 639-60. 42 Cf. Meautis, art.cit., 275-8. It is thus pointless and unnecessary for Thucydides to recount what approaches, if any, the Melians later made to Sparta and how they were received. 43 Even in traditional belief the gods are oi xpeiaaoves; see further Meautis, art.cit., 270 and 4 Cf. Meautis, art.cit., 278; Wassermann, TAPA 78 (1947), 30f., 35. Hes. Theog.385f. 39
41

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or condemn, nor does he; his presentation of the Athenians' words and deeds is an adequate - and consummate - historical analysis.45 II It may be useful now, in the light of this account, to consider some historiographical issues connected with the Melian Dialogue. 1) The narrative which surrounds the dialogue has sometimes been found wanting, and Canfora (Belfagor26 [1971],420-3) has now clearly formulated objections to it.46 apCThov,he claims, in 5.84.3 is inapposite. But Hobbes' translation is adequate to explain this ('before they would hurt the same, sent ambassadors to deal first by way of conference'): the subsequent actions implied in rpC6Tov are not those of the ambassadors, but of the Athenians as a whole. In 5.114 Canfora objects to the two-fold shift of subjects in ot yu&v 'AVvahov np&fleat ... ot 6' OrTpaT77yo0 aVT(A)V... ot 6' 'AA valot. But this is natural enough. Thucydides at this point has some reason to distinguish the ambassadors from 'the Athenians,' since they are no longer, as they were in the dialogue, the mouthpiece of imperial power. This means that the subjects in 114.1 have to be divided into 'ambassadors' and 'generals.' But in what follows he can refer again, as usual, in the narrative of war, to 'the Athenians.' Canfora also offers some larger objections (art.cit.,415f.). He observes that two pieces of information about Melos which belong to the same season are separated. But this is done in part for the sake of chronological sequence, since the events in Argos, Sparta etc. happen 'at the same time' (5.115.1) as the first set of events in Melos,47 in part because the narrative of 5.115.1-3 obliquely reflects on the Melians' situation. The Athenians take provocative action against Sparta, as they did at Melos; but the Spartans are still unwilling to move, as again later (116.1) they show themselves dilatory and indecisive. The only action on the Peloponnesian side is taken by the Corinthians whose interests are purely 'private.' In referring to this latter affair, Thucydides speaks only in generalities, as he sometimes does when he thinks detail unnecessary. Thus he is content to indicate only in the barest terms why there was an Athenian embassy in Sparta in 432 B.C. (1.72.1 ;epti aARwv ;rapovaa), why some Lacedaemonians were slow to come to Pylos in 425 (4.8.1 aeprt adxtyE4dvcov arpaTSIag) or what hapaT' 'TE'pa c
4" Andrewes (art.cit., 2f.) indicates some real divergences of emphasis in the account of Athens' motivation at Melos and in Sicily. But he overplays these because of a belief that in the Dialogue Thucydides means 'to concentrate ... on the moral question.' 46 I owe a particulardebt to Prof. Canfora, both for sending me his paper and for corresponding 47 For similar 'interruptions' cf. e.g. 3.7; 4.24-5; 7.34. about it.

Form and Meaningin the MelianDialogue

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pened for a stretch of the Athenian campaign in Sicily in 424 (4.48.6 ot 6'
'Aivalotr
1 .a TrV ZtXE)laV
. .

TorEVaavre'

IETaa

TrOVexee {v,yHaXCv e'rroOAB'-

uovv). So xal KopitOtot. .. .TOl 'AOvaiogs (5.115.3) need not be a 'note not fully worked out' (Andrewes ad loc.). We should rather accept what Andrewes sees as the primafacie reference of the phrase, to 'some new ground of quarrel which Thucydides thinks too trivial to explain;' as he suggests, all that is concerned may be 'casual raids on shipping.' What Thucydides has done is to reduce his narrative to the minimum required to illustrate the Peloponnesians' egoism and incompetence.48 And if he does not give the numbers of the second Athenian contingent, if he omits to speak of the Melians' hunger (Ar. Av. 186), if he attaches the decision to exterminate the Melians to the name of no single politician, that is simply because these pieces of information are unnecessary; and it would have been particularly unfortunate to saddle an individual with the responsibility of proposing the massacre, when he has been presenting Athens as a collective agent all along and her actions as the natural consequence of empire. 2) The date of composition. It has been argued (de Romilly, Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, 282-6) that the Dialogue must be 'late' because Thucydides was moved to write about Melos by the 'Melian question' of which we hear echoes in the fourth century. But that discussion could have begun as soon as the deed was done; and in any case it concerned, as de Romilly is well aware, the punishment of Melos, not, like the Dialogue, the Athenian aggression. Even when Isocrates (4.101) implies that the Melians were the aggressors, that is still only an obfuscation designed to justify Athens' treatment of them after her victory. So Thucydides' line of thought is too far removed from the Melian question for us to be able to situate him in relation to it. There might seem to be a more promising pointer to a date in 5.91, where the Athenians envisage the end of the empire; Arnold compared Xen. Hell. 2.2.19-20 where it is the Spartans who prevent the enslavement of conquered Athens. But, as Gomnme observes, the parallel is not perfect; there it was the Thebans and Corinthians above all who were urging the liquidation of the imperial city, here it is the allies who are imagined as the real danger. Moreover, ot appvorer aeAAwv does not look forward to the Spartans' hegemony after 404 B.C.; it is a home truth about their present 'alliance' (cf. 1.144.2). And Thucydides is careful to give these words as a whole plausibility in the moment they are supposed to be spoken. They are based on an assumption about empire which is relevant at any time: that the imperial power's real enemies are its subjects, because it is they above all
"s Cf. Westlake, CQ N. S. 21 (1971), 315-25, whose account of the tendance of Bk.v as a whole is relevant to this section of it too.

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others who hate it.49 Thus, paradoxically, the Athenians can say that it is not the Spartans they have to contend with.50 This remark does not refer to the present confrontation with Melos, which would make it a pure banality, nor does it mean that Sparta is at peace with Athens, which is a fact Thucydides, with his view of the war as a single whole, considers trivial. The Athenians and the Melians are made to share (cf. 5.94,98,106, 112.3) his assumption of a single war, like Alcibiades later on (6.91.6,92.1), but in the historical context this assumption is also quite possible, given that the Dialogue as a whole ignores legal formalities, just as Alcibiades' is in a speech which tries to show that Sparta and Athens cannot but be enemies. Perhaps too it was current by 416 B.C.51 Now since the Athenians naturally enough conceive the end of their empire to mean victory of Sparta in the war, they regard this, consistently with the principle enunciated in 5.87, to be merely a remote eventuality which is quite unimportant compared with present fact of their allies' resentment. So the 'prophecy' of the end of the empire serves above all to stress the central theme of this part of the dialogue, that the empire is menaced from within; at the same time, it reveals the Athenians' characteristic combination of forethought and folly. So it is not necessary to know when these words were written to understand them. The other such 'prophecies' in Thucydides are likewise firmly embedded in their contexts. In 2.64.3 Pericles is able to envisage this end of the empire in the light of his statesmanlike wisdom: naav-ra yap 7edvxs xat eRaaofa?at (a sententiafor which Gomme has collected a number of parallels). So too in 1.77.6 the Athenians 'foresee' Spartan hegemony and its unpopularity thanks to a defiantly defensive argument they use often in this speech (cf. 1.76.1,4), that any other imperial power would not behave better than they have, and by reference to the famous Spartan xenophobia. In both cases the speech was very likely written after 404 B.C.; and the reader aware of events after that date is thus enabled to glimpse a historical law in action. But at the same time he is meant to appreciate how the speakers have hit on Ira EovTaand see what qualities or concerns of theirs have enabled them to do so. 3) A justification for Athens? The attempt by Treu (Historia 2 [1953/4] 253-73,3 [1954/5], 58f.) to show that Melos was a defected ally of Athens

49 Cf. de Romilly, Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism,313-5. We need not then suppose with Andrewes (art.cit., 4) an anachronistic reference to events after 413 B.C., though those events may be meant to reinforce for the reader what the Athenians say here. o aycovis used here in its broader sense, as in 3.44.1 or 6.11.7. "I See further Dover on 6.17.5; Patzer, Das Problemder Geschichtsschreibung und des Thukydides Frage (1937), 17-20; contra,Canfora, art. cit., 419f. die thukydideische

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has been convincingly refuted by Eberhardt (Historia 8 [1959], 284-314) and Kierdorf (Rh.Mus. 105 [1962], 253-6). Neither is Melos an ally of in 5.104 means only that the Spartans Sparta's: T'v Aaxeba2oviwtv4vysuaXlav would become their allies, since in fact the Melians' appeal to Sparta could be based on no more than their being a Spartan colony.52 The Melians are, however, already at war with Athens; this is clear from k no'AE)oV pavEpov xaTEOrT1aav (5.84.2: cf. 5.94 avTr toAEudwv3. . .), which refers to the situation after 426 B.C. But there is no sign that any hostilities between the two states took place in the intervening period; the Melians are 'enemies' only in so far as no peace was concluded then.54 Thus if they claim the right to be allies or enemies to neither side (5.94,112.3; cf. 5.98), they are being reasonable enough; and Athens' aggression can thus be considered an act of pure imperialism. The motive, which plays an important part in the Dialogue, is the same as in their previous attack on Melos: Trok yap MqAlovgr OvTar vtV5raxoVEtv oV8E6 To' av'TxOv actwTa; xat ovx fh0'AOVTa: 9flov'tvyyaixo,v iE'vat AOVTO npoaayaye6itat (3.91.2). Athens cannot conceive of an Aegean island's remaining outside her empire. And so it is that the second attack on Melos can serve as a setting for the Dialogue rather than the first: not only because it was the second campaign which succeeded,55 but also because the motive, and so the political character of Athens' action, is the same in both cases. It may be that there were justifications that Athens could offer. But we can hardly expect to learn anything about them from Thucydides, given his view of the Melian affair. If in 5.89 the Athenians refuse any appeal to justice by either side, we should not argue that 'to raise the topic serves only to raise in the readers' mind a question which Thucydides did not propose to answer, a procedure which is most easily explicable if the issue were a real one, and had been raised in fact' (Andrewes on 5.84.2). Clearly the repudiation of moral arguments is a matter of principle: it illustrates the behaviour of the imperial power and lays down one condition for an adequate deliberation. And if a good number of allied hoplites were used at Melos, that need not suggest that 'the attack was not just an evidently monstrous outrage' (Andrewes, ibid.). Chs. 96-97 of the Dialogue itself make it clear that Athens' allies, as long as her power is irresistible, accept the harsh realities of her imperialism; and the growth and relative stability of her empire imply just that.56 Indeed, it may rather be that the allies had an interest in Athens' subjecting Melos and enlarging her rule of the seas: this would be so, if the island had served or could serve as a base for pirates
Cf. Andrewes ad loc.
53

52

Cf. Kierdorf, art.cit., 254f.

'" Cf. Andrewes on 5.84.2. k n6Asyov pavepov, then, need not imply actual fighting, but only

that a state of war is admitted by both parties. 56 Cf. Herter, art.cit., 320 = WF, 373f. 'I Cf. Th. 3.10.5,11.4.

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Form and Meaning in the Melian Dialogue

or enemy privateers.67 Perhapstoo they were simply envious or resentfulof Melos' independenceand so eager to bring it to an end. What is clear is that in any case Athens was well able to coerce them, even if they were unwilling. 4) Why does the Dialogue concernMelos? A numberof reasonsemerge. The peculiarprivacy of the negotiations (X7 -r ov' o'iyov' adywyi() gave the opportunity for a dialecticaltreatment of some major historical themes. Moreover, the position of the Dialogue just before the SicilianExpedition allows the two situations to illumine one another (cf. above pp. 392/93). It is the same logic of empirewhich causesAthens to crush Melos and then helps lead her in her turn to disaster;and what the Atheniansrightly calculated at Melos in Sicily is no longer valid. But above all the Meliancampaign is in itself an extreme case of imperialism.In attackingtheir puny neighbours, the Atheniansare ruthless,realisticand yet also paradoxically blind; and their strength and their weakness are enactedand unmaskedin words by the Dialogue. ChristChurch,Oxford C.W. Macleod

"I Cf. Weil, ZeiIschriftffirNumismalik 28 (1910), 360; in general, Ormerod, Piracyin the Ancient World(1924), 108ff.