HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- What War Does to Man (fr 'The Classical Mind' W.T. Jones) (...)
The "New Man"
All this was now being lost in the partisan
dissensions the Peloponnesian War had engendered. The old ideal, which
conservatives like Aristophanes still admired, of a life of simple piety, of
respect for law and religion and custom, and of patriotic devotion to one's city
as the completion and fulfillment of one's own life, had largely lost its force.
The new type of man developing under the pressures of war was a cynic who
believed that might makes right, who rejected all the old loyalties and the old
virtues unless they were expedient, that is, unless they helped him accomplish
his private ends. He was, in fact, the type of the Athenian representative whose
negotiations with the Melians Thucydides described.
Melos was one of the few Aegean islands the
Athenians had not managed to bring into their empire. Up to 416 B.C., Melos had
successfully remained neutral, but in that year the Athenians, according to
Thucydides' account, sent an expedition to "persuade" the Melians to join
them.
ATHENIANS: ...We Athenians will use no fine
words...We should not convince you if we did; nor must you expect to convince us
by arguing that...you have never done us any wrong....For we both alike know
that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice only enters
where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they
can, and the weak grant what they must.
MELIANS: Well, then, since you set aside
justice and invite us to speak of expediency, in our judgement it is certainly
expedient that you should respect a principle that is for the common good...
Your interest in this principle is quite as great as ours, inasmuch as you if
you fall, will incur the heaviest vengeance, and will be the most terrible
example to mankind.
ATHENIANS: The fall of our empire, if it
should fall, is...a danger which you may leave to us.... We want to make
you ours with the least trouble to ourselves, and it is for the interests
of both of us that you should not be destroyed.
MELIANS: It may be your interest to be our
masters, but how can it be ours to be your slaves?
ATHENIANS: To you the gain will be
that by submission you will avert the worst; and we shall all be the richer
for your preservation.
MELIANS: But must we be your enemies? Will
you not receive us as friends if we are neutral and remain at peace with
you?
ATHENIANS: No, your enmity is not half so
mischievous to us as your friendship; for the one is in the eyes of our subjects
an argument of our power, the other of our weakness... They think that states
like yours are left free because they are able to defend themselves, and that we
do not attack them because we dare not. So that your subjection will give us an
increase of security, as well as an extension of empire....
MELIANS: ... How base and cowardly would it
be in us, who retain our freedom, not to do and suffer anything rather than be
your slaves.
ATHENIANS: ... The question is not one of
honour but of prudence.
MELIANS: But we know that the fortune of war
is sometimes impartial, and not always on the side of numbers. If we yield now,
all is over; but if we fight, there is yet a hope that we may stand
upright... We know only too well how hard the struggle must be against your
power.... Nevertheless we do not despair of fortune; for we hope to stand as
high as you in the favour of heaven, because we are righteous, and you against
whom we contend are unrighteous...
ATHENIANS: As for the gods, we expect to
have quite as much of their favour as you: for we are not doing or claiming
anything which goes beyond common opinion about divine or men's desires about
human things. Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a law of their
nature wherever they can rule they will... You and all mankind, if you were as
strong as we are, would do as we do... You are showing a great want of sense...
Reflect once more...
The Athenian envoys returned to the army;
and the generals, when they found that the Melians would not yield, immediately
commenced hostilities.
(They were unable to make progress until) there was treachery among the
citizens themselves. So the Melians were induced to surrender at discretion. The
Athenians thereupon put to death all who were of military age, and made
slaves of the women and children. They then colonized the island, sending
thither 500 settlers of their own.
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