Indicting the Athenians in the Melian dialogue

Abstract

It is widely agreed that Thucydides’ Melian dialogue presents the Athenian invasion of Melos, and the Athenian justification, in a negative light. Attention tends to focus on the immorality of ‘the rule of the stronger’ that the Athenians present in the dialogue. This essay argues that another feature of the dialogue triggering negative judgements of the Athenians is their criticism of the Melians’ resistance: it is voiced by the Athenians themselves and therefore provokes in readers a ‘speaker-relative’ normative judgement of the Athenians. Philosophers have explored how our normative judgements about statements often depend on the speaker. Because the Athenians have deliberately put the Melians into their perilous situation, and because part of Athenian self-mythology was heroic resistance against overwhelming numbers in the Persian Wars, Athenian criticism of the Melians is hypocritical and applies an asymmetrical ethics to the Athenians and the Melians. Reaction against these features of the dialogue exacerbates the moral abhorrence of the Athenians felt by many readers. Hence I disagree with Bosworth’s view of the dialogue as primarily critical of the Melians. Instead we see Thucydides here condemning not only the Athenian imperial project but also the rhetoric used to defend and sustain it.