The Melians had not joined the Confederacy of Delos, and they might therefore be reproached for sharing the protection of Athens without making any return. Beyond this the Athenians had no ground of complaint against them, for they had taken no part in the Peloponnesian War, but had remained quietly at home, occupied with their own affairs. But Athens claimed the haughty title of mistress of the sea, and pretended to regard the neutrality of one insignificant island as an open defiance of her power. Ten years before an Athenian fleet had been sent under Nicias to reduce the refractory Melians to subjection; but the attempt was unsuccessful, and Nicias withdrew, after having ravaged the outlying districts. Being now more at leisure, the Athenians resolved, in the mere wantonness of power, that Melos should only be suffered to exist as a dependency of Athens, and thirty triremes sailed from the harbour of Peiraeus to carry out the arbitrary decree.
On their arrival at Melos the Athenian admirals sent envoys into the town, to summon the inhabitants to surrender. The envoys were invited to a private conference with the chief men of the island; and between the representatives of Athens and the Melian nobles there ensued an extraordinary dialogue, which is given at great length by the historian, and is commonly known as the Melian Debate. We cannot suppose that the arguments here placed by Thucydides in the mouth of the Athenian speaker were really uttered as set down by that writer. Such a paradox of iniquity, such a shameless insult to the general conscience of humanity, might have been employed by Plato, in exposing the vicious teaching of the Sophists, or by Aristophanes in the full riot of his satire: but the total abnegation of principle here implied could never have been openly avowed by a responsible agent, speaking for the most polished community in Greece. Even the worst criminals seek to give some specious colour to their villainy; and the condemned felon, who will face death without a tremor, shudders at the cry of execration which greets his appearance at the scaffold. So hard it is, even for the most depraved, to stifle the last embers of the moral sense. We cannot suppose, then, that an educated Athenian of the fifth century would publicly have claimed for his state the right of rapine and murder. For this is the line of argument pursued by the representative of Athens in the Melian Debate. The substance of what he says may briefly be stated as follows "You are weak--we are strong; Melos is a paltry island, Athens is queen of the Aegaean, and the existence of an independent city in these waters is an insult to her empire. Let us waste no time in discussions about abstract law and right. For the mighty there is but one law--to get what they can, and to keep it; and the weak have no rights, except by the sufferance of the strong. This rule of conduct we know to be universal among men, and we believe that the gods themselves are governed by it. [1] To sum up the whole case in one word: you must yield or perish."