"Were the Melians right?

“Justice is not just until you get strengthen the weak and the powerful limit”

Introduction

The Melian debate is an ingredient of history. People have knowledge about this occurrence because ancient Greek Historian Thucydides wrote it in very famous book named as “History of Peloponnesian”. This event is related to political thought because this subject is mostly taught in the class of political science since it is a classic example of clash between liberalism and realism. This event is called as a dialogue because it is very clear and neat. This event is portrayed like a play by Thucydides having back and forth dialogues between Athenians and Melians. This dialogue took place in 416BC, on a tiny Greek Island known as Melos. People living on the island were known as Melians. In this paper we are going to focus on the dialogue between Athenians and Melians and demonstrate whether Melians took the right decision or not. Thucydides basically analyzed and recorder Peloponnesian war events. Out of which Melian dialogue is one the important event described by Thucydides (Cawkwell, 121). In other words Thucydides speaks of the Spartan-atheno conflict occurring between 431 and 404 BC. This is one of the first works constituting a fairly accurate historical narrative that particularly influenced philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes. Thucydides, in his History of the Peloponnesian War, transcribed the discussion of two Athenian ambassadors with citizens of the small island of Melos to get their support. The representatives of the imperial Athens speech made clear as power: "In the just human reasoning applies when there is equality of forces. The strong do what they allow their forces, while the weak give up" (Lewis, 444).

The General Context of the Peloponnesian War

The historical context of this historical eveny was outlined in introduction. However is also necessary go into the deep of this event, Thucydides was an Athenian general who served in the conflict which was proposed carefully and objectively for future generations, even if his work on the war remained unfinished. Melian dialogue is in the third of eight books of this work. Historically, the Peloponnesian War was caused by tensions between the two hereditary enemies who were Athens and Sparta. When independence movements in the Ionian Sea began threatening the armistice between the two, the military intervention of Athens, including using naval forces, was driven by its desire to preserve its hegemony, including the military and ideological. As for Sparta, she intervened by ground forces and was driven by the fear of expansion and dominance of Athens endangering the fragile balance of the region. The conflict became inevitable and took on the appearance of increasingly barbaric after the death of Pericles Athenian following an outbreak of typhus (Bagnall, 52). Conveyed by the law of the strongest and highly comparable position to realism, Athens made unacceptable demands in several dialogues or attempted armistice, not only to the enemy regions, but also to the neutral islands. If the opponent does not agree fully with the requirements ...