The Melian Dialogue and the Problem of Justice

JimHerran

Thucydides

Spring 2007

The Melian dialogue reveals two understandings of justice - the Athenian and the Spartan – and ultimately vindicates the Athenian, not without a certain ambiguity, given the apparent judgment of Athens as represented by the failure of the Sicilian expedition. But a close look at the Melian dialogue reveals that it is a scathing criticism of Spartan (or Melian) justice, not of Athenian hubris; in fact, the Athenians are revealed as selfless and noble. The problem of justice or right involves teleology, relations of power, the common good, and the common good distinguished by foreign and domestic policies. The Spartan understanding of justice is that it is fixed and non-teleological or good in itself. The Athenian understanding is that it is not fixed: it depends on relations of power; also, it is teleological or based on considerations of interest – especially safety, but ultimately the happiness that belongs to the best civilizations. Thucydides vindicates Athenian justice over Spartan justice. This work does not address the problem of justice concerning foreign and domestic policies, in which appears to be the link to the failure of the Sicilian expedition. It suffices to show that the logic within the Melian dialogue vindicates Athenian justice.

The conflict with Melos takes place in the summer of the 16th year of the war. We must remember that Melos is a colony of Sparta, but nominally neutral in the war. But we are told that in reaction to Athenian plundering, they now assumed “an attitude of open hostility” (5.84.3). Thus, the Athenian’s send an expedition with the clear intent of subjugating Melos by any means, but “before doing any harm to their land, [the generals] send envoys to negotiate” (5.84.3). The Melian oligarchs, however, do not allow the Athenians to speak before the demos. The Athenian envoys begin by saying that they understand why they are kept from making a speech to the people, and intend to go a step further. The demos would be swayed by the seductive rhetoric of a set speech; let us not only be limited by addressing the few, but to be “more cautious still,” and have a dialogue, free of deceiving and seductive rhetoric (5.85). The Athenians hereby demonstrate that they intend to be as open as the Athenian speakers at Sparta (1.72-78). As Laurie M. Johnson says, “the dialogue itself is a denial of the worth of the explanations, justifications, and ornamentations of rhetoric.”[1] Moreover, the assumption is that the Melian oligarchs will be better persuaded by a dialogue than by speeches, in which they must fear deception and hypocrisy. We must not hesitate to identify at the outset the dialogue form with the Athenian thesis and expediency, in contradistinction to Spartan speeches focused on justice. We are reminded of the parallel conflict between Sparta and Plataea (2.71-74).

Here we see a striking contrast. We are told that Archidamus, without even a warning, was about to lay waste the country when the Plataeans hastily sent out an envoy to plead their case. The weaker instead of the stronger city here seeks negotiations, and the Plataeans then make a set speech about justice qua justice. “Archidamus and Spartans,” they say, “in invading the Plataean territory you do what is wrong in itself […]” (2.71.2). The Plataeans appeal not to Spartan interest, but to the oaths that were made during the Persian war that secured Plataean neutrality and to what is right in itself. The Spartan reply hides all concerns of self interest; Archidamus says it is the Plataeans who fall short of justice. The grant of Pausanias presupposed that they would always help in liberating Hellas. Sure they helped against the Mede, but now Athens is the new tyrant (2.72). The Plataeans are eventually destroyed, but Thucydides tells us explicitly that the Spartan concern for justice is hypocritical. “The adverse attitude of the Spartans in the whole Plataean affair was mainly adopted to please the Thebans, who were thought to be useful in the war at that moment raging” (3.68.4). In this light, not only do we see the higher nobility of Athenian frankness compared to Spartan hypocrisy, but that the Athenians, even in this supposed summit of their callousness and cruelty, are truly much more humane than the Spartans. They go out of their way to attempt to persuade the Melians to save themselves, when the Spartans never even intended moderation towards Plataea. As David Bolotin says, the Athenians

showed an extraordinary concern to be worthy of their imperial rule, and to be noble. Indeed, despite appearances to the contrary, their imperialistic thesis itself is in large measure the result of their concern with justice and with nobility […].[2]

Can the Athenian thesis as such be reconciled in any way to justice, or do the Athenians simply betray a little bit of human kindness that has nothing to do with their political principles? Also, does Thucydides, conversely, actually mean to link considerations of justice qua justice with injustice?

The Melians answer that, given the power with which the Athenians make their presence, it is evident that there will be war if they “prove to have right on [their] side,” for they will refuse to submit to slavery. Thus, the Melians assume that the end of the dialogue will be to discover who is in the right as such (5.86). The Athenians then explain that this dialogue will be about nothing at all if not for the consideration of the Melians’ safety (5.87). It is only at this point that the Athenians explicitly bring up the Athenian thesis. We recall the exposition of the Athenian thesis by the Athenian envoys at Sparta.

They defend the charge of injustice against the Athenian empire by saying that

it was not a very remarkable action, or contrary to the common practice of mankind [including that of Sparta], if we did accept an empire that was offered to us, and refused to give it up under the pressure of three of the strongest motives, fear, honor, and interest. And it was not we who set the example, for it has always been the law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger (1.76.2).

When the Athenians say that it has always been the law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger, they don’t mean law as related to proclamation, punishment, and right in itself, but more like scientists today might speak of the “laws of nature.” Human beings can’t help but act according to expediency as related to fear, honor, and interest. There is nothing unjust in looking after the interests of one’s city and, presumably, of one’s self. Both the Athenians and Thucydides himself tell us that even selfless Sparta, the liberator of Hellas, acts according to this natural law. What is “remarkable” is that the Athenian generals at Melos say that the purpose of the dialogue is solely to discuss the safety, not of themselves, but of the Melians. The Athenians have already thought about their interest: Melos is to be subdued no matter what; they later explain why it is in their interest of safety to subdue Melos. The question is whether they serve their own interest at all in engaging in the dialogue; why not attack Melos directly, as Archidamus had meant to do in Plataea?

The generals do maintain that it is in Athenian interest not to destroy Melos in 5.93, but this interest is merely to avoid the trouble of besieging the city. Michael Palmer raises an important question, “Who has the greater interest in the Melians submitting to avoid destruction? The Melians.”[3] That is, they ought to have the greater interest. It is not the issue of Athenian callousness that is shocking, but the Melians’ hard-headed neglect of their safety. Palmer also explains a difficulty. Why did the Athenian’s have to destroy the men of Melos when they surrendered? The Athenians had to rely on the threat of force to try to motivate the Melians into making the right decision.[4] Certainly it will not do for Athens to make the threat of force and not deliver when it comes to it.

There is no question that the destruction of the Melians itself is ultimately blameworthy and opposed to Thucydides view of justice, especially in view of his apparent praise of the Athenians in their moderation towards Mytilene and the apparent punishment of Athens with failure in Sicily. Johnson says that the act of destroying the Melians “would have been considered cruel and excessive by the standards eventually arrived at in the Mytilenean Debate.” Likewise, “The Melian Dialogue,” says Johnson, “is followed by the Sicilian Expedition, in which the Athenians in their hubris go too far. How could the Melians’ lives have purchased any more meaning?”[5] Bolotin says that Thucydides invites us to view Athens’ defeat as punishment for injustice.[6] Johnson goes as far as to say that the deaths of the Melians “illustrate the failure of the Athenian thesis when that thesis is taken to its ultimate conclusions.”[7] But given Thucydides apparent agreement with the Athenian thesis, is it not likely that Athens’ failing is not the Athenian thesis as such? In opposition to Johnson, Strauss says that “the Melians’ resistance to the Athenians’ demand was a foolish act and the fate of the Melians is therefore not tragic.”[8] We will see that the dialogue is in fact meant to be a criticism by Thucydides of the Melians more than of the Athenians. The dialogue so far, upon close consideration, actually puts the Athenians in a very favorable light.

In the next step the Melians acknowledge the terms of the dialogue, but point out that in their situation they could resort to many different arguments (5.88). This simple statement actually anticipates the Athenian (and possibly Thucydidean) view of justice that is about to be revealed. The arguments that the Melians would bring up, of course, are arguments about justice qua justice, as the Plataeans had used before them. Strauss comments that “it seems to be the case for right or the appeal to right is made only by those Thucydidean speakers who are either completely helpless or else unjust.”[9] By the unjust, Strauss refers to the Spartans in general (especially as revealed in their conduct towards the Plataeans) and Cleon, who appeals to justice in itself in his defense of the measure to destroy the Mytilineans. The Athenians respond by making it clear that they have no interest in arguments about the right of their empire or about the wrong they, the Melians, have done them. Right, say the Athenians, “is only the question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” (5.89). We see now that the question of justice is not altogether relinquished; it has a place in the Athenian thesis.

The Athenian thesis must not be understood as a denial of the existence or even of the authority of justice in itself. Certainly, as Johnson says, “There is a fine line between admitting that neither gods nor men can help themselves and making out of justice an empty shell.”[10] But when the Athenian envoys at Sparta say that no city regards justice sufficiently to refrain from ruling when given the chance, they intend to show the difference between self-interest disguised as selfless justice and genuine justice. For they go on to say that “praise is due to all who, if not so superior to human nature as to refuse dominion, yet respect justice more than their position compels them to do” (1.76.3). Palmer says, “The Athenians do not pretend to be more just than they really are and do not claim that imperialism per se is just. But they believe sincerely that no city behaves more justly than Athens.”[11] The Athenians hold that justice must always be viewed within the context of power. The observation that the strong rule the weak is not an observation that might makes right; but the human condition is such that considerations of justice will often be neglected when the difference in power is great. Only when powers are more or less equal will both parties, with more frequency, consider justice and the common good. Under this understanding, Athens’ moderate treatment of her allies by means of impartial laws (1.77.1), their change of heart about destroying the Mytilineans, and their attempt to persuade the Melians to save themselves are all examples of genuine justice, to be paralleled by no other city in the History.

Strauss and Palmer point out an interesting corollary to this understanding of justice. An important implication [of this argument],” says Palmer,

is that only a strong, ruling city can display its concern for justice unambiguously, because for all other cities exhortations to justice are self-serving, hence suspect. Strength is a requisite for the practice of virtue.[12]

Strauss elaborates and draws a link to Aristotle’s understanding of virtue. “Just as the individual,” he says, “the city cannot act nobly or virtuously if it lacks the necessary equipment, i.e. power, or, in other words, virtue is useless without sufficient armament.”[13] Thus, the contrast between Sparta and Athens is magnified. Never mind Melos and Plataea and all weak cities that speak about justice; Sparta, whom these Athenian generals admit to be powerful in Athens’ standard, are conspicuous above all cities, in their foreign policy, in regarding as noble what is pleasant, and as just what is expedient (5.105.4).

One may object, however, that this is no justice at all. Gomme argues that the Athenians deliver here a “sophistic and cynical argument.” It may be a justice befitting a king of Persia who might be “wise or benevolent as well as capable, but he does not in the strict sense administer justice, but pardons or punishes, taxes or does not tax, according to his will, can be generous but not (properly speaking) just […].”[14] This is a fair criticism; the Athenians certainly do not mean, when they say that they act with justice in these cases, that they act as rulers of a world polis. There remains a distinction to be made between the Athenian understanding of justice and the Spartan or Melian understanding.