Siege of Melos
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The Siege of Melos occurred in 416 BC during the Peloponnesian War, a war fought between Athens and Sparta. Melos is an island in the Aegean Sea roughly 110 km off the coast of mainland Greece. At the time it was populated by Dorians. Though the Melians were of the same ethnic group as the Spartans, they chose to remain neutral in the war. Athens invaded Melos in 416 BC and demanded that the Melians surrender and pay tribute to Athens, or face annihilation. The proud Melians refused, and after a siege the Athenians captured their city, slaughtered the men, and enslaved the women and children.
This siege is best remembered for the Melian Dialogue, which is a dramatization of the negotiations between the Athenians and the Melians before the former launched the siege. It is taught as a classic case study in political realism.
Contents
Lead-up[edit]
The Peloponnesian War lasted from 431 to 404 BC. On one side was the Peloponnesian League, an alliance of Greek cities led by Sparta. On the other side was the Delian League, a similar alliance led by Athens. The people of Melos were Dorians, the same ethnic group as the Spartans, but were independent of any of the mainland empires. The Melians donated funds to the Spartan war effort—at least twenty Aeginetan minae in 427 BC[1] (roughly 12½ kg[2] of silver)—but otherwise the island remained neutral in the war. In 426 BC, Athens sent an army of 2,000 men led by Nicias to raid the Melian countryside, but the Melians refused to do battle and Nicias withdrew because he lacked the resources for a siege.[3] In 425 BC, the Athenians formally demanded a tribute of fifteen talents[4] of silver (roughly 390 kg[5]), which was enough to pay the wages of a trireme crew for 15 months.[6] Melos refused to pay.[7]
The Siege[edit]
In the summer of 416 BC, during a truce with Sparta, Athens sent a fleet of 38 ships carrying an army of 3,000 men, led by the generals Cleomedes and Tisias, to conquer the island. After setting up camp on the island, the Athenians sent emissaries to negotiate with the rulers of Melos. The emissaries demanded that Melos join the Athenian-dominated Delian League and pay tribute to Athens or face destruction. The Melians rejected the ultimatum. The Athenians laid siege to the city and withdrew most of their troops from the island to fight elsewhere. The Melians made a number of sorties, at one point capturing part of the Athenians' lines, but failed to break the siege. Athens had to send reinforcements under the command of Philocrates. The Athenians also had help from traitors within Melos.[8] Melos surrendered in the winter of 416 or 415 BC.[9]
The Athenians executed the adult men[10] and sold the women and children into slavery. They then settled 500 of their own colonists on the island.[11]
Restoration by Sparta[edit]
In 405 BC, with Athens losing the war, the Spartan general Lysander expelled the Athenian settlers from Melos and restored the survivors of the original Dorian colony to the island.[7][12][13]
The Melian Dialogue[edit]
In History of the Peloponnesian War (Book 5, verses 84-116), the contemporary Athenian historian Thucydides inserted a dramatization of the negotiations between the emissaries of the Athenian invaders and the rulers of Melos. The Athenians appealed to the Melians' sense of pragmatism, citing the Athenians' overwhelming strength and their "reasonable" surrender terms, whereas the Melians appealed to the Athenians' sense of decency and fear of the gods. Neither side was able to sway the other and the negotiations failed. This dialogue is frequently cited by political scientists and diplomats as a classic case study in political realism. It demonstrates the foolishness of pride and hope, and that selfish and pragmatic concerns drive wars.
Synopsis[edit]
The Athenians offer the Melians an ultimatum: surrender and pay tribute to Athens, or be destroyed. The Athenians do not wish to waste time arguing over the morality of the situation, because in practice might makes right—or, in their own words, "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must".[14]
The Melians argue that they are a neutral city and not an enemy, so Athens has no need to conquer them. The Athenians counter that if they accept Melos' neutrality and independence, they would look weak: Their subjects would think that they left Melos alone because they were not strong enough to conquer it.
The Melians argue that an invasion will alarm the other neutral Greek states, who will become hostile to Athens for fear of being invaded themselves. The Athenians counter that the Greek states on the mainland are unlikely to act this way. It is the independent island states and the disgruntled subjects that Athens has already conquered that are more likely to take up arms against Athens.
The Melians argue that it would be shameful and cowardly of them to submit without a fight. The Athenians counter that it is only shameful to submit to an opponent whom one has a reasonable chance of defeating. There is no shame in submitting to an overwhelmingly superior opponent like Athens.
The Melians argue that though the Athenians are far stronger, there is at least a slim chance that the Melians could win, and they will regret not trying their luck. The Athenians counter that this argument is purely emotional and not a rational risk-benefit analysis. If the Melians lose, which is highly likely, they will come to bitterly regret their foolish optimism.
The Melians believe that they will have the assistance of the gods because their position is morally just. The Athenians counter that the gods will not intervene because it is the natural order of things for the strong to dominate the weak.
The Melians argue that their Spartan kin will come to their defense. The Athenians counter that the Spartans are a practical people who never put themselves at risk when their interests are not at stake, and rescuing Melos would be especially risky since Athens has the stronger navy.
The Athenians express their shock at the Melians' lack of realism. They say that there is no shame in submitting to a stronger enemy, especially one who is offering reasonable terms. They also argue that it is rational to submit to one's superiors, stand firm against one's equals, and be moderate to one's inferiors. The Melians do not change their minds and politely dismiss the envoys.
Analysis[edit]
The best contemporary historical source regarding the siege is History of the Peloponnesian War, written by the contemporary Athenian historian Thucydides. This account is not perfect: He implied the siege ended the winter of that same year whereas more recent sources suggest it lasted at least a year. He also implied that all the Melians were massacred or enslaved, but according to accounts by Xenophon and Plutarch, the Spartans did find some survivors to repatriate.[12][13] Thucydides had been exiled from Athens some seven years before the siege, and this may have made his research more difficult.
The mercilessness which the Athenians showed to the Melians was exceptional even for the time, and was condemned by many throughout Greece, even in Athens.[15] These may have included Euripides, whose play The Trojan Women is widely regarded as a commentary on the razing of Melos. Xenophon describes the razing of Melos as "evil" in his own historical treatise, Hellenica.[16] The razing of Melos is regarded by modern historians as an act of genocide: With its menfolk all slain and the rest taken away as slaves, the intent of the Athenians may have been to outright destroy the Melians as a people.[17][18]
The phrase "Melian hunger" became an byword for extreme starvation. The first known reference to the starvation of the Melians is in Aristophanes' play, The Birds, first performed in 414 BC.[19] It's usage lasted well into the Byzantine era, as it is mentioned in the Suda, a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia.[20]
Warships of the era (triremes) could carry little in the way of supplies, and thus were heavily dependent on friendly and neutral ports where the crew could purchase food and other necessities on a daily basis. Whether or not Melos was truly neutral, Peloponnesian ships could freely resupply there, which made it strategically important. Capturing Melos thus reduced the radius of action of the enemy's navy.[21]
Bibliography[edit]
- Alker, Hayward R. (1988). "The Dialectical Logic of Thucydides' Melian Dialogue". The American Political Science Review. American Political Science Association. 82 (3): 805–820. doi:10.2307/1962492. JSTOR 1962492.
- Gardner, Percy (1918). A History of Ancient Coinage. Oxford at the Clarendon Press.
- Hanson, Victor (2011). A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 9781588364906.
- Herodotus (1998) [440 BC]. Dewald, Carolyn, ed. The Histories. Translated by Waterfield, Robin. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192126092.
- Hultsch, Friedrich (1882). Griechische und Römische Metrologie [Greek and Roman Metrology] (in German) (2nd ed.). Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.
- Michell, Humfrey (1964). Sparta. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521092197.
- Midlarsky, Manus (2005). The Killing Trap: Genocide in the Twentieth Century. ISBN 9781139445399.
- Renfrew, Colin; Wagstaff, Malcolm, eds. (1982). An Island Polity: The Archaeology of Exploitation in Melos. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23785-8.
- Sabin, Philip; van Wees, Hans; Whitby, Michael, eds. (2008). The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare, Volume 1: Greece, the Hellenistic World and the Rise of Rome. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521782739.
- Smith, William; Wayte, William; Marindin, G. E., eds. (1890). A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. John Murray (Albermane Street, London).
- Thucydides (1914) [c. 400 BC]. History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Crawley, Richard.
- Winiarczyk, Marek (2016). Diagoras of Melos: A Contribution to the History of Ancient Atheism. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 9783110447651.
References[edit]
- ^ Geoffrey Ernest Maurice de Ste Croix (1954), republished in Low (2008): "Epigraphic evidence allows us to go further still: it puts the original Athenian attack on Melos in quite a different light. The inscription found near Sparta [...] records two separate donations by Melos to the Spartan war-funds, one of twenty Aeginetan minae (roughly half an Attic talent) [...] The other figure has perished. The donors are described, it will be noticed, as toi Malioi, ‘the Melians’. [...] This shows that the Melian subscription was an official one. [...] there is good reason to think these gifts to Sparta were made in the spring of 427."
- ^ According to Hultsch (1882), an Aeginetan mina weighed 605 grams. Smith et al (1890) estimates a weight of 630 grams. Gardner (1918) writes it weighed exactly 9,600 grains, which is about 622 grams.
- ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 3, verse 91
- ^ Brian Sparkes, in Renfrew & Wagstaff (1982): "They were assessed at the figure of fifteen talents [...]"
- ^ Brian Sparkes, in Renfrew & Wagstaff (1982): "One Attic talent was the equivalent of 60 minae or 6,000 drachmae..."
The mass of an Attic talent was 26.196 kg according to Hultsch (1882), and 25.992 kg according to Dewald (1998). - ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Book 6, verse 8: "Early in the spring of the following summer the Athenian envoys arrived from Sicily, and the Egestaeans with them, bringing sixty talents of uncoined silver, as a month's pay for sixty ships, which they were to ask to have sent them."
- ^ a b Brian Sparkes, in Renfrew & Wagstaff (1982)
- ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Book 5, verse 116
- ^ Thucydides' account suggests the siege lasted only from summer to winter of 416 BC. Barry Strauss in Sabin et al (2008) wrote that it lasted one year. Several online sources, such as the official tourism website of Melos, say it lasted two years.
- ^ Some translators such as Rex Warner used the phrase "men of military age". The key word in the account by Thucydides is hebôntas (ἡβῶντας), which generally describes people who have passed puberty and in this context refers to the men as Thucydides describes a different fate for the women and children. Another possible translation is "men in their prime". The practical goal of the Athenians was to kill anybody who could be a threat. Thucydides makes no specific mention of what happened to the elderly males, who were neither a threat nor were of much worth as slaves.
- ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 5, verse 116
- ^ a b Xenophon. Hellenica. Book 2, Chapter 2, verse 9
- ^ a b Plutarch. Life of Lysander. Chapter 14, verse 3
- ^ This is Crawley's translation. Warner translates this line as: "the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept." Jowett translates this line as: "the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must."
- ^ Winiarczyk (2016)
- ^ Xenophon. Hellenica. 2.2.3: "There was mourning and sorrow for those that were lost, but the lamentation for the dead was merged in even deeper sorrow for themselves, as they pictured the evils they were about to suffer, the like of which they themselves had inflicted upon the men of Melos, who were colonists of the Lacedaemonians, when they mastered them by siege."
- ^ Mulligan, Gerard (27 January 2013). "Genocide in the Ancient World". Ancient History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2016-12-07.
Furthermore, rather than seeing the decision to spare the lives of the women and children, by selling them as slaves, as an act of mercy, this may have been intended to complement the massacre of the men to uproot and destroy the Melian society and culture.
- ^ Midlarsky (2005)
- ^ Aristophanes. The Birds, line 186 (translated by Ian Johnson, 2008): "Then you'd rule all men as if they're locusts and annihilate the gods with famine, just like in Melos."
The relevant line in the original ancient Greek:
ὥστ᾽ ἄρξετ᾽ ἀνθρώπων μὲν ὥσπερ παρνόπων,
τοὺς δ᾽ αὖ θεοὺς ἀπολεῖτε λιμῷ Μηλίῳ. - ^ The Suda. The relevant entry is Λιμὸς Μηλιαῖος (Fames Meliæa).
- ^ Hanson (2011): [...] triremes could venture out for only a few hours each day. They were entirely dependent on friendly shores to provide food and water each evening. There was very little room to stow food and water in the ships, given the number of rowers and the need for spare rigging and parts. [...] every captain had to berth his trireme each night someplace where fresh water was abundant. [...] To travel even short distances, triremes needed safe ports at intervals of fifty miles or so, where ships could find food (barley bread, onions, dried fish, meats, fruit, and olive oil), water, wine, and shelter for their crews to sleep in. [...] Much of Athenian foreign policy, including its efforts to maintain an overseas empire in the Aegean, cultivate allies such as Argos and Corcyra, and establish dependencies at distant Amphipolis and Potidaea, was predicated on just the need to create permanent bases to facilitate long-distance cruises.
See also[edit]
- The Trojan Women, a play by Euripides, performed the same year, considered a commentary on the capture of Melos.
Coordinates: 36°41′N 24°25′E / 36.683°N 24.417°E
