The Melian Dialogue

I was assigned to read The Melian Dialogue in a graduate class I am taking and found it to be fascinating.  It was written by Thucydides, dubbed the father of "scientific history," and he is famous for being the first known historian (to have records survive) that wrote about history impartially and without reference to intervention by any gods.

The Melian Dialogue is a dramatization of the negotiations between Athens and an island city-state of Melos.  The Melos wished to remain neutral during the Peloponnesian Wars between Sparta and Athens and the Athenians were not having any of that.

Quotes I enjoyed include...

"... the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel and that in fact the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept."

"This is not a law that we made ourselves, nor were we the first to act upon it when it was made.  We found it already in existence, and we shall leave it to exist for ever among those who come after us.  We are merely acting in accordance with it, and we know that you or anybody else with the same power as ours would be acting in precisely the same way."

"Your chief points are concerned with what you hope may happen in the future, while your actual resources are too scantry to give you a chance of survival against the forces that are opposed to you at this moment."