Compliance and Endurance. The Athenian Power Building through the Melian Dialogue

Abstract

The Melian dialogue in the 5th book of Thucydides can be seen as one of the most important texts for political science. Two opposing political ideas are confronted by the historian: on the one hand Thucydides presents the Athenians as promoters of the idea of legitimacy of unlimited growth of power; on the other hand, there were the Melians who did not accept the ‘law of the stronger’. The Melians were conquered, and their arguments could not save them, but in the longer perspective the Athenian empire was destined to collapse. Through the dialogue, Thucydides compares the ‘law of the stronger’ ignoring the rights of others, and the appeal to justice by the weaker party trying to demonstrate their reasons to oppose the imperialist power.