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The Melian Dialogue and Perikles' Last Speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

A. Andrewes
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Extract

The Melian Dialogue is too eccentric to be explained solely in terms of its immediate context. It will here be maintained that it represents primarily a stage in Thucydides' struggle to reconcile his admiration for the Athenian empire with his feeling that empire was somehow immoral. This essay is thus necessarily concerned with his general views on empire; for which the last speech assigned to Perikles is important evidence.

I. THE DIALOGUE AND ITS CONTEXT

The Dialogue falls into two parts which overlap. The first, dealing with the reasons why Athens found it necessary to suppress the independence of Melos, ends roughly at v, 105, 2: it is this part that seems so remote from real life and raises the main problems. The second, roughly from v, 102, dealing with the prospect that Melos might be saved by Spartan help or by mere luck, is comparatively plain sailing: the possibility of Spartan intervention is a real topic, in no sense out of place at such a conference.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 6 , 1960 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1960

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References

page 1 note 1 It is a conflation of papers read to the Oxford branch of the Classical Association in June 1958 and to die Cambridge Philological Society in February 1960. I am grateful for useful advice on both occasions: more particularly, to M. I. Finley and P. A. Brunt. I have not attempted to deal with the large literature of the subject except where it is directly relevant to my own argument. Herter, H.'s careful essay ‘Pylos und Melos’ in Rh. Mus. XCVII (1954), 316–43Google Scholar refers to everything recent; cf. also Wasserman, F. M.'s survey in Cl. Weekly, L (1956/1957), 93–4Google Scholar.

page 2 note 1 In III, 91, 1 ἐς Μῆλον was enough (though in 91, 2, as in v, 84, 2, their position as islanders is referred to in explanation).

page 2 note 2 Treu, M. in Historia, II (1953/1954), 253–73Google Scholar and in (1954/5), 58–9 argued that Melos was tributary from 425 onwards but rebelled in 416. Eberhardt, W. in Historia, VIII (1959), 284–314Google Scholar deals adequately with this, and with the general hostility between Athens and Melos.

page 4 note 1 Further, the argument about Syracuse given to Nikias in VI, 11, 3, ἐκείνως δ’ οὐκ εἰκὸς ἀρχὴν ἐπὶ ἀρχὴν στρατεῦσαι, was not based on subsequent experience.

page 4 note 2 Momigliano, , Mem. Acc. Sc. di Torino, II, 67 (1930), 11Google Scholar; De Sanctis, , Rend. dei Lincei, VI, 6 (1930), 299 ffGoogle Scholar. ( = Studi di storia della storiografia greca, pp. 73 ff.), does not really get to grips with Momigliano's point: Isokrates 8. 78, 105 does not amount to a narrative alternative to Xenophon's, and in any case a publicist with a case to argue about the Social War is not to be trusted that far. de Romilly, Mme, Th. et l'impérialisme athénien, pp. 232–3Google Scholar argues that the subjects of Athens are included in Xenophon, 's πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ ἄλλοι τῶν ‛Ελλήνων (Hell, II, 2, 19)Google Scholar, but even so they are not given the lead. It is relevant that Xenophon must have read the Dialogue.

page 4 note 3 Beloch, , Gr. Gesch. II 2, 2, 14Google Scholar, and Momigliano suppose that the Dialogue was written immediately after the event. For reasons given in the text I find this unlikely.

page 7 note 1 Similarly, the one direct reference to the problem of empire in the Funeral Speech, II, 41, 3 οὔτε τῷ ὑπηκόῳ κατάμεμΨιν ὡς οὐχ ὑπ’ ἀξίων ἄρχεται, might be more highly appreciated by the rulers than by the ruled.

page 8 note 1 Meyer, , Forschungen, II, 391–4Google Scholar; Schwartz, , Geschichtswerk des Th., pp. 147–85Google Scholar de Romilly, pp. 131–2; Gomme, , J.H.S. LXXI (1951), 75–81Google Scholar (in his n. 15 and de Romilly, p. 124, the controversy about Kimon is irrelevant: Thucydides, who was not an empire-builder, was Perikles' adversary at the time in question); Wade-Gery, , J.H.S. LII (1932), 215, cf. p. 221Google Scholar ( = Essays in Greek History, pp. 252–3, cf. p. 260).

page 8 note 2 This is, I think, implied in the strong praise given to Thucydides in Plato, , Meno 94 dGoogle Scholar, and Aristotle, , Ἀθ. Π 28, 5Google Scholar.

page 9 note 1 Propounded by both Meyer and Schwartz (see n. 1, p. 8).