since thucydides put his pen to parchment ‘realists’ have used the massacre of melos by democratic athens as evidence that might makes right.  of course, this is a selective, restrictive, and ultimately false reading of history. and it is incredibly dangerous.

athens was enjoying a ceasefire with their perennial enemy sparta in the peloponessian wars. in that moment of opportunity they decided they would force allegiance or conquer the one island near them that had not joined their delian league alliance. melos.

they raided and then beseiged melos. they offered the melians terms. 

melos made a claim to morals. that it was immoral for the democratic state of athens to force their will on a non-combatant free city.

that aggression against free cities was beyond justification. the melians refused terms on this point of moral justice.

the reply of the hurried and afraid athenians was paraphrased as “you know as well as we do that right [i.e. justice], as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

after a prolonged seige marked by starvation, melos surrendered and the great democracy of athens hacked them all to death and made slaves of their families. 

power and will justified the killing of every adult male at melos and the enslavement of all women and children. fear drove it. the athenians thought that any display of weakness may ruin them, break their alliance and send spartiates to break their gates. so they resorted to cruelty and the false premise that their sins would be absolved by the virtue of their cause. 

and for miller and many lazy realists, this is where the story ends. the might of athens justified their actions. 

but this is not where the real story ended. inspired by their great victory against the weak, the athenians continued to make wars. they knew their strength and power would overwhelm moral argument, like it had in the smoking ruins of melos. 

the great, moral, and wise democracy of athens invaded sicily. their hubris broke them. they lost, their power was exposed to be febrile and they had no moral claim. the specters of the melian dead haunted them in every interaction they had with potential allies. they had shown that they were an immoral and cursed state. and it was not long before sparta burned athens to the ground. they would have enslaved them all, but there simply were too many. 

their sins at melos killed athens.

miller thinks power and violence wins. it never has, and it never will. only the depraved would claim so. and when they hold power, the only outcome is collapse.