CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Submit or Perish! Reading Thucydides in Iran

Honorable daughters, peace be upon you. Hope you are enjoying your school.

Come closer because I am an old man, as you can see, and can only speak softly. The girls lean in. I will tell you an ancient Greek story from the time of Darius II, King of Persia. Thucydides, a general in the Athenian army but now known to the world as a historian, wrote this story in 416 BCE, called the Melian Dialogue. Thucydides was a contemporary of Socrates, who also served in the army as a hoplite, a citizen-soldier. Remember Socrates, who questioned everything and drank hemlock instead of fleeing.

Melos was a small island near Athens and Sparta, the two rival powers at the time. Most Greek city-states supported either Athens or Sparta, but the Melians chose to stay neutral, for a peaceful life filled with art, music, and literature. The Athenians disliked their neutrality and sent thirty ships, archers, and 1200 hoplites to demand their submission or destroy them.

The Melian Dialogue is not merely a story from ancient Greece. It describes a permanent problem in human affairs: what should a weaker nation do when confronted by overwhelming power? Submit and survive or resist and risk annihilation. Powerful states demand concessions from weaker ones in the name of security, as if weaker nations need none.

Here is the surprising part of the story. The Athenians and Melians debated whether the Melians should submit or face destruction, a debate that was the focus of the story Thucydides wrote in dialogue form. I will rephrase that dialogue to highlight the arguments they presented for and against submitting to a powerful military force. Alright, here we........

© CounterPunch