Kitap 5
86.1
The commissioners of the Melians answered: “The fairness of the proposal, that we shall at our leisure instruct one another, is not open to objection, but these acts of war, which are not in the future, but already here at hand, are manifestly at variance with your suggestion. For we see that you are come to be yourselves judges of what is to be said here, and that the outcome of the discussion will in all likelihood be, if we win the debate by the righteousness of our cause and for that very reason refuse to yield, war for us, whereas if we are persuaded, servitude.”
87.1
ATH. “Well, if you have met to argue from suspicions about what may happen in the future, or for any other purpose than to consult for the safety of your city in the light of what is present and before your eyes, we may as well stop; but if you have this end in view, we may speak on.”
88.1
MEL. “It is natural and pardonable for men in such a position as ours to resort to many arguments and many suppositions. This conference, however, is here to consider the question of our safety; so let the discussion, if it please you, proceed in the way that you propose.”
89.1
ATH. “Well, then, we on our part will make use of no fair phrases, saying either that we hold sway justly because we overthrew the Persians,cf. 6.83.2. or that we now come against you because we are injured, offering in a lengthy speech arguments that would not be believed; nor, on the other hand, do we presume that you will assert, either that the reason why you did not join us in the war was because you were colonists of the Lacedaemonians, or that you have done us no wrong. Rather we presume that you aim at accomplishing what is possible in accordance with the real thoughts of both of us, since you know as well as we know that what is just is arrived at in human arguments only when the necessity on both sides is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, while the weak yield what they must.”
