In perhaps the most famous passage in Thucydides’ History, the Melian Dialogue, the Commissioners of Melos assert a moral case in their defence against their Athenian invaders. They ‘invoke what is fair and right’ and declare to the Athenians that they ‘trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust.’
The Athenians, in reply, do not permit their hearts to be warmed by such moral sentiments. Instead, we witness raw power and cold, naked political realism as they inform the Melians that ‘you know as well as we do that right, 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.’
Melos fell. Thucydides notes rather breezily that after the Melian surrender, the Athenians ‘put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists who settled the place for themselves.’ Defeat in war is always tragic and costly.
Foreword by Andrew Hastie
https://www.andrewhastie.com.au/destined_for_war
From: Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?
By Graham Allison