Fight or Flight: Why Didn’t Melos Surrender?

“Survival of the Fittest?” Depends on Your Frame of Reference.

Photo by Julia Joppien on Unsplash

What’s the story?

Ancient Greece — Athens and Sparta are rivals in the Peloponnesian War. Melos is a Spartan colony, but it sides with neither city-state. Then, Athens attacks. Athenian representatives encourage the Melians to surrender, join their empire, and pay tribute to Athens. The resulting conversation between Athenian and Melian representatives is the “Melian Dialogue.” It’s one of the earliest recorded examples of the realist worldview in international relations. And its lessons, spoken and unspoken, ring true for modern practitioners.

The Argument

The Athenian argument hinges on a realist worldview, exemplified by the following quote:

“[…] when these matters are discussed by practical people, the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel and that in fact the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.”

Translation: survival of the fittest.

The Athenians try to convince the Melians — who are poorer, fewer, and weaker than the Athenians — of the futility of resistance. They urge Melos to surrender peacefully… the so-called rational choice. “You, by giving in, would save yourself from disaster; we, by not destroying you, would be able to profit from you.”

The Melians, in turn, argue that Sparta and its allies will come to Melos’s aid. Attacking Melos will turn neutral city-states into enemies of Athens.

The Athenian response?

“As you have staked most on and trusted most in Spartans, luck, and hopes, so in all these you will find yourselves most completely deluded.”

(Translation: Melians are blinded by emotion and will lose this fight.)

The outcome?

Athens attacks Melos, and Sparta does not retaliate. Melos surrenders unconditionally. Athenians capture and kill Melian men and sell the women and children into slavery.

Key Points

In the end, the Athenians were right. If Melos had surrendered peacefully to Athens, the attackers would not have destroyed the city. Nor, perhaps, would Melian men, women, and children have suffered such dismal fates.

But Athenian realism was not entirely realistic. It failed to predict the Melian reaction — the seemingly irrational choice of fighting against the odds. Likewise, its strategy of eliminating improbable threats is not sustainable in the long run.

Critiquing Athenian Realism

For Athens, and for realists, all countries desire to maximize their ‘power’ and ‘security.’ And, because there is no higher power than the state, bad behavior often goes unpunished. Anything goes. The consequences ensue. No ally or neutral country is truly trustworthy. (Note, this simplistic description does not embody the whole of realist thought.)

But, if all countries seek to maximize their power and security, why didn’t Melos surrender?

Why did Melos, knowing it was unlikely to win against Athens, not choose self-preservation?

In fact, Melians did choose self-preservation.

They chose to preserve Melian sovereignty and identity at the expense of their material existence.

Athenians erred in their assumption that rationality is objective — that what is rational for one person or country is rational for another. Here, Athenians assumed Melians value self-preservation above all else. They failed to question whether “self-preservation” implies something other than material security. And they failed to question the importance of these other facets to the Melians.

Constructivists argue that individuals assess reality differently. The Athenians tried to convince Melians to surrender by offering them material security, but Melians understood conceding to Athenian rule meant relinquishing sovereignty. The blow to Melian reputation, pride, and identity would be paramount to suicide — the opposite of self-preservation.

The Athenian ultimatum asked Melos to decide between material self-preservation and existential self-preservation. To which, Melos answered, ‘give me liberty or give me death.’ (Did I mention Patrick Henry was Melian?)

If I Were Athenian…

One reason Athens attacked Melos was to “increase not only the size but the security of our empire.” While the size of the Athenian empire would have increased, the claim about increased security is doubtful.

Survivors and subsequent generations remember attacks. Their memories motivate and justify retaliation. Similarly, neutral observers witnessing the Athenian siege on Melos likely adopted more defensive positions towards Athens.

These factors, product of the narrow Athenian view of ‘security’ and ‘power’ and the city-state’s consequent behavior, could destabilize Athenian hegemony in the long run. In other words, Athenian realism was not completely rational. It was rational from a certain point of view: a limited, short term one.

Athens could mitigate the risks of sullying regional relations by adopting a modified realist worldview. First, to optimize its predictive capacities, Athens should integrate constructivist practices; i.e., analyze others’ values holistically and contextually rather than assume an objective definition of rationality.

Furthermore, while continuing to believe other political actors are self-interested and undependable, Athens should not waste resources and destabilize its regional hegemony by attacking neutral or allied city-states unless it has credible reason to believe it would be worse off not attacking than attacking. When there is no credible threat, the direct and indirect costs of attacking outweigh the benefits of nearly eliminating a political rival. Unprovoked attacking will almost certainly (and unnecessarily) increase the threat posed by survivors and observers.

Rather, Athens should increase security by bolstering troops and supplies at its borders with rival city-states. It should couple military enhancements with strategic economic exchange and an active diplomatic exchange between the two city-states. These initiatives facilitate transparency, interpersonal relationships between constituents, and interdependent economic exchange; in turn, each rival is less likely to attack the other because the long-term opportunity cost of doing so increases.

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In sum, Athenian realists bested the Melians in ancient Greece. However, their worldview was narrow, and the resultant strategy, risk laden. The episode is instructive for modern international relations practitioners and recommends coupling a realist worldview with constructivist practices and elements of classical liberalism.