you; nor when you have the choice given you between war and
security, will you be so blinded as to choose the worse. And it is
certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms
with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on the
whole succeed best. Think over the matter, therefore, after our
withdrawal, and reflect once and again that it is for your country
that you are consulting, that you have not more than one, and that
upon this one deliberation depends its prosperity or ruin.
The Athenians now withdrew from the conference; and the Melians,
left to themselves, came to a decision corresponding with what they
had maintained in the discussion, and answered: "Our resolution,
Athenians, is the same as it was at first. We will not in a moment
deprive of freedom a city that has been inhabited these seven
hundred years; but we put our trust in the fortune by which the gods
have preserved it until now, and in the help of men, that is, of the
Lacedaemonians; and so we will try and save ourselves. Meanwhile we
invite you to allow us to be friends to you and foes to neither party,
and to retire from our country after making such a treaty as shall
seem fit to us both."
Such was the answer of the Melians. The Athenians now departing from
the conference said: "Well, you alone, as it seems to us, judging from
these resolutions, regard what is future as more certain than what
is before your eyes, and what is out of sight, in your eagerness, as
already coming to pass; and as you have staked most on, and trusted
most in, the Lacedaemonians, your fortune, and your hopes, so will you
be most completely deceived."
The Athenian envoys now returned to the army; and the Melians
showing no signs of yielding, the generals at once betook themselves
to hostilities, and drew a line of circumvallation round the
Melians, dividing the work among the different states. Subsequently
the Athenians returned with most of their army, leaving behind them
a certain number of their own citizens and of the allies to keep guard
by land and sea. The force thus left stayed on and besieged the place.
About the same time the Argives invaded the territory of Phlius
and lost eighty men cut off in an ambush by the Phliasians and
Argive exiles. Meanwhile the Athenians at Pylos took so much plunder
from the Lacedaemonians that the latter, although they still refrained
from breaking off the treaty and going to war with Athens, yet
proclaimed that any of their people that chose might plunder the
Athenians. The Corinthians also commenced hostilities with the
Athenians for private quarrels of their own; but the rest of the
Peloponnesians stayed quiet. Meanwhile the Melians attacked by night
and took the part of the Athenian lines over against the market, and
killed some of the men, and brought in corn and all else that they
could find useful to them, and so returned and kept quiet, while the
Athenians took measures to keep better guard in future.
Summer was now over. The next winter the Lacedaemonians intended
to invade the Argive territory, but arriving at the frontier found the
sacrifices for crossing unfavourable, and went back again. This
intention of theirs gave the Argives suspicions of certain of their
fellow citizens, some of whom they arrested; others, however,
escaped them. About the same time the Melians again took another
part of the Athenian lines which were but feebly garrisoned.
Reinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under
the command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the siege was now pressed
vigorously; and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians
surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who 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 and inhabited
the place themselves.