Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/133

115 R KM ARKS ON THE DIALOGUE. 115 effect, though of small value was doubtless her chief motive ; probably also strengthened by pique against Sparta, between whom and herself a thoroughly hostile feeling subsisted, and by a desire to humiliate Sparta through the Melians. This passion for new acquisition, superseding the more reasonable hopes of recovering the lost portions of her empire, will be seen in the coming chap- ters breaking out with still more fatal predominance. Both these two points, it will be observed, are prominently marked in the dialogue set forth by Thucydides. I have already stated that this dialogue can hardly represent what actually passed, except as to a few general points, which the historian has fol- lowed out into deductions and illustrations, 1 thus dramatizing the given situation in a powerful and characteristic manner. The language put into the mouth of the Athenian envoys is that of pirates and robbers, as Dionysius of Halikarnassus 2 long ago remarked ; intimating his suspicion that Thucydides had so set out the case for the purpose of discrediting the country which had sent him into exile. Whatever may be thought of this sus- picion, we may at least affirm that the arguments which he here ascribes to Athens are not in harmony even with the defects of the Athenian character. Athenian speakers are more open to the charge of equivocal wording, multiplication of false pre- tences, softening down the bad points of their case, putting an amiable name upon vicious acts, employing what is properly "ailed sophistry, where their purpose needs it. 3 Now the lan- guage of the envoy at Melos, which has been sometimes cited as illustrating the immorality of the class or profession falsely called a school named Sophists at Athens, is above all things remarkable for a sort of audacious frankness ; a disdain not merely of sophistry, in the modern sense of the word, but even 1 Such is also the opinion of Dr. Thirlwall, Hist. Gr. vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p 348. 3 Dionys. Hal. Juclic. de Thucydid. c. 37-42, pp. 906-920, Ecisk : compare the remarks in his Epistol. ad Cn. Pompcium, de Prsecipuis Historicis, p. 774, Reisk. 3 Plutarch, Alkibiad. 16. rovf 'A^^vaj'ovf uel TU TrpaoTara TUV OVO/J.UTUV roif ii.u.apT7iij.aa t rttfe^fvovf, TratJmf Kal L^.av&puTria^. To the same putposa Plutarch, Solon, c. 15.