esources are too scanty, as
compared with those arrayed against you, for you to come out victorious.
You will therefore show great blindness of judgment, unless, after
allowing us to retire, you can find some counsel more prudent than this.
You will surely not be caught by that idea of disgrace, which in dangers
that are disgraceful, and at the same time too plain to be mistaken,
proves so fatal to mankind; since in too many cases the very men that
have their eyes perfectly open to what they are rushing into, let the
thing called disgrace, by the mere influence of a seductive name, lead
them on to a point at which they become so enslaved by the phrase as in
fact to fall wilfully into hopeless disaster, and incur disgrace more
disgraceful as the companion of error, than when it comes as the result
of misfortune. This, if you are well advised, you will guard against;
and you will not think it dishonourable to submit to the greatest
city in Hellas, when it makes you the moderate offer of becoming its
tributary ally, without ceasing to enjoy the country that belongs to
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, reg