From: the.wise.one@abel.co.uk   
      
        ... To a plea from the Melians that they have done no wrong and   
   that to make war on them will be contrary to all justice, the envoys   
   reply: "Justice is attained only when both sides are equal.  The   
   powerful exact what they can and the weak yield what they must."   
      
        "You ignore justice," the Melians answer, "and yet it is to your   
   interest, too, to regard it, because if you ever are defeated you will   
   not be able to appeal to it."   
      
        "You must allow us to take the risk of that," the Athenians say.   
   "Our point is that we want to subjugate you without trouble to ourselves   
   and that this will be better for you too."   
      
        "To become slaves?" ask the Melians.   
      
        "Well -- it will save you from a worse fate."   
      
        "You will not consent to our remaining at peace, your friends, but   
   not your allies?"   
      
        "No," the Athenians answer.  "We do not want your friendship.  It   
   would appear a proof of our weakness whereas your hatred is a proof of   
   our power.  Please remember that with you the question is one of   
   self-preservation.  We are the stronger."   
      
        "Fortune does not always side with the strong," the Melians say.   
   "There is hope that if we do our utmost we can stand erect."   
      
        "Beware of hope," the Athenians reply.  "Do not be like the common   
   crowd who when visible grounds for hope fail betake themselves to the   
   invisible, religion and the like.  We advise you to turn away from such   
   folly.  And may we remind you that in all this discussion you have not   
   advanced one argument that practical men would use."   
      
        The Melians were unpractical and they fought.  They were conquered   
   with little trouble to Athens.  She put the men to death and made slaves   
   of the women and children.  She had reached a point where she did not   
   care to use fine words about ugly facts, and the reason was that they   
   had ceased to look ugly to her.  Vices by then, Thucydides says, were   
   esteemed as virtues.  The very meaning of words changed: deceit was   
   praised as shrewdness, recklessness held to be courage, loyalty,   
   moderation, generosity, scorned as proofs of weakness.  "That good will   
   which is the chief element in a noble nature was laughed out of court   
   and vanished. Every man distrusted every other man."  That was where the   
   race for power brought the Athenians in the end.   
      
      
   from:   
   "The Greek Way"   
   by Edith Hamilton   
   W.W. Norton & Company Inc, New York, 1942   
   Chapter IX: Thucydides   
   pages 201-202   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)