Socrates Compare And Contrast Essay

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During the Peloponnesian war, Athens had attack a small city-state called Melos. Melos was a Spartan colony and because its leadership wanted to stay neutral and had refused to be the subjects to Athens Empire, the Athenian generals destroyed their land and city including killing many innocent people. The subjects or the weak, which in this case are the Melians, did not obey the laws because they are just but they are also afraid of what the consequences might be later on. The Athenians did provide an opportunity for the Melians to escape destruction by offering a negotiation but still the people of Melos did not accept. The Athenian generals had very strong intensions of destroying the land for themselves (Thucydides 102-109). The views that…show more content…
They believe there is no justice between the weak and the strong. The strong can demand as much as possible and the weak can only bear what they must or what they can. Shifting to Thrasymachus in The Republic, his thoughts are, “Justice is nothing other than what is advantageous for the stronger" (Plato 338c) and "Injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice'" (Plato 344c). According to Thrasymachus, justice is the way by which the strong make the weak work for the value of the strong. An addition of his statement is that the stronger people or rulers are only so because of their injustice. The stronger becomes the ruler because of his superior command of justice and that coincides with the Athenians. The Athenian generals attacked Melos to express to the Melians that they had the power and that they are going to stay there. They rule over Melos because they do believe that they are the stronger and have more power in justice. Therefore, It is not their fault they attacked Melos, it was all because of “the survival of the fittest” and Athens was the fittest and stronger. If it weren’t for the attack against Melos, Athens wouldn’t be where they were at the time as an empire of ancient
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