Greek world, even in Athens. The Athenian rhetorician Isocrates, in his apologia for Athens' conquests, mentioned the massacre at Melos as a major point of criticism against Athens, but he argued that it had been necessary and that the other warring states were just as brutal. The Athenian historian Xenophon wrote that in 405 BC, with the Spartan army closing in on Athens, the citizens of Athens worried that the Spartans would treat them with the same cruelty that the Athenian army had shown the Melians. There is circumstantial evidence that suggests that the Melians surrendered only after enduring extreme starvation: the expression "Melian famine" entered the Greek language as a metaphor for extreme starvation. The first known appearance of this phrase is in Aristophanes' play The Birds (414 BC), and its usage seems to have lasted well into the Byzantine era as it is mentioned in the Suda, a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia. In March 415 BC, the Athenian playwright Euripides premiered a play called The Trojan Women, which explores the suffering of the inhabitants of a conquered city. Although Melos isn't explicitly mentioned (the setting is the Trojan War), many scholars regard it as a commentary on the massacre at Melos, but this is unlikely. Euripides was probably developing his play before the siege of Melos even began, and he had only a month or two after its fall to make revisions. It's also unlikely that Euripides would have dared to offend his Athenian audiences given how expensive the production was. It is uncertain whether the fate of Melos was decided by the government of Athens or the Athenian generals on Melos. A historical speech falsely attributed to the Athenian orator Andocides claims that the statesman Alcibiades advocated the enslavement of the Melian survivors before the government of Athens. This account gives no date for the decree, so it could have been passed to justify the atrocities after the fact. Thucydides made no mention of any such decree in his own account. The treatment of the Melians is sometimes considered an example of genocide in the ancient world. References Bibliography Thucydides (c. 400 BC). History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Crawley, Richard (1914). The Melian Dialogue (original Greek) The Melian Dialogue (Rex Warner translation) The Melian Dialogue (Benjamin Jowett translation) 415 BC 410s BC conflicts Melos 415 BC Ancient Milos