The siege of Melos occurred in 416 BC during the Peloponnesian War, which was a war fought between Athens and Sparta. Melos is an island in the Aegean Sea roughly east of mainland Greece. Though the Melians had ancestral ties to Sparta, they were neutral in the war. Athens invaded Melos in the summer of 416 BC and demanded that the Melians surrender and pay tribute to Athens or face annihilation. The Melians refused, so the Athenians laid siege to their city. Melos surrendered in the winter, and the Athenians executed the men of Melos and enslaved the women and children. This siege is best remembered for the Melian Dialogue, a dramatization of the negotiations between the Athenians and the Melians before the siege, written by the classical Athenian historian Thucydides. In the negotiations, the Athenians offered no moral justification for their invasion, but instead bluntly told the Melians that Athens needed Melos for its own ends and that the only thing Melians stood to gain in submitting without a fight was self-preservation. It is taught as a classic case study in political realism to illustrate that selfish and pragmatic concerns motivate a country at war. Background The Peloponnesian War lasted from 431 to 404 BC. The war was fought between the Peloponnesian League, an alliance of Greek cities led by Sparta, and the Delian League, an alliance led by Athens. Athens had the superior navy and controlled nearly all the islands in the Aegean Sea. Melos was the only significant island in the Aegean Sea that Athens did not control. The people of Melos were Dorians, the same ethnic group as the Spartans, but they were independent of the Spartan empire; the Athenians were Ionians. In general, the Melians sought to remain neutral in the war, although there is archaeological evidence that sometime between 428 and 425 BC, the Melians donated at least twenty minas of silver (about 12½ kg) to the Spartan war effort. In 426 BC, Athens sent an army of 2,000 men to raid the Melian countryside, but the Melians would not be bullied into submission. In 425 or 424 BC, Athens demanded of Melos a tribute of fifteen talents of silver (roughly 390 kg). This sum could have paid the wages of a trireme crew for 15 months, or bought 540 metric tons of wheat, enough to feed 2,160 men for a year. Given the