The Just and the Advantageous in Thucydides: The Case of the Mytilenaian Debate

Clifford Orwin

American Political Science Review, 1984, vol. 78, issue 2, 485-494

Abstract: As no passage in Thucydides is more important, so none is more dramatic than the Mytilenaian Debate. Having resolved to punish harshly a rebel city, the Athenians repent and reconsider. Exhorted by Kleon to maintain their original decision and by Diototos to abandon it, the Athenians must scrutinize the relationship between justice and expediency. Diodotos, who professes to argue from interest only, narrowly prevails in the debate. There is, however, much more to his speech than meets the eye. For it proves misleading to say that he is arguing merely from interest—and then, on a deeper level, to say that he is arguing from justice. In fact no passage in Thucydides, including the Melian Dialogue, raises starker questions about the status of political justice.

Date: 1984
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:78:y:1984:i:02:p:485-494_25

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Political Science Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().