(Not the worst) Thucydides' Mitylenian Debate

Cleon, in prosecution, presents the aggravating circumstance of Mitylene having revolted without having been oppressed by Athenian empire and, what may have been worse, allying themselves with the Spartan nemesis. Thucydides describes an interpretation of evidence, the Pelopennesian fleet having crossed the Aegean revealing the uncouth revolt to be premeditated. While the plebeians of Mitylene, under a Lacedaemonian Salaethus, having been armed faute de mieux, the expected Peloponnesian reinforcements tangled in distractions, did to their own credit immediately rise in insurrection against their officers and force the Mitylene leadership to end the revolt which represented a threat to Athens, this was not considered any substantial mitigation in what Thucydides sketches as a wrathful determination by the Athens council to execute all Mitylenian males and enslave all women and children. All of this presents a version of the scenario at the surface level, but as Diodotus articulates, it is not so cut and dry.

The penalty decreed, after the Athenians slept on it, seemed not in proportion to the crime. In considering the injustice in punishing all when among the set innocents should suffer, an appeal was scheduled. Cleon, from whom the original sentence and decree is said to have originated, makes a case to uphold said decree with Diodotus countering to reverse the decree. In spite of Cleon's sway, rather vicious reputation, and the loaded propositions of fault and impropriety among counsellors who could contrive to disagree with him, specifically that they work in deluded methods of sophism, or have sold their objectivity or allegiance, Diodotus proceeds to explain the complications involved in the determination of the Mitylenians' fate and to lay out how the advantage of Athens is compromised in Cleon's motion.

The real issue, as Diodotus insightfully states, "... is not justice, but how to make the Mitylenians useful to Athens." Diodotus makes the case that capital punishment for all, regardless of their rank or order in a revolting state, leads the logic that each man will fight to the death rather than consider a capitulation when it becomes available and clearly to advantage. This creates only more challenge and expense for Athens. What's more, if a scorched-earth policy is taken, no revenue will continue to flow, and that revenue is the very thing that lends Athens the influence she wields. Diodotus' final claim regards the working class, who by executing in this case are alienated. To do so would be to alienate the allies Athens can regard as friend in contrast to the oligarchy. Diodotus' line, in the language of his own conclusion, is rendered thus, "In short, I consider it far more useful for the preservation of our empire voluntarily to put up with injustice, than to put to death, however justly, those whom it is our interest to keep alive." He then intimates, in this ancient account, that the wheels of justice are better turned slowly, and carefully, in a remark that challenges Cleon's notion that "justice and expediency" are well matched.