Sphinx

…restraint impresses men most. Not Thucydides but attributed to him e.g. by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, but it does, as Tim Rood has pointed out, bear a certain resemblance to Nicias’ claim, in the Sicilian Debate, that it’s better to be feared from a distance for what you might do than to put it into action and be found wanting. This directly contradicts the claim of the Athenians in the Melian Dialogue that if they don’t crush the Melians they will be thought weak by enemies and potentially rebellious subjects, and it’s in that context that I’m thinking about this, as – inevitably – no sooner have I developed a full version of The Melian Dilemma game then I start tinkering with it.

Specifically, having spent a lot of time thinking about the Melians and their options, I’ve now turned back to the Athenians. In the original game, they are – oddly? – passive, with the power to bring the Dialogue to an end and decide how it ends but no influence on what direction it takes; that reflects the original text, where they let the Melians offer desperate argument after desperate argument without any sign that they’ll take a blind bit of notice of any of them. They are guaranteed to win, in the historically authentic manner; they can choose to lose, by sailing away. But the most interesting question is whether they can win without having to kill everyone – and that makes things more complicated because it depends on the Melians, rather than being wholly in the Athenians’ control – which is to say, I need to set up the choices and possible outcomes in a more complex manner than hitherto.

At present, the Athenians have the chance to get a Melian surrender if they address the whole people and are reasonably civil to them – a possibility that’s hinted at in Thucydides. Once they’re in private discussions, there’s no chance; the Melian leaders, as in the original, double down on their defiance and wishful thinking. Should there be a possibility of winning them round, and, if so, what do the Athenians need to do to get there: be reasonable and accommodating rather than aggressive and sarcastic, or try to make sure the Melians think rationally rather than indulging in hopeless fantasies (as, arguably, the Athenians try to do in the original)? There’s a case to be made that the Athenians need to hear the Melians out (so, possibility of surrende doesn’t get unlocked until they’ve had several rounds of desperate pleading), but also a case that – after a certain point? – the Melians simply work themselves into a state of righteous indignation and become incapable of listening to reason (so, the Athenians can miss their moment).

I’d be very interested in comments on this question, not least because I’m developing a shorter version of the game for use in classrooms, workshops, corporate training events etc., which needs to be more explicitly organised around the key issues to be discussed; in other words, the Athenian choices need to be more interesting and/or provocative than just ‘carry on listening’, ‘suddenly abandon enterprise’ and ‘bored now, kill them all’. If we think of this as an exercise in negotiation, what are the lessons that it needs to incorporate – which aren’t in Thucydides, because his negotiation fails miserably.

And, yes, in the light of the previous discussion, I do need to build into the main game the possibility that the Athenians lose patience and start the siege – and the Spartans actually turn up and defeat them…

Update: I’m coming round to the view that I need to define two variables within the game, for the Melians’ anger and for their reasonableness; every expression of Athenian arrogance increases the former, while over-indulgence of their wishful thinking lessens their anger but decreases their rationality, and unlocking the possibility of a peaceful resolution depends on getting these in balance…