Battle of Melos

Significance

The siege of Melos in 416 BC was an episode in the Peloponnesian War in which Athens moved against a neutral Aegean island with ancestral ties to Sparta, roughly 110 kilometres east of the Greek mainland. Athens demanded that the Melians submit and pay tribute or face annihilation. When the Melians refused, Athens laid siege to their city. Following the city's surrender in winter, the Athenians executed its men and enslaved its women and children. The episode illustrates Athens' readiness during the war to apply overwhelming coercive force against neutral parties, subordinating prior neutrality and ancestral Spartan connections to the demands of Athenian imperial tribute.