The central theoretical chapters of thePrince(chapters 15 ff.) yield forgotten justifications of the road the West has traveled. Machiavelli relieves us of our qualms; in chapter 16, over dangling the carrot; in chapter 17, over brandishing the stick. He thereby lays the moral foundations for societies based, as all modem societies have been, on collective aggrandizement recognizing no limits in principle, and on justice understood as the enforcement of “equal (but otherwise boundless) opportunity.”

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.

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