Blogging Thucydides (IV): I think this may be the most brutal line I've ever read

In the dialogue with the
people of the small, weak island of Melos,
the Athenians explained why the island must submit to the wishes of the city of
Athens: "the strong do what they can and
the weak suffer what they must." (P. 352, Landmark edition) Yow. That is
(as the headline suggested) perhaps the nastiest line I ever have read. 

The Melians asked to be allowed to remain neutral in the
war. Tough luck, said Athens, which then invaded and "put to death all the
grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves," and then
re-settled the island with their own colonists.

Such wholesale violence seemed to be about par for the
course in the ancient Greek world. Samos is not that big an island, but when
one party in a civil war on the island prevailed, it executed 200 of most
powerful men from the other party and banished another 400. (P. 493, Landmark
edition) Sounds to me like they extirpated the opposition.