When Budapest Falls: Orbán’s Defeat and the Fate of Western Sovereignty
When the Athenians sailed to Melos, they did not come with grievances or legal claims. They came with an argument — that the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must. Thucydides recorded this exchange not as a moment of Athenian pride but as a diagnosis of imperial overreach: the point at which a democracy, convinced of its own righteousness, abandoned the distinction between power and justice. The Melians held their island. They held their gods, their customs, their ancient right to self-governance. Then Athens destroyed them anyway.
