5. The destruction of Melos and the Melian gendercide
The city of Melos remained officially neutral during the Third Peloponnesian War fought between Sparta and Athens during the fifth century BCE. The Melians, like the Spartans, were of Dorian descent, and in a nod to their shared ethnicity they provided support to the Spartans in the form of food and money, but were not active combatants. In response the Athenians conducted raids on Melian territory and demanded tribute from the city, a demand which was refused. The Athenians accordingly besieged the city, demanding its surrender and a Melian alliance against Sparta in 416 BCE. Melos, which was on an island, resisted and the Athenians who controlled the area surrounding the city withdrew most of their troops to other service.
When the Melians were forced to surrender to the remaining Athenians, unable to break the siege and facing starvation, the Athenians had too few troops to ensure that they could maintain security over the captives. The Melian men of adult age were gathered together and executed by the Athenians, and the women and children sold into slavery, with 500 Athenian colonists moved to the island. A decade later the Spartans, related ancestrally to the Melians, removed the Athenian colonists and restored the island to Spartan control. How many of the Melian men were killed by the act of gendercide perpetrated by the Athenians and how many died of hunger is unknown, but the term Melian hunger became a watchword for extreme starvation.