High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Melian dialogue, contained in Thucydides` History of the Peloponnesian War, is an account of the confrontation between the people of Melos, a small island in the southern Aegean Sea, and the Athenians in 416–415 BC. Melos was a neutral island, lying just east of Sparta; the Athenians wanted to conquer the island to intimidate the Spartans. In general, "the Dialogue is formally not about the morality of the eventual execution, but about the Melian response to the Athenians` first demand, that Melos should submit."