It was a practice, frequent, if not universal, in Greece, even in governments not professedly democratical—to discuss propositions for peace or war before the assembly of the people. But on the present occasion the Melian leaders departed from this practice, and admitted the envoys only to a private conversation with their executive council. Of this conversation Thucydidês professes to give a detailed and elaborate account, at surprising length, considering his general brevity. He sets down thirteen distinct observations, with as many replies, interchanged between the Athenian envoys and the Melians; no one of them separately long, and some very short; but the dialogue carried on is dramatic, and very impressive. There is, indeed, every reason for concluding that what we here read in Thucydidês is in far larger proportion his own and in smaller proportion authentic report, than any of the other speeches which he professes to set down. For this was not a public harangue, in respect to which he might have had the opportunity of consulting the recollection of many different persons: it was a private conversation, wherein three or four Athenians, and perhaps ten or a dozen Melians, may have taken part. Now as all the Melian population were slain immediately after the capture of the town, there remained only the Athenian envoys through whose report Thucydidês could possibly have heard what really passed. That he did hear either from or through them the general character of what passed, I make no doubt: but there is no ground for believing that he received from them anything like the consecutive stream of debate, which, together with part of the illustrative reasoning, we must refer to his dramatic genius and arrangement.