There is a famous dialogue between the representatives of a superpower and the people of a tiny state in the context of another looming war - a dialogue which has some resonances for contemporary events.
It is known as the Melian Dialogue and it is recorded in the famous history of the Peloponnesian War (the war fought between Athens and Sparta between 431 and 404 BC) by the first known journalist, Thucydides.
The superpower then was Athens and it wanted to subdue a colony of Sparta, the island of Melos, which had remained largely neutral in the conflict but which, as an island, was an exception to the Athenian rule of the sea. The Athenians sent representatives to Melos to secure a diplomatic outcome under the threat of war. The Melians began the famous dialogue:
"We see you prepared to judge the argument yourselves and that the likely end of it all will be either war, if we prove we are in the right, and so refuse to surrender, or else slavery."
The Athenians said there was no point in the discussion if the Melians refused to acknowledge the facts. They went on to proclaim the real politics of relations between strong and weak nations.
"Since you know as well as we do that, when these matters are discussed by practical people, the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel and that in fact the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept."
The Melians tried another tack. They appealed to a principle of self-interest. Surely it was in the interests of the Athenians in the long term to uphold the principle of fair play, lest, when it comes to their time to be overwhelmed, they be visited by a terrible vengeance.
The Athenians said they were not so much concerned about long-term defeat, rather with short-term perception of their tactics. If they were to concede to the arguments of the Melians they would be perceived as weak and, therefore, vulnerable to their own subjects.
They insisted they wanted the Melians to be spared for the good of both themselves and the Melians.
The Melians inquired: "How could it be just as good for us to be the slaves as for you to be the masters?" The Athenians responded: "You, by giving in, would save yourselves from disaster; we, by not destroying you, would be able to profit from you."
But why not agree to us being friends, the Melians reasonably inquired. The response: "It is not so much as your hostility that injures us; it is rather the case that if we were on friendly terms with you, our subjects would regard that as a sign of weakness in us, whereas your hatred is evidence of our power."
Not only that but by conquering the Melians the Athenians would increase not only the size but the security of their empire.
The Melians pleaded: "We who are still free would show ourselves great cowards and weaklings if we failed to face everything that comes rather than submit to slavers."
"No, not if you are sensible," replied the Athenians. "This is no fair fight with honour on one side and shame on the other. It is rather a question of saving your lives and not resisting those who are far too strong for you."
The Melians said they trusted the gods to be on their side since they were on the side of justice.
The reply was: "Our opinion of the gods and our knowledge of men lead us to conclude that it is a general and necessary law of nature to rule whatever one can. This is not a law we made ourselves, nor we the first to act on it when it was made."
They continued: "Do not be lead astray by a false sense of honour - a thing which often brings men to ruin when they are faced with an obvious danger that somehow affects their pride. For in many cases men have still been able to see the angers ahead of them, but this thing called dishonour, this word, by its own force of seduction, has drawn them into a state where they have surrendered to an idea, while in fact they have fallen voluntarily into irrevocable disaster, in dishonour that is all the more dishonourable because it has come to them from their own folly rather than their misfortune."
The Melians were unpersuaded and said they were not prepared to give up the liberty they had enjoyed for 700 years. They put their trust in the gods and in their Spartan allies. They invited the Athenians to make a treaty that would be agreeable to both sides.
But the dialogue had ended.
War was declared, the Melians surrendered unconditionally.
The penultimate lines of Book Five of this history read: "The Athenians ... put to death all the men of military age whom they took and sold the women and children as slaves."