Melos maintained its independence and its mint through the first decade of the Peloponnesian War, but the island's refusal to join the Athenian alliance ultimately proved fatal. In 416 BC the Athenians besieged the island, executed the adult male population, and enslaved the women and children — the event Thucydides used to frame the Melian Dialogue, his sharpest meditation on power and expedience. Staters from this final issuing period were struck within years, possibly months, of that annihilation. The mint did not reopen.
Melos maintained its independence and its mint through the first decade of the Peloponnesian War, but the island's refusal to join the Athenian alliance ultimately proved fatal. In 416 BC the Athenians besieged the island, executed the adult male population, and enslaved the women and children — the event Thucydides used to frame the Melian Dialogue, his sharpest meditation on power and expedience. Staters from this final issuing period were struck within years, possibly months, of that annihilation. The mint did not reopen.