The last few months I was living in Mytilene, Lesbos
Island, Greece, a picturesque place, a piece of art. While living there I could
not help but think the Mytilenian Debate, a 2,440 years old argument that the
death penalty is not deterrence.
According to Thucydides[1],
during the Peloponnesian War the Athenians sentenced all the male Mytilenians
to death after the attempt of the latter to rebel against the Athenian authority.
A day after this decision there was a debate between Cleon of Athens,
supporting the decision of executing the Mytilenians and Diodotus, arguing that
the death penalty is not deterrence but the exact opposite. The assembly of
Athens was convinced by the argument of Diodotus and as a result the male
citizens of Mytilene were not executed. This is the Mytilenian Debate; the
first argument in history that the death penalty is not deterrence.
Thousands of years later, I am wondering about the
progress of the society as a whole on the issue of the death penalty. In spite
of the fact that it was held that the death penalty is not deterrence in
ancient Greece, people are still executed today in many countries. However, one
after the other countries abolishes the death penalty. People work hard for its
abolition either as members of organisations or as individuals. They raise
awareness by asking questions about the death penalty in a new way, with most
recent example the particularly promising blog-site of Martin Martensen-Larsen:
http://deathisdifferent.wordpress.com/.
All this work against the death penalty makes me think
that soon will bear fruit globally just as this has been the case locally and
as the Mytilenian Debate is part of the history of ancient Greece soon the
death penalty will be abolished and it will be part of the history of the
world.
Athina
