> Is my view of Ancient Greece wrong
I'd suggest a short read - Thucydides' Melian dialogue, there's a copy at http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Melian.html
I'd suggest a short read - Thucydides' Melian dialogue, there's a copy at http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Melian.html
94. Melians: But must we be your enemies? Will you not receive us as friends if we are neutral and remain at peace with you?
95. Athenians: No, your enmity is not half so mischievous to us as your friendship; for the one is in the eyes of our subjects an argument of our power, the other of our weakness.
96. Melians: But are your subjects really unable to distinguish between states in which you have no concern, and those which are chiefly your own colonies, and in some cases have revolted and been subdued by you?
97. Athenians: Why, they do not doubt that both of them have a good deal to say for themselves on the score of justice, but they think that states like yours are left free because they are able to defend themselves, and that we do not attack them because we dare not. So that your subjection will give us an increase of security, as well as an extension of empire. For we are masters of the sea and you who are islanders, and insignificant islanders too, must not be allowed to escape us.
116 [...] The place was now closely invested, and there was treachery among the citizens themselves. So the Melians were induced to surrender at discretion. The Athenians thereupon put to death all who were of military age, and made slaves of the women and children. They then colonised the island, sending thither 500 settlers of their own.
Incidentally, that island later hosted one of the most famous statues in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo
"And so it goes", as another writer more recently put it.