It was because we had these objections, and others besides, to oligarchies that we
 established the same polity A democratic government. Cf.
 Isoc. 12.54 ff. in the other states as in Athens
 itself—a polity which I see no need to extol at greater length, since I can tell the truth
 about it in a word: They continued to live under this regime for seventy years, A round number. So Lys. 2.55 .
 Demosthenes reckons the period of supremacy more accurately at 73 years, 477-404. In
 Isoc. 12.56 Isocrates reckons it at 65 years—roughly from
 the Confederacy of Delos to the Athenian
 disaster in Sicily , which was really the
 beginning of the end of the Athenian supremacy. and, during this time, they
 experienced no tyrannies, they were free from the domination of the barbarians, they were
 untroubled by internal factions, and they were at peace with all the world. On account of these services it becomes all thinking men to be deeply grateful to us,
 much rather than to reproach us because of our system of colonization; Allotments of lands to Athenian colonists in Greek territory,
 as in Scione and Melos . See note on 101. For these “cleruchies,” as they
 were called, see Gardner and Jevons,
 Manual of Greek Antiquities, pp. 602 ff. for we sent our
 colonies into the depopulated states for the protection of their territories and not for
 our own aggrandizement. And here is proof of this: We had in proportion to the number of
 our citizens a very small territory, The total population
 including foreign residents and slaves is reckoned at about 500,000; the total area is
 about 700 square miles. but a very great empire; we possessed twice as many ships
 of war as all the rest combined, See Thuc. 2.13 and Thuc. 8.79 . and these were
 strong enough to engage double their number; at the very borders of Attica lay Euboea , which was not only fitted by her situation to command the sea, but also surpassed all the
 islands in her general resources, Herodotus characterizes
 Euboea as a “large and prosperous” island,
 Hdt. 5.31 . Cf. Thuc.
 8.96 . and Euboea lent itself more
 readily to our control than did our own country besides, while we knew that both among the
 Hellenes and among the barbarians those are regarded most highly who have driven their
 neighbors from their homes This cynical remark points to
 the Spartan conquest of Messene . and
 have so secured for themselves a life of affluence and ease, nevertheless, none of these
 considerations tempted us to wrong the people of the island; on the contrary, we alone of those who have obtained great power suffered ourselves to
 live in more straitened circumstances than those who were reproached with being our
 slaves. Probably a taunt flung at the Euboeans and all
 who were under the protection and influence of Athens . And yet, had we been disposed to seek our own advantage,
 we should not, I imagine, have set our hearts on the territory of Scione (which, as all the world knows, we gave over to
 our Plataean refugees), When their city was destroyed in
 the Peloponnesian War, 427 B.C. , the Plataeans took refuge in
 Athens and were later settled in
 Scione . At the close of the war they were
 forced to leave Scione and again found
 refuge in Athens . By the Peace of Antalcidas
 they were restored to their own territory only to be driven from their homes by the
 Thebans in 372 B.C. Once more Athens became their refuge. See Isoc. 14.13
 ff. and passed over this great territory which would have enriched us
 all. Now although we have shown ourselves to be of such character and have given so
 convincing proof that we do not covet the possessions of others, we are brazenly denounced
 by those who had a hand in the decarchies In Athens and in other states under ther influence there
 was in the oligarchical party a group of Spartan sympathizers who out-Spartaned the
 Spartans. After the downfall of Athens at
 the close of the Peloponnesian war, when Sparta became the supreme power in Greece , 404 B.C. , governing commissions of ten
 (“decarchies”) composed of these extremists, with a Spartan harmost and garrison to
 support them, were set up in most of these states by the Spartan general Lysander ( Xen. Hell. 3.4.2 ). In Athens the “decarchy” succeeded the rule of the thirty tyrants. Compare
 what Isocrates says here about the decarchies with Isoc.
 5.95 and Isoc. 12.54 . —men who have befouled
 their own countries, who have made the crimes of the past seem insignificant, and have
 left the would-be scoundrels of the future no chance to exceed their villiany; and who,
 for all that, profess to follow the ways of Lacedaemon , when they practise the very opposite, and bewail the disasters
 of the Melians, when they have shamelessly inflicted irreparable wrongs upon their own
 citizens. For what crime have they overlooked?