On the Peace with Sparta (6-10)

Later we went to war on account of Aegina[*]; and after both sides had suffered heavily, we were seized once more with a desire for peace. So a deputation of ten —among them my grandfather, Andocides — was chosen from the whole citizen body and dispatched to Sparta with unlimited powers to negotiate a peace. They arranged a thirty years’ peace with Sparta for us. That is a long period, gentlemen; yet did the democracy ever fall in the course of it? Was any party, I ask you, ever caught plotting a revolution? No one can point to an instance. In fact just the opposite happened.

The peace in question exalted the Athenian democracy; it rendered it so powerful that during the years after we gained peace we first of all deposited a thousand talents on the Acropolis and passed a law which set them apart as a state reserve[*]; in addition to that we built a hundred triremes, and decreed that they should be kept in reserve likewise: we laid out docks,[*] we enrolled twelve hundred cavalry and as many archers, and the Long Wall to the south was constructed.[*] Such were the benefits which Athens derived from the peace with Sparta, such the strength which was added thereby to the Athenian democracy.

Then we went to war again on account of Megara,[*] and allowed Attica to be laid waste; but the many privations which we suffered led us to make peace once more, this time through Nicias, the son of Niceratus.[*] As you are all aware, I imagine, this peace enabled us to deposit seven thousand talents of coined silver on the Acropolis

and to acquire over three hundred ships[*]: an annual tribute of more than twelve hundred talents was coming in[*]: we controlled the Chersonese, Naxos, and over two-thirds of Euboea: while to mention our other settlements abroad individually would be tedious. But in spite of all these advantages we went to war with Sparta afresh, then as now at the instigation of Argos.[*]

Now first of all, gentlemen, call to mind what I originally said that I was setting out to show. It was, was it not, that peace has never yet caused the fall of the Athenian democracy. That has now been proved against all possible arguments to the contrary. However, I have heard some people saying before now that the result of our last peace with Sparta[*] was the installment of the Thirty, the death of many citizens by the hemlock-cup, and the exile of others.