Later we went to war on account of Aegina There is bad confusion here. Aegina lost her independence and was incorporated in the Athenian empire in 457. Under the Thirty Years’ Peace of 446 she was guaranteed autonomy on condition that she continued to pay tribute. In 432, she made secret overtures to Sparta , alleging that her autonomy had not been respected. Thus Andocides may be thinking of her share in precipitating the Archidamian War. On the other hand, the peace which follows is not the Peace of Nicias; when talking of the benefits which ensued from it, Andocides seems to be referring once again to the Thirty Years’ Peace (see Andoc. 3.3 ). Probably he is thinking of the peace of 446, and assumes that because the status of Aegina figured prominently in the negotiations, it was Aegina which had originally sent Athens to war. ; 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 For Athenian finance between 446 and 432 see I.G. i2. 91. According to Thucydides a reserve of 6000 talents had been accumulated on the Acropolis by the end of the period. One thousand were specially set apart against a naval crisis. It was forbidden to use this sum for any other purpose under pain of death. Andocides appears to be confusing the money earmarked for ships with the ships themselves ; in addition to that we built a hundred triremes, and decreed that they should be kept in reserve likewise: we laid out docks, Inaccurate. The docks had been built by Themistocles in the decade following the Persian Wars. we enrolled twelve hundred cavalry and as many archers, and the Long Wall to the south was constructed. i.e. the Middle Wall, running parallel to the wall on the north and connecting Athens with Peiraeus by a narrow corridor. It was built during the Thirty Years’ Peace. 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 , The famous Megarian decree which excluded Megara from the markets of Attica and the ports of the Athenian empire was passed in 432. It brought Peloponnesian discontent to a head, and the Archidamian War followed (431- 421 ). See Thuc. 1.139 . 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. In 421 B.C. It was a Fifty Years’ Peace; but in 420 Athens allied herself with Argos , Elis , and Mantinea, who were aggressively anti-Spartan. By 418 she was at war again. 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 The MSS. give four hundred. Markland’s correction, based on the corresponding passage in Aeschines and Thuc. 2.13 , is now universally accepted. : an annual tribute of more than twelve hundred talents was coming in According to Thucydides ( Thuc. 2.13 ) the revenue from tribute at the beginning of the Archidamian War was 600 talents yearly. In 425 there was a re-assessment (known from I.G. i 2 . 63) which increased the total annual contribution of the allies to just over 960 talents. There is no good evidence to show that this figure was ever exceeded: and Andocides’ 1200 must be treated as an exaggeration. The mention of a reserve of 7000 talents is suspicious. Athens did, it is true, recover remarkably from the effects of the Archidamian War during the period between 421 and the Sicilian Expedition of 415. But Andocides is here talking of the years 421-419 only. He may be basing his figures on the financial reserve of Athens before the Archidamian War. : 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 . Argos invaded the territory of Epidaurus in 419 , thereby bringing about an open breach with Sparta . Athens , at the instance of Alcibiades, gave Argos her support in virtue of the alliance of the previous year. Then as now at the instigation of Argos , i.e. Argive representatives are again present, while Andocides is speaking, to urge Athens to continue war with Sparta (cf. Andoc. 3.24 ff.). This seems more probable than the other possible rendering: Once again at the instigation of Argos , referring to the Athenian alliance with Argos in 462 B.C. 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 In 404, after Aegospotami . was the installment of the Thirty, the death of many citizens by the hemlock-cup, and the exile of others.