[7]
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 reserve1; in addition to that we built a hundred triremes, and decreed that they should be kept in reserve likewise: we laid out docks,2 we enrolled twelve hundred cavalry and as many archers, and the Long Wall to the south was constructed.3 Such were the benefits which Athens derived from the peace with Sparta, such the strength which was added thereby to the Athenian democracy.
1 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
2 Inaccurate. The docks had been built by Themistocles in the decade following the Persian Wars.
3 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.
Andocides. Minor Attic Orators in two volumes 1, Antiphon Andocides, with an English translation by K. J. Maidment, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1968.
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