True, Alkibiades had not to wait until he could get the people’s vote and confidence as against some other candidate, but he had waited for at least ten years till he was old enough. Though there was no precise law at Athens forbidding citizens to speak as soon as they had completed their twentieth year, the age at which they were capable of assisting at the meetings of the Ekklesia, there was so strong an unwritten custom against anyone below the age of thirty presuming to address the great Assembly that it had all the force of law. In fact, few ever spoke at all except the wealthy, the high-born, or the trained orators. So great was the critical nicety of the Athenian ear and taste that any fault of grammar or pronunciation, which all but the well-educated few could not help but make, at once called forth a clamour of disgust. It was only by force of impudence, or extraordinary natural power, that such men as Hyperbolos or Kleon could gain a hearing. During all these tedious ten years he had felt how much fitter he was to direct affairs, to persuade the people, to govern in their name, than those who were in power. He saw the short-sightedness, and all the wretched bungling, both in peace and war, of a man like Nikias. He saw the mistakes and weakness of Kleon, and while admiring the skill and artifice with which the demagogue could gain his ends, he could not help despising his—well, his want of breeding. Still, for a whole year after the time when he might have spoken, he only pondered over and elaborated his great designs, and thought or talked of them in private; with marvellous restraint he held his peace in public, and bided his time. At length the full time came. The day arrived at last when he might not only sit and vote, but might also mount the steps of the great stone tribune, and loudly speak his long-pent-up thoughts unto his fellow-citizens. Argos, it was known, had been in treaty for some time with Lakedaimôn for an alliance. An alliance between these, the two strongest states in the Peloponnesos, against Athens meant the end of the Athenian Empire. Nikias had given back to Sparta the prisoners Kleon had taken at Sphakteria, without receiving any compensating advantage in return for them. So the Athenians lost the great check they had held for so long upon their rivals. Sparta had promised, in return, to restore Amphipolis; but this she had not done. She undertook, on oath, to assist Athens in her wars; she gave her no assistance in her efforts to recover her revolted dependencies. She was bound by the terms of the alliance not to make a treaty with anyone without the consent of Athens; but she made a treaty with Boiotia, the most dangerous enemy of Athens, without consulting her.