Such was the memorable picture of Athens and her citizens, as exhibited by her fiercest enemy, before the public assembly at Sparta. It was calculated to impress the assembly, not by appeal to recent or particular misdeeds, but by the general system of unprincipled and endless aggression which was imputed to Athens during the past,—and by the certainty held out that the same system, unless put down by measures of decisive hostility, would be pushed still farther in future to the utter ruin of Peloponnesus. And to this point did the Athenian envoy—staying in Sparta about some other negotiation, and now present in the assembly—address himself in reply, after having asked and obtained permission from the magistrates. The empire of Athens was now of such standing that the younger men present had no personal knowledge of the circumstances under which it had grown up: and what was needed as information for them would be impressive as a reminder even to their seniors.[138] [138] Thucyd. i, 72. He began by disclaiming all intention of defending his native city against the charges of specific wrong or alleged infractions of the existing truce: this was no part of his mission, nor did he recognize Sparta as a competent judge in disputes between Athens and Corinth. But he nevertheless thought it his duty to vindicate Athens against the general character of injustice and aggression imputed to her, as well as to offer a solemn warning to the Spartans against the policy towards which they were obviously tending. He then proceeded to show that the empire of Athens had been honorably earned and amply deserved,—that it had been voluntarily ceded, and even pressed upon her,—and that she could not abdicate it without emperiling her own separate existence and security. Far from thinking that the circumstances under which it was acquired needed apology, he appealed to them with pride as a testimony of the genuine Hellenic patriotism of that city which the Spartan congress now seemed disposed to run down as an enemy.[139] He then dwelt upon the circumstances attending the Persian invasion, setting forth the superior forwardness and the unflinching endurance of Athens, in spite of ungenerous neglect from Sparta and the other Greeks,—the preponderance of her naval force in the entire armament,—the directing genius of her general Themistoklês, complimented even by Sparta herself,—and the title of Athens to rank on that memorable occasion as the principal saviour of Greece. This alone ought to save her empire from reproach: but this was not all,—for that empire had been tendered to her by the pressing instance of the allies, at a time when Sparta had proved herself both incompetent and unwilling to prosecute the war against Persia.[140] By simple exercise of the constraining force inseparable from her presidential obligations, and by the reduction of various allies who revolted, Athens had gradually become unpopular, while Sparta too