A series of important speakers addresses the assembly but the subject is not peace and, true to his earlier promise, Dikaiopolis comments loudly on their appearance and probable motives. First of all there is the ambassador who has returned from the Persian court after many years, complaining of the lavish hospitality he has had to endure from his Persian hosts; then there is the Persian grandee, "The Eye of the Great King", Pseudartabas, sporting a gigantic eye and mumbling gibberish, accompanied by some eunuchs who turn out to be a disreputable pair of effete Athenians in disguise; next is the ambassador recently returned from Thrace, blaming the icy conditions in the north for his long stay there at the public's expense; and lastly there is the rabble of Odomantians who are presented as elite mercenaries willing to fight for Athens but who hungrily steal the protagonist's lunch. Peace is not discussed. It is in the ecclesia however that Dikaiopolis meets Amphitheus, a man who claims to be the immortal great-great-grandson of Triptolemus and Demeter and who claims moreover that he can obtain peace with the Spartans "privately". Dikaiopolis accepts his claims and he pays him eight drachmas to bring him a private peace, which in fact Amphitheus manages to do.