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[3]

And the expedition was already fully prepared when it came to pass that in a single night the statues of Hermes which stood everywhere throughout the city were mutilated.1 At this the people, believing that the deed had not been done by ordinary persons but by men who stood in high repute and were bent upon the overthrow of the democracy, were incensed at the sacrilege and undertook a search for the perpetrators, offering large rewards to anyone who would furnish information against them.

1 The principal sources for this famous incident are Thuc. 6.27-29, 53, 60-61; Plut. Alc. 18-21, and especially Andoc. 1 The faces of the statues were mutilated, and perhaps also τὰ αἰδοῖα (Aristoph. Lys. 1094). Andocides gives the names of those whose goods were confiscated and sold after the mutilation of the Hermae, and many of these are confirmed on a fragmentary inscription (I.G. I(2). 327, 332).

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