II. ANDOCIDES.
ANDOCIDES, the son of Leogoras, [and grandson of that
Andocides] who once made a peace between the Athenians
and the Lacedaemonians, by descent a Cydathenian or
Thorian, of a noble family, and, as Hellanicus tells us, the
offspring of Mercury himself, for the race of Heralds
belongs to him. On this account he was chosen by the
people to go with Glaucon, with twenty sail of ships, to
aid the Corcyraeans against the Corinthians. But in
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process of time he was accused of some notorious acts
of impiety, as that he was of the number of those who
defaced the statues of Mercury and divulged the sacred
mysteries of Ceres. And withal, he had been before this
time wild and intemperate, and had once been seen in the
night in masquerade to break one of the statues of Mercury; and when on his trial he refused to bring his servant
to examination whom his accusers named, he not only
remained under this reproach, but was also on this account
very much suspected to be guilty of the second crime too.
This later action was laid to his charge soon after the expedition of the navy sent by the Athenians into Sicily.
For, as Cratippus informs us, when the Corinthians sent the
Leontines and Egestians to the Athenians, who hesitated
to lend them assistance, they in the night defaced and
brake all the statues of Mercury which were erected in the
market. To which offence Andocides added another, that
of divulging the mysteries of Ceres. He was brought to
his trial, but was acquitted on condition he would discover
who were companions with him in the crime. In which
affair being very diligent, he found out who they were that
had been guilty, and among the rest he discovered his own
father. He proved all guilty, and caused them all to be
put to death except his father, whom he saved, though in
prison, by a promise of some eminent service he would do
to the commonwealth. Nor did he fail of what he promised; for Leogoras accused many who had acted in several
matters against the interest of the commonwealth, and
for this was acquitted of his own crime.
Now, though Andocides was very much esteemed of for
his skill in the management of the affairs of the commonwealth, yet his inclinations led him rather to traffic by
sea; and by this means he contracted friendship with the
kings of Cyprus and other great princes. At which time
he privily stole a damsel of the city, the daughter of Aristides,
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and his own niece, and sent her as a present to the
king of Cyprus. But suspecting he should be called in
question for it, he again stole her from Cyprus, for which
the king of Cyprus took him and clapped him up in
prison; whence he brake loose, and returned to Athens,
just at that time when the four hundred conspirators had
usurped the government. By whom being confined, he
again escaped when the oligarchical government was
broken up .... But when the Thirty Tyrants were
uppermost, he withdrew to Elis, and there lived till Thrasybulus and his faction returned into the city, and then he
also repaired thither. And after some time, being sent
to Lacedaemon to conciliate a peace, he was again suspected to be faulty, and on that suspicion banished.
He himself has given an account of all these transactions, in his orations, which he has left behind him. For
some of them contain his defence of himself in regard to
the mysteries; others his petition for restoration from exile; there is one extant on
Endeixis (or information laid
against a criminal); also a defence against Phaeax, and
one on the peace. He flourished at the same time with
Socrates the philosopher. He was born in the seventy-eighth Olympiad, when Theogenides was chief magistrate
of Athens, so that he should seem to be about ten years
before Lysias. There is an image of Mercury, called from
his name, being given by the tribe Aegeis; and it stood
near the house where Andocides dwelt, and was therefore
called by his name. This Andocides himself was at the
charge of a cyclic chorus for the tribe Aegeis, at the performance of a dithyrambus. And having gained a victory,
he erected a tripod on an ascent opposite to the tuffstone
statue of Silenus. His style in his orations is plain and
easy, without the least affectation or any thing of a figurative ornament.
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