[101]
But yet, although your laws deny him even the right of defending himself,1 the fellow has the impudence to accuse others. Really, gentlemen, as I sat watching him make his speech for the prosecution, I quite thought that I had been arrested and put on trial by the Thirty. Who would have prosecuted, if I had found myself in court in those days? Epichares, none other. There he would have been, ready with a charge, unless I bought him off. And here he is once more. Who, again, but Charicles2 would have cross-examined me? “Tell me Andocides,” he would have asked, “did you go to Decelea3 and occupy it as a menace to your country?” “I did not.” “Well, did you lay Attica waste and pillage your fellow Athenians by land or by sea?” “No.” “Then at least you fought Athens at sea,4 or helped to demolish her walls or put down her democracy, or reinstalled yourself by force?”5“No, I have done none of those things either.” “Then do you expect to escape the fate of so many others?”
1 Because of his immortality.
2 Cf. Andoc. 1.36, note.
3 In 411, with the Four Hundred when they were overthrown.
4 At Aegospotami, 405 B.C. Possibly this is a reference to the treachery of the pro-Spartan elements in the Athenian navy during the battle. More probably Charicles is thinking of Athenian exiles who served with the Spartan forces.
5 In 403 BC.
Andocides. Minor Attic Orators in two volumes 1, Antiphon Andocides, with an English translation by K. J. Maidment, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1968.
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