Against Andocides

---he tied up the horse to the ring on the temple door, as though he were handing it back; but on the following night he contrived to take it away. Well, the man who did this has perished by the most painful death, of hunger; for, although plenty of good things were set on the table before him, he found that the bread and cake had a vile odor, and he was unable to eat.

This fact a number of us heard stated by the priest in charge of the rites.

I therefore think it just that I should now recall in connection with the accused the statements made at that time, and that not only should his friends perish by his act and his information, but he himself too should perish by the action of another. It is impossible for you on your part, when you give your vote on a matter of this kind, to show either pity or indulgence to Andocides, since you understand that these two goddesses[*](Demeter and Persephone.) take signal vengeance upon wrongdoers: every man ought therefore to expect the same consequences for himself and for others.

I would ask you, if you allow Andocides to get off now unscathed from this trial, and to attend for drawing the lots for the nine archons, and to be elected king-archon,[*](The king-archon’s functions were mainly religious, and were especially concerned with the Mysteries.) shall we not see him performing sacrifices and offering prayers on your behalf according to ancestral custom, sometimes in the Eleusinium here,[*](As distinguished from the sanctuary at Eleusis.) sometimes in the temple at Eleusis, and overseeing the celebration of the Mysteries, to prevent the commission of any offence or impiety concerning the sacred things?

And what, think you, will be the feelings of the initiated who arrive for the rite, when they see who the king is, and remember all his impious acts; or what the thoughts of the other Greeks who come for this celebration, purposing either to sacrifice or to attend in state[*](Religious envoys came either as spectators or to give notice of a festival about to he held elsewhere.) at that great assembly?

For Andocides is by no means unknown either to foreigners or to our own people, such has been the impiety of his conduct; since it needs must be that, if they are specially outstanding, either good or evil deeds make their doers well-known. And besides, during his absence abroad he has caused commotion in many cities, in Sicily, Italy, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, the Hellespont, Ionia and Cyprus: he has flattered many kings—everyone with whom he has had dealings, except Dionysius of Syracuse.

That monarch is either the most fortunate of them all, or far above the rest in intelligence, since he alone of those who dealt with Andocides was not deceived by the sort of man who has the art of doing no harm to his enemies but as much as he can to his friends. So, by heaven, it is no easy matter for you to show him any indulgence in contempt of justice without being noticed by the Greeks.

The moment, therefore, has come when you must of necessity make a decision on his case. For you are well aware, men of Athens, that it is not possible for you to live with our ancestral laws and with Andocides at the same time: it must be one of two things, either you must wipe out the laws, or you must get rid of the man.

He has carried audacity to such a pitch that he actually refers to the law we have made regarding him as one that has been abolished,[*](A decree of Isotimides excluded from the market-place and the temples those impious persons who had obtained immunity by laying information against others.) and claims liberty henceforth to enter the market-place and the temples---even today in the Council House of the Athenians.

Yet Pericles, they say, advised you once that in dealing with impious persons you should enforce against them not only the written but the unwritten laws also, which the Eumolpidae[*](The hereditary priests of Eleusis, who pronounced orally on cases of conscience, etc., and were the repositories of traditional, as distance from codified, custom.) follow in their exposition, and which no one has yet had the authority to abolish or the audacity to gainsay,—laws whose very author is unknown: he judged that they would thus pay the penalty, not merely to men, but also to the gods.