Against Andocides

Only consider Andocides’ own life since he committed his impiety, and judge if there is any other man to compare with him. For Andocides, when after his offence he was brought before the court by a summary citation,[*](ἐξ ἐπιβολῆς (if Taylor’s conjecture is correct) must imply as a result of a fine summarily inflicted (by the archons); cf. Lys. 30.3.) committed himself to prison, having assessed[*](A defendant could propose a penalty as an alternative to that proposed by the plaintiff, and the judges had to vote for one or the other penalty.) the penalty at imprisonment if he failed to hand over his attendant:

he knew well that he would not be able to hand him over, since he had been put to death in order to shield this man and his offences from his servant’s denunciation. Now, must it not have been some god that destroyed his reason, when he conceived it to be easier for him to propose imprisonment than a sum of money, with as good a hope in either case?

However, as the result of this proposal he lay for nearly a year in prison, and informed as a prisoner against his own kinsmen and friends, having been granted impunity if his information should be deemed true. What soul do you think was his, when he could descend to the utmost depth of baseness in informing against his own friends, with so little prospect of deliverance?

After that, when he had achieved the death of those whom he professed to value most highly, he was held to have given true information and was released: you then passed a special decree that he was to be barred from the market-place and the temples, so that even if wronged by his enemies he could get no redress.

Why, nobody to this day, throughout the ever-memorable history of Athens, has been disqualified on so grave a charge. And justly; for neither has anyone to this day committed such acts. Should we attribute these results to the gods, or to mere chance?

After this he took ship and went to the king of Citium[*](On the south coast of Cyprus.); and being caught by him in an act of treachery he was imprisoned, and was in fear, not merely of death, but of daily tortures, expecting to be docked alive of his extremities.

But he slipped away from this danger and sailed back to his own city in the time of the Four Hundred[*](June to September, 411 B.C.): such a gift of forgetfulness had Heaven bestowed on him, that he desired to come amongst the very persons whom he had wronged. When he came, he was imprisoned and tormented, but not to death, and he was released.

He then took a ship and went to Evagoras, who was king of Cyprus, committed a crime, and was locked up. He slipped away from those clutches also, a fugitive from the gods of our land, a fugitive from his own city, a fugitive from each place as soon as he arrived in it! And yet what charm could he find in a life of repeated suffering without a moment of respite?

He sailed back from that land to this city—then under a democracy —and bribed the presiding magistrates to introduce him here; but you banished him from the city, upholding at Heaven’s behest the laws which you had decreed.

And there is not a democracy, an oligarchy, a despot, or a city anywhere that is willing ever to receive this man: during all the time since he committed his impiety he spends his days as a wanderer, trusting always to unknown people rather than known, because of the wrong that he has done to those whom he knows. Finally, on his present arrival in the city he has been twice impeached in the same place.