Against Andocides

There is no truth, men of Athens, in this defence of his; do not let yourselves be deceived. You have a breach of the agreements, not if Andocides is punished for his private offences, but if private requital is exacted from a man on account of public misfortunes.

Perhaps, then, he will bring a counter-accusation against Cephisius, and he will have plenty to say; for the truth should be spoken. But you could not, by the same vote, punish both the defendant and the accuser. Now is the moment for a just sentence upon this man; another time will come for Cephisius, and for each of us whom he will now proceed to cite. Do not, therefore, be led by anger against another to absolve now the wrongdoer here before you.

But he will say that he turned informer, and that no one else will be willing to give you information, if you punish him. Yet Andocides has got from you the informer’s price, since he has saved his own life while bringing others, for that price, to their death. You are the authors of his salvation, but he is the author of his own present troubles and dangers, for he transgressed the decrees and the terms of impunity on which he turned informer.

You ought not to give informers a free licence for wrongdoing, since what is already done is enough: you have rather to punish them for their transgressions. All other informers who, after being convicted on disgraceful charges, have informed against themselves, understand one thing at least,—that they must not molest those whom they have wronged: they feel that while resident abroad they will be accounted Athenians in full possession of their rights, but that residing here among the citizens whom they have wronged they will be regarded as wicked and impious persons.

Batrachus, for instance, the most wicked, next to this man, of them all, having turned informer in the time of the Thirty,[*](404-403 B.C.) and being covered by agreements and oaths along with the party at Eleusis, was yet so afraid of those of you whom he had wronged that he made his abode in another city. But Andocides, who has wronged the very gods themselves, made less account of them by entering their temples than Batrachus did of mankind. He therefore who is both more wicked and more obtuse than Batrachus ought to be only too glad to have his life spared by you.