Andocides
(Ἀνδοκίδης), one of the ten Attic orators, whose works were contained in the Alexandrine Canon, was the son of Leogoras, and was born at Athens in B. C. 467. He belonged to the ancient eupatrid family of the Ceryces, who traced their pedigree up to Odysseus and the god Hermes. (Plut. Vit. X. Orat. p. 834b., Alcib. 21 ; comp. Andoc. de Redit. § 26; de Myster. § 141.) Being a noble, he of course joined the oligarchical party at Athens, and through their influence obtained, in B. C. 436, together with Glaucon, the command of a fleet of twenty sail, which was to protect the Corcyraeans against the Corinthians. (Thuc. 1.51; Plut. Vit. X. Orat. l.c.) After this he seems to have been employed on various occasions as ambassador to Thessaly, Macedonia, Molossia, Thesprotia, Italy, and Sicily (Andoc. c. Alcib. § 41); and, although he was frequently attacked for his political opinions (c. Alcib. § 8), he yet maintained his ground, until in B. C. 415, when he became involved in the charge brought against Alcibiades for having profaned the mysteries and mutilated the Hermae. It appeared the more likely that Andocides was an accomplice in the latter of these crimes, which was believed to be a preliminary step towards overthrowing the democratical constitution, since the Hermes standing close to his house in the phyle Aegeis was among the very few which had not been injured. (Plut. ll. cc. ; Nepos, Alcib. 3; Sluiter, Lec. Andoc. 100.3.) Andocides was accordingly seized and thrown into prison, but after some time recovered his liberty by a promise that he would reveal the names of the real perpetrators of the crime; and on the suggestion of one Charmides or Timaeus (de Myst. § 48; Plut. Alcib. l.c.), he mentioned four, all of whom were put to death. He is said to have also denounced his own father, but to have rescued him again in the hour of danger. But as Andocides was unable to clear himself from the charge, he was deprived of his rights as a citizen, and left Athens. (De Red. § 25.) He now travelled about in various parts of Greece, and was chiefly engaged in commercial enterprises and in forming connexions with powerful and illustrious persons. (De Myst. § 137; Lys. c. Andoc. § 6.) The means he employed to gain the friendship of powerful men were sometimes of the most disreputable kind ; among which a service he rendered to a prince in Cyprus is particularly mentioned. (Comp. Plut. l.c.; Phot. Bibl. p. 488, ed. Bekker; Tzetz. Chil. 6.373, &c.) In B. C. 411, Andocides returned to Athens on the establishment of the oligarchical government of the Four Hundred, hoping that a certain service he had rendered the Athenian ships at Samos would secure him a welcome reception. (De Red. §§ 11, 12.) But no sooner were the oligarchs informed of the return of Andocides, than their leader Peisander had him seized, and accused him of having supported the party opposed to them at Samos. During his trial, Andocides, who perceived the exasperation prevailing against him, leaped to the altar which stood in the court, and there assumed the attitude of a suppliant. This saved his life, but he was imprisoned. Soon afterwards, however, he was set free, or escaped from prison. (De Red. § 15; Plut. l.c. ; Lysias. c. Andoc. § 29.)
Andocides now went to Cyprus, where for a time he enjoyed the friendship of Evagoras; but, by some circumstance or other, he exasperated his friend, and was consigned to prison. Here again he escaped, and after the victory of the democratical party at Athens and the abolition of the Four Hundred, he ventured once more to return to Athens; but as he was still suffering under the sentence of civil disfranchisement, he endeavoured by means of bribes to persuade the prytanes to allow him to attend the assembly of the people. The latter, however, expelled him from the city. (Lys. c. Andoc. § 29.) It was on this occasion, B. C. 411, that Andocides delivered the speech still extant on his Return (περὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ καθόδου), in which he petitioned for permission to reside at Athens, but in vain. In this his third exile, Andocides went to reside in Elis (Plut. Vit. X. Orat. p. 835a.; Phot. l.c.), and during the time of his absence from his native city, his house there was occupied by Cleophon, a manufacturer of lyres, who had placed himself at the head of the democratical party. (De Myst. § 146.)
Andocides remained in exile till the year B. C. 403, after the overthrow of the tyranny of the Thirty by Thrasybulus, when the general amnesty then proclaimed made him hope that its benefit would be extended to him also. He himself says (de Myst. § 132), that he returned to Athens from Cyprus, from which we may infer, that although he was settled in Elis, he had gone from thence to Cyprus for commercial or other purposes; for it appears that he had become reconciled to the princes of that island, as he had great influence and considerable landed property there. (De Red. § 20, De Myst. § 4.) In consequence of the general amnesty, he was allowed to remain at Athens, enjoyed peace for the next three years, and soon recovered an influential position. According to Lysias (c. Andoc. § 33, comp. § 11), it was scarcely ten days after his return that he brought an accusation against Archippus or Aristippus, which, however, he dropped on receiving a sum of money. During this period Andocides became a member of the senate, in which he appears to have possessed great influence, as well as in the popular assembly. He was gymnasiarch at the Hephaestaea, was sent as architheorus to the Isthmian and Olympic games, and was at last even entrusted with the office of keeper of the sacred treasury. But these distinctions appear to have excited the envy and hatred of his former enemies ; for in the year B. C. 400, Callias, supported by Cephisius, Agyrrhius, Meletus, and Epichares, urged the necessity of preventing Andocides from attending the assembly, as he had never been formally freed from the civil disfranchisement. But as Callias had but little hope in this case, he brought against him the charge of having profaned the mysteries and violated the laws respecting the temple at Eleusis. (De Myst. § 110, &c.) The orator pleaded his case in the oration still extant, On the Mysteries (περὶ τῶν μυστηρίων), and was acquitted. After this attempt to crush him, he again enjoyed peace and occupied his former position in the republic for upwards of six years, at the end of which, in B. C. 394, he was sent as ambassador to Sparta respecting the peace to be concluded in consequence of Conon's victory off Cnidus. On his return he was accused of illegal conduct during his embassy (παραπρεσβείας). The speech On the Peace with Lacedaemon (περὶ τῆς πρὸς Λακεδαιμονίονς εἰρήνης), which is still extant, refers to this affair. It was spoken in B. C. 393. (Clinton places it in 391.) Andocides was found guilty, and sent into exile for the fourth time. He never returned afterwards, and seems to have died soon after this blow.
Andocides appears to have left no issue, since at the age of seventy he had no children (de Myst. §§ 146, 148), though the scholiast on Aristophanes (Aristoph. Wasps 1262) mentions Antiphon as a son of Andocides. This was probably owing to his wandering and unsteady life, as well as to his dissolute character. (De Myst. § 100.) The large fortune which he had inherited from his father, or acquired in his commercial undertakings, was greatly diminished in the latter years of his life. (De Myst. § 144; Lys. c. Andoc. § 31.) Works Surviving Orations
Andocides has no claims to the esteem of posterity, either as a man or as a citizen. Besides the three orations already mentioned -- on his Return (περὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ καθόδου), On the Mysteries (περὶ τῶν μυστηρίων), On the Peace with Lacedaemon (περὶ τῆς πρὸς Λακεδαιμονίονς εἰρήνης) --, which are undoubtedly genuine, there is a fourth Against Alcibiades (κατὰ Ἀλκιβιάδου), said to have been delivered by Andocides in B. C. 415; but it is in all probability spurious, though it appears to contain genuine historical matter. Taylor ascribed it to Phaeax, while others think it more probable that it is the work of some of the later rhetoricians, with whom the accusation or defence of Alcibiades was a standing theme. Fragments
Besides these four orations we possess only a few fragments and some very vague allusions to other orations. (Sluiter, Lect. And. p. 239, &c.) As an orator Andocides does not appear to have been held in very high esteem by the ancients, as he is seldom mentioned, though Valerius Theon is said to have written a commentary on his orations. (Suidas, s. v. Θέων.) We do not hear of his having been trained in any of the sophistical schools of the time, and he had probably developed his talents in the practical school of the popular assembly. Hence his orations have no mannerism in them, and are really, as Plutarch says, simple and free from all rhetorical pomp and ornament. (Comp. Dionys. de Lys. 2, de Thuc. Jud. 51.) Sometimes, however, his style is diffuse, and becomes tedious and obscure. The best among the orations is that on the Mysteries; but, for the history of the time, all are of the highest importance. Editions
The orations are printed in the collections of the Greek orators by Aldus, H. Stephens, Reiske, Bekker, and others. The best separate editions are those of C. Schiller, Leipzig, 1835, 8vo., and of Baiter and Sauppe, Zürich, 1838. The most important works on the life and orations of Andocides are : J. O. Sluiter, Lectiones Andocideae, Leyden, 1804, pp. 1-99, reprinted at Leipzig, 1834, with notes by C. Schiller; a treatise of A. G. Becker prefixed to his German translation of Andocides, Quedlinburg, 1832, 8vo.; Ruhnken, Hist. Crit. Orat. Graec. pp. 47-57; Westermann, Gesch. der Griech. Beredtsamkeit, §§ 42 and 43. [L.S]
(Ἀνδοκίδης). The second in order of time in the roll of great Attic orators. He was born B.C. 439, and belonged by birth to the aristocratic party, but fell out with it in B.C. 415, when he was involved in the famous trial for mutilating the statues of Hermes, and, to save his own and his kinsmen's lives, betrayed his aristocratic accomplices. Having, in spite of the immunity promised him, fallen into partial loss of civic rights, he left Athens, and carried on a profitable trade in Cyprus. After two fruitless attempts to recover his status at home, he was allowed at last, upon the fall of the Thirty Tyrants and the amnesty of B.C. 403, to return to Athens, where he succeeded in repelling renewed attacks, and gaining an honourable position. Sentto Sparta in B.C. 390, during the Corinthian War, to negotiate peace, he brought back the draft of a treaty, for the ratification of which he vainly pleaded in a speech that is still extant. He is said to have been banished in consequence, and to have died in exile. Besides the above-mentioned oration, we have two delivered on his own behalf, one pleading for his recall from banishment, B.C. 410; another against the charge of unlawful participation in the mysteries, B.C. 399; a fourth, against Alcibiades, is spurious. His oratory is plain and artless, and its expressions those of the popular language of the day. A good text is that of Blass (Leipzig, 1880); and C. Müller's, with index (1868). See Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit, 3 vols. (1880).
Andocides (c. 440-c. 390 BC), an Athenian aristocrat and political figure, is best known for his role in the scandal of 415, when, apparently, a band of young men one night mutilated sacred Herms (stylized statues of the god Hermes) and revealed information about the secret rites, or mysteries, of Demeter. In the ensuing uproar Andocides was forced to leave Athens. Two of his surviving speeches are connected with this exile: one pleads for his return and another argues against a second period of exile. All of Andocides’ speeches were written for his own delivery; to our knowledge he was not a logographer writing speeches for others. Andocides’ significance is that his speeches are the earliest surviving examples of political oratory (since only fragments of his predecessor Antiphon's political speeches survive) and that they give us the fullest contemporary account of the affair of the mutilation of the Herms, which had a dramatic impact on Athens just before the departure of the fateful expedition to Sicily.
LifeAndocides came from an old distinguished family. He was presumably raised and educated in traditional, aristocratic fashion; we know nothing of his education, but his speeches show little sign of the influence of the sophists. In 415, when he was about twenty-five, his role in Athens’ greatest religious and political scandal changed the course of his life. The mutilation of the Herms and the profanation of the mysteries occurred shortly before the Athenian fleet was to set sail for Sicily. It is not certain exactly who was behind the incident or what political motives (if any) the perpetrators had, but in any case, Andocides and other members of a prominent social club were implicated. In order, he tells us, to gain immunity and save his father, Andocides gave a complete account of the affair and confessed to his role in it. Despite being granted immunity, however, he could no longer participate in public life, and so he left Athens and lived in exile, becoming a successful merchant. He returned briefly to Athens during the aristocratic takeover in 411 but failed to persuade the oligarchs to restore his rights. He tried again a few years later to persuade the restored democracy, but his speech, On His Return (2), was unsuccessful. He finally was able to return to Athens after the general amnesty in 403. In 399 he was accused of violating a prohibition against participating in religious ceremonies after having confessed to his earlier impiety. Lysias’ Against Andocides (6) was written for this prosecution, but Andocides successfully defended himself in On the Mysteries (1), his most famous and most highly regarded speech. He remained in Athens at least until 391, when he delivered On the Peace (3) urging (unsuccessfully) acceptance of peace terms that had been negotiated with Sparta. We know nothing of his life thereafter.
WorksAndocides’ most important speech by far is On the Mysteries (see MacDowell 1962). In 399 he was accused of violating a decree enacted in 415 prohibiting anyone who had been convicted of impiety from entering a temple or the agora. Andocides argued (a) that he was not guilty of impiety (and he reviews the whole affair of the Herms in making this argument); (b) that the decree of 415 had been invalidated by the amnesty of 403; and (c) that an acquittal would be in the best interest of Athens, especially in view of his recent public service. He was acquitted by the jurors, and his publication of the text of this speech may have been intended to improve his reputation in the court of public opinion.
In addition to this and Andocides’ two other speeches mentioned above, a fourth speech attributed to him, Against Alcibiades (4), is often assumed to be a later forgery, since it was apparently written for an occasion earlier than 415 and gives a list of the speaker's accomplishments that would have been impossible for a man in his early twenties. But Raubitschek and Furley have presented strong arguments that the speech was written by Andocides for delivery by a certain Phaiax. Finally, a few fragments of Andocides are preserved, which may all come from one speech, To His Friends. If so, this speech together with the three complete speeches may represent all that Andocides ever published, and perhaps all the speeches he ever delivered.
SignificanceAndocides evidently did not study rhetoric per se or pursue a career as a speaker. Gildersleeve aptly called him a “gentleman orator” (cited by MacDowell 1962: 19n1), and MacDowell sees him as a transitional figure from the time when all speakers were amateurs to the growing professionalization of public speaking. Andocides was a well-to-do merchant and minor public figure, who spoke in public only to defend himself or (once) to support a specific cause. In this he is a more typical Athenian than the better known logographers who wrote speeches for others, for there must have been dozens, even hundreds of others who occasionally participated in debates in the assembly or became involved in legal cases, but generally avoided these activities and would certainly see no reason for any extensive study of rhetoric. Thus Andocides’ speeches lack the complexity of Antiphon's or the sophistication of Lysias’, and (though it needs qualification) Kennedy has a valid point in saying that Andocides’ language “illustrates what pure Attic prose would be like if the sophists had never lived” (Kennedy 1985: 504). There is, to be sure, an increase in Andocides’ use of logical arguments during the nearly twenty years from On His Returnto On the Peace (Kennedy 1958), but in general he seems to rely more on a natural, direct approach to his speeches. The effect can be powerful, especially in his vivid narratives, but his arguments can also become awkward and confused. In sum, Andocides is primarily read today not for his style, but for his participation in one of the most significant and least understood events in Athenian history.
Blass, Friedrich, Die attische Beredsamkeit, 2nd ed. vol. 1. Leipzig 1887. Furley, W. D. “Andokides IV (‘Against Alkbiades’): Fact or Fiction?” Hermes117 (1989) 138-56. Jebb, R. C. The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeus, vol. 1. London 1893. Kennedy, George, “The Oratory of Andocides,” AJPh79 (1958) 32-43. Kennedy, George, “Oratory” in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature I: Greek Literature. Ed. by P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox (Cambridge 1985), pp. 498-526. MacDowell, D. M. Andokides, On the Mysteries. Oxford 1962. Missou, Anna, The Subversive Oratory of Andokides: Politics, ideology and decision-making in democratic Athens. Raubitschek, A. E. “The Case against Alcibiades (Andocides IV),” TAPA79 (1984) 191-210. Michael Gagarin