THRASYMACHUS—ANDOCIDES
§ 1
A new period begins with Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, who adopted Athens as
his home. He is placed by Aristotle between Tisias, one of the founders
of rhetoric, and Theodorus of Byzantium,[76] who was a contemporary
of Lysias. According to the chronology of Plato’s _Phaedrus_, he was
already at the height of his powers when Isocrates was only a youth of
promise.[77] The dramatic date of the dialogue being 410 B.C., we may
suppose him to have been born between 460 and 450 B.C., though there is
no clear indication.
He seems to have followed the lines of his predecessors. He composed a
τέχνη or handbook of rhetoric, and composed or compiled a collection of
passages to serve as models for his pupils, called by Suidas ἀφορμαὶ
ῥητορικαί (_oratorical resources_). This probably included the _exordia_
and _epilogues_ mentioned by Athenaeus.[78] Aristotle mentions a work
called Ἔλεοι (_appeals to pity_),[79] and a book with the mysterious
title ὑπερβάλλοντες completed his educational output.[80] He composed
also some epideictic speeches, which, as Suidas calls them παίγνια,
were probably of the mythological type, of which we possess examples
in the _Helen_ and _Palamedes_ of Gorgias. Dionysius says that he left
no deliberative or forensic speeches, and this statement agrees with
the known fact that he was an alien, and therefore could not appear
in the courts or the assembly.[81] On the other hand, Suidas mentions
public speeches, and Dionysius has himself preserved a fragment of what
appears to be a deliberative speech.[82] The probability is that this
was composed only as a model for his pupils, and it is, in fact, of a
vagueness which would be appropriate to almost any circumstances.
He excelled in the ‘pathetic’ style: ‘For the “sorrows of a poor old
man,”’ says Socrates, ‘or any other pathetic case, no one is better
than the Chalcedonian giant; he can put a whole company of people into
a passion and out of one again by his mighty magic, and is first-rate
at inventing or disposing of any sort of calumny on any grounds or
none.’[83] These gifts seem to have been the natural expression of his
impetuous and passionate character represented in the _Republic_.[84]
The loss of his works is much to be regretted, since he was the inventor
of a style—the _tempered_ style, as it was called by Dionysius—which,
standing between the austerity of Antiphon and Thucydides, and the
elaborate simplicity perfected by Lysias, combined the best qualities
of both. He was thus a forerunner of Isocrates. In the fragment which
is preserved, we find no trace of rare or poetical words or audacious
compounds such as Gorgias used; none of the complicated sentences of
Thucydides, and no forced antithesis; the diction is flowing, and the
expression clear. He seems to have been the first writer to make a
careful study of metrical effect, and is mentioned for his frequent
use of the _paeon_ by Aristotle, who apparently classed him with those
writers to whom diction is more important than ideas.[85]
The fragment already mentioned purports to be the _exordium_ of a
political speech:
‘I could have wished, men of Athens, that my lot had been
cast amid those ancient times and conditions when the younger
men were content to be silent, since circumstances did not
force them to speak in public, and their elders were able
administrators of the state....’
This is a conventional opening; a similar phrase of regret (ἐβουλόμην)
begins the speech of Antiphon on the murder of Herodes,[86] and Aeschines
has elaborated the same theme of the superiority of political life in
the time of Solon in a way which leads us to suspect that he had the
_prooemium_ of Thrasymachus in mind.[87]
Of the works of Theodorus of Byzantium not a sentence remains. A
contemporary of Lysias, he taught rhetoric and composed certain works
on the subject.[88] He concerned himself with the proper divisions of
a speech, adding a section of ‘further narrative’ (ἐπιδιήγηις) to the
usual narrative, and ‘further proof’ (ἐπιπίστωσις) to proof.[89] It is
for this over-subtlety that Plato ridicules the ‘cunning artificer of
speeches’ from Byzantium.[90]
§ 2
Andocides was born about 440 B.C., a member of a family which had been
distinguished for three generations.
His great-grandfather, as he tells us, fought against the Pisistratidae;
his grandfather Andocides was one of the envoys for the peace with Sparta
in 445, and was twice subsequently a _strategus_; his father, Leogoras,
is mentioned by Aristophanes as rearing pheasants.[91] The orator himself
was a member of a ἑταιρεία or club—probably a social rather than a
political club, as the only meeting mentioned was purely for convivial
purposes.
In 415, on the eve of the sailing of the Sicilian expedition, Athens was
startled and horrified by a remarkable act of sacrilege. The images of
Hermes which stood everywhere in the town were, all but one, mutilated
and defaced in a single night. The superstitious citizens, with a deep
feeling that the whole community must suffer for the guilty action of
some of its members, considered this an evil omen for the fortunes of
the Syracusan expedition, and, less reasonably, took it as an indication
of impending revolution and an attempt to subvert the democracy. Their
anxiety was increased by rumours that a profane parody of the Eleusinian
mysteries was being celebrated in certain private houses. Such acts of
impiety were likely to bring upon Athens the wrath of the gods who had
hitherto protected her.
It will be remembered how Alcibiades, one of the leaders of the
expedition, was accused of complicity in the plot, and how this
accusation brought about his recall from Sicily and his estrangement from
his native city, which led to the utter failure of the great enterprise
of conquest, and ultimately, through the total loss of her best armies
and fleets, to the downfall of Athens herself.
Andocides was accused of complicity both in the profanation of the
mysteries and the mutilation of the Hermae. Of the former charge he
apparently succeeded in clearing himself, but he confesses to a knowledge
of the affair of the Hermae.
A certain Teucrus denounced eighteen persons as guilty of the mutilation
of the busts. Of these some were put to death, the rest went into
exile. The list included some members of the club to which Andocides
belonged. Another informer, Dioclides, came forward with a tale that
about three hundred persons were implicated, and he named forty-two of
them, including Andocides and twelve of his near relations. Athens was
in a panic, and eager for instant vengeance. The informers’ victims were
at once imprisoned, and their situation was grave indeed. Andocides
describes how, to save his father and other innocent persons, he at
last resolved to tell what he knew. He gave his information under a
promise of immunity from punishment, but in accordance with the terms of
a subsequent decree he suffered ‘_atimia_,’ comprising exclusion from
the market-place and the temples; and being thus debarred from a public
career he decided to go abroad.
In the _de Reditu_, delivered in 410 B.C., five years after the outrage,
Andocides implies that he was himself concerned in the deed, and asks
pardon for his ‘youthful folly’ (§ 7). The language of Thucydides[92]
and others also implies that he accused himself along with others. The
language of the _de Reditu_ is not, however, explicit, and does not
necessarily disagree with the statement made twelve years later in the
_de Mysteriis_.
Andocides there affirms that he knew of the plot and opposed its
execution, but it was carried out without his knowledge. In proof of this
he points out that the Hermes opposite his own house was the only one not
mutilated.
‘So I told the Council that I knew the culprits, and I declared
the facts—namely that Euphiletus suggested the plot while we
were drinking, and I spoke against it, and for the moment
prevented it. Some time later I was riding a colt I had in
Cynosarges, and had a fall, and broke my collar-bone and cut
my head, and was carried home on a stretcher. Euphiletus,
hearing of my condition, told the others that I had been
persuaded to join them, and had agreed to take a hand in the
work and mutilate the Hermes beside the shrine of Phorbas. In
this statement he deceived them, and this is the reason why
the Hermes which you all see in front of our house, the one
erected by the Aegeid tribe, was the only Hermes in Athens not
to be mutilated, because it was supposed that I would do it, as
Euphiletus said. The conspirators, when they heard of it, were
highly indignant, considering that I knew of the affair, but
had taken no part in it. On the next day Meletus and Euphiletus
came to me and said:
‘“We have done it, Andocides, and it’s all over. If you care
to keep quiet and hold your tongue, you will find that we are
as good friends to you as ever; if not, our enmity will count
much more than any friendship you could form by betraying us.”
‘I answered that, from what had occurred, I considered
Euphiletus a scoundrel; but that they had much more to fear
from the fact of their guilt than from my knowledge of it.’[93]
This story is at least a plausible one. The only suspicious detail is the
orator’s own candid admission that all of those whom he accused—with the
exception of four—had already been named by Teucrus and punished, some
by death, the rest by exile, so that his ‘confession’ could do them no
further harm. The four others whom he included were not yet in prison,
though they were known to be associates of those who had already paid
the penalty. They had time to escape into exile (§ 68). We may suspect
that they received from the informer due notice of his intentions. Thus,
at the expense of driving four men, who were probably guilty, into
exile, Andocides undoubtedly saved the lives of himself, his father, his
brother-in-law, and the rest of the forty-two prisoners. The informer
Dioclides now recanted, and said that he had been compelled by Alcibiades
and Amiantus to lay false information. He was brought to trial and put to
death (§ 66). Andocides, suffering from partial disfranchisement, was for
many years away from Athens. He engaged in commerce in many countries,
and made money, sometimes by discreditable means. He had dealings with
Sicily, Italy, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Ionia, the Hellespont, and
finally, Cyprus, where Evagoras, King of Salamis, bestowed a valuable
property on him.[94]
In 411 B.C. he made an attempt to recover his rights. He procured
oars for the Athenian fleet at Samos, and returned to Athens to plead
his cause. Unfortunately the Four Hundred had then just usurped the
government, and they rejected his plea on the ground that he had helped
their enemies. Later, in 410 or 408 B.C., he made another attempt,
and delivered the speech _de Reditu_, but was again unsuccessful. It
was only after the amnesty of Thrasybulus (403 B.C.) that he resumed
his full citizenship, and henceforward took an active part in public
life, figuring now as an ardent democrat, speaking in the assembly and
performing liturgies. In 399 B.C. old enmities burst into flame, and
he was accused of impiety on two counts—as having taken part in the
Eleusinian mysteries at a time when he was legally disqualified from
doing so, and as having deposited a suppliant’s branch on the altar at
Eleusis during the time of the mysteries—which was a profanation. The
penalty for either offence was death, and the _de Mysteriis_ is his
successful answer to these charges.
In 391 B.C., as one of the envoys delegated to bring about a peace
with Sparta, he delivered the _de Pace_. The peace was not concluded.
This is the last mention of this interesting adventurer, though the
pseudo-Plutarch affirms that he went into exile again. If that is true,
we know that he had comfortable places to retire to, in Cyprus and
elsewhere.
§ 3
Ancient critics dealt severely with Andocides. Though Alexandrine
criticism included him in the list of the ten standard orators, Dionysius
barely mentions him;[95] Quintilian disparages his work,[96] and
Herodes Atticus modestly hopes that he himself is at least superior to
Andocides;[97] Hermogenes sums up his defects as an orator as follows:
‘He aims at being a statesman, but does not quite succeed. He
lacks proper articulation and distinctness in his “figures,”
he lacks order in connecting his sentences and rounding them
off, losing distinctness by the use of parentheses, so that he
strikes some as ineffectual and needlessly obscure. He has very
little finish or arrangement and little vigour. He has a small,
but very small, portion of cleverness in systematic argument,
but practically none of any other kind.’[98]
It is with some hesitation that I give this tentative translation of
a difficult passage. It seems to mean that Andocides, though he uses
‘figures,’ such as antithesis, rhetorical question and irony, does not
attain ‘precision’ or make them distinct enough. His sentences are
sometimes deformed because a parenthesis overpowers the main clause. His
diction is unpolished and unconvincing. The only credit which he deserves
is for his μέθοδος—his system of stating his case; wherein Hermogenes was
perhaps thinking of the way in which the orator arranges his material,
giving only part of the narrative at a time, and criticizing it as he
goes along, rather than keeping narrative and arguments quite separate.
Later and more practised orators have been commended for this method. By
general cleverness, Hermogenes probably means skill in the use of the
usual sophistries of the rhetorician.
The Pseudo-Plutarch is less severe on the orator:
‘He is simple and inartificial in his narratives,
straightforward and free from “figure.”’[99]
It must at once be granted that many of the criticisms aimed at Andocides
hit their mark; but it is open to doubt whether they can penetrate deep
enough to deal a vital blow at his reputation. The ancient critics were
academic and tended to lose sight of practical details. They were, as a
rule, more concerned with the impressions that a speech produced on the
reader than with its effect on the hearers; they laid great emphasis on
the artistic side, and in examining a speech looked carefully to see how
closely the orator had followed the artificial rules of the rhetorician.
But this kind of estimate may lead to injustice, for not only must
the critic refer to an artificial standard established by convention,
a standard which might not have been recognized by the orator’s
contemporaries, but, even granting that certain rules of rhetoric should
generally be followed, we may maintain that particular circumstances
justify a speaker in departing from them. Rhetoric is a practical art,
whose object, as Plato tells us, is persuasion; and though most people
who practise it will do best to move on the accustomed lines, there may
be some who can succeed without following the beaten track.
* * * * *
Andocides is not to be compared to his predecessor Antiphon in the
points which are the latter’s chief characteristics—dignity of manner,
balance of clauses and verbal antithesis; but, on the other hand, he has
command of a fairly lucid style, and a gift for telling a straightforward
narrative of events, two matters in which the older orator was not
conspicuously successful. Again, Andocides starts with one signal
advantage. If we read the tetralogies of Antiphon, excellent as they may
be in showing the writer’s grasp of the technique of his trade, and turn
from them to one of the real speeches, the _Herodes_, for instance, we
feel at once how great a gain it is to have the human interest before
us. A speech in which real persons are concerned must always have this
advantage over a declamatory exercise. But we still feel that the
personal element is not so prominent as it might be, simply because the
orator is not giving voice to his own thoughts on an occasion where his
own interests are deeply concerned, but stringing together sentences
which an obscure young man from Mitylene may clumsily stumble through
without, perhaps, in the least comprehending their cleverness. But
Andocides is a real live man speaking in his own person and in his own
defence on a most serious charge. He is in grave danger, and must exert
himself to the utmost; he must rise to the great occasion, or expect to
pay the penalty—perhaps with his life. This is an occasion, if there
ever can be one, when style may be completely put in the background,
where matter is of more importance than method, where the means are of
no account unless the end can be attained; for epigram cannot temper
the hemlock-cup, and the laws of Athens are stronger than the rules of
oratory.
It was natural to Antiphon to pay attention to details of style, and his
style is of a rather archaic tone. Andocides, on the other hand, was not
a trained orator, except in so far as every Athenian was trained in youth
in the elements of speaking. He was not either a professional pleader or
a frequent speaker in public—indeed, from the fact that he lived long in
exile he cannot have had many opportunities of appearing either in the
law-courts or the assembly. Possessing a convenient fluency of speech
and a thorough command of the language of daily life, he finds in it
a satisfactory means of expression. In most cases he seems to have by
nature what Lysias obtained by art—a clear and direct way of expressing
his thoughts, a simplicity of language in which nothing strained or
unfamiliar strikes the ear. On the other hand, there are inconsistencies
in his style; there are times when, apparently without premeditation, he
does use words or phrases slightly foreign to the speech of common life.
We have a feeling that this was done without affectation; that in the
course of his fluent and rapid utterance he used just those words which
naturally occurred to him as appropriate.[100] In this he differs from
Lysias, who took the common speech and perfected it into a literary form,
attaining by study a refined simplicity and purity which only careful
practice could produce.
On the whole, Andocides is most effective when he is most simple; when he
uses common words and makes no attempt at the rhetorical artifices which
do not come natural to him. The following narrative will emphasize my
point:
‘When we had all been taken to prison, and it was night and
the prison gates were shut, and one man’s mother had come,
and another’s sister, and another’s wife and children, and
sounds of lamentation were heard as they wept and bewailed our
miserable state, Charmides spoke to me—he was a cousin of mine,
of the same age as myself, and he had been brought up in our
home from childhood.
‘“Andocides,” he said, “you see what serious trouble we are
in; and though I did not want to say anything, or to annoy
you at all before, I am now forced to do so on account of the
misfortune we are come to.
‘“Your other friends and associates, apart from us who are your
relations, have some of them already been executed for the
charges on which we are being done to death, while others have
admitted their guilt by fleeing from the country.
‘“If you have heard anything about this affair, tell the truth,
and by doing so save both yourself, and your father, who must
be very dear to you, and your brother-in-law, who is married
to your only sister, and finally, all the rest of your family
and friends, not to mention me—for in all my life I have never
caused you annoyance, but am devoted to you and ready to do
anything I can to help you.”’[101]
His exposure of Dioclides is simple and effective; he repeats the
informer’s statement, and with a very few words of comment makes it
appear ridiculous:
‘Encouraged by his country’s misfortunes Dioclides laid
information before the Council. He asserted that he knew the
persons who had mutilated the Hermae, and that there were about
three hundred of them. He proceeded to relate how he had come
across the matter.
‘He said that he had a slave working at Laureion, and had to
go there to get the man’s wages. He rose very early, having
mistaken the time, and started on his way. The full moon was
shining, and as he passed the gateway of Dionysus, he saw a
number of men coming down from the Odeum into the Orchestra. He
was afraid of them, and so went into the shadow and sat down
between the pillar and the pedestal on which the bronze statue
of the General stands.
‘He estimated the number of the men he saw at about three
hundred, and they were standing round in groups of five or ten,
or, in some cases, twenty. He could recognize most of them, as
he saw the moonlight shining on their faces.
‘Now he made this monstrous statement in the first place in
order that it might be in his power to say that any citizen he
liked was or was not a member of that company.
‘After seeing all this, he said, he went on to Laureion, and on
the next day heard of the mutilation of the Hermae. So he knew
at once that it was the work of the men whom he had seen.’[102]
The opening of the speech shows a reasonable use of the sort of
commonplaces which custom demanded as a preface to argument—the malignity
and ingenuity of the speaker’s enemies and the perplexity caused by the
number of their accusations which makes it difficult to know where to
begin.
‘Nearly all of you know, Gentlemen, with what persistency my
enemies have contrived to harm me in every possible way, by
fair means or foul, from the time when I first came to Athens,
and there is no need for me to dwell upon the subject; but I
shall ask you only for just treatment, a favour which is as
easy for you to grant as it is important for me to gain.
‘First, I would have you bear in mind that I have now appeared
before you without having been in any way forced to await my
trial; I have neither surrendered to bail, nor have I suffered
the constraint of imprisonment. I appear because I have put
my trust above all in the justice of my cause, and secondly,
in your character; feeling as I do that you will give a just
decision, and not allow me through a perversion of justice to
be ruined by my enemies, but that you will much rather save
me by allowing justice to take its course in accordance with
the laws of the city, and the oaths which you have sworn as a
preliminary to the verdict which you are about to record.
‘It is reasonable, Gentlemen, that, in the case of men who
voluntarily face the danger of a trial, you should take the
same view of them as they do of themselves. Those who refuse to
await their trial practically stand self-condemned, so that you
may reasonably pass on them the sentence which they have passed
on themselves; but as for those who wait to stand their trial
in the confidence that they have done no wrong, you have a
right to hold the same opinion about them which they have held
about themselves, and not decide, without a hearing, that they
are in the wrong....
‘I am considering, therefore, from which point I ought to begin
my defence. Shall I begin with the last-mentioned plea, that
my indictment was illegal? or with the fact that the decree of
Isotimides is not valid? or shall I appeal to the laws and
the oaths which you have taken? or, lastly, shall I start by
relating the facts from the beginning?
‘My greatest difficulty is that the various counts of the
indictment do not stir you all equally to resentment, but each
of you has some point which he would like me to answer first.
It is impossible to deal with them all at once, and so it
seems to me the best course to relate the whole story from the
beginning, omitting nothing; for if you thoroughly realize what
actually occurred, you will easily recognize the lies which my
accusers have told to my discredit.’[103]
The peroration is simple and vigorous in its directness:
‘Do not deprive yourselves of your hopes of my help, nor
deprive me of my hopes of helping you. I now request those who
have already given proof of the highest nobility of feeling
towards the democracy to mount the platform and advise you in
accordance with what they know of my character. Come forward,
Anytus and Cephalus, and you members of my tribe who have been
chosen to plead for me—Thrasyllus and the rest.’[104]
Reference has already been made to the vitality of his speech. Compared
with his life-like vigour, the ‘austerity’ of Antiphon becomes dull and
pompous. The most striking feature of his work is the ease with which,
in reporting conversations or explaining motives, he breaks into direct
quotation, recalling his own words or putting words into the mouths
of others to express what they said or thought. We recognize in this
something of a Homeric quality; it is comparable to the Epic use of ὧδε
δέ τις εἴπεσκε and καὶ ποτέ τις εἴπῃσι.
The following extract shows how the main thread of the sentence may be
lost in a tangle of such parenthetical quotations:
‘From the first, though many people informed me that my enemies
were saying that I should never await my trial—“For what could
induce Andocides to await his trial, when he may leave the
city and still be well off? If he sails to Cyprus, where he
comes from, there is waiting for him a large and flourishing
farm of which he has the freehold; will he prefer to put his
neck into a halter? With what end in view? Cannot he see which
way the wind blows here?” I, Gentlemen, disagree entirely with
this view. I would not live and enjoy the utmost prosperity
somewhere else at the price of losing my fatherland; and
even if the wind did blow here as my enemies say it does, I
would rather be a citizen of Athens than of any other city;
prosperous, for the present, as such other cities may seem to
me to be. Holding such views as these I have committed to you
the decision about my life.’[105]
It has been noted that Andocides is not addicted to the use of verbal
antithesis such as Thucydides and Antiphon have made too familiar. We do
not find him playing upon the contrasts between ‘word and deed,’ ‘being
and seeming’ with such recurrent monotony.
There is, however, one kind of antithesis to which he is somewhat
partial—an antithesis of thought rather than language. He is fond of
explaining a difficulty of choice by putting it in the form of a dilemma.
As far as his own personal conduct was concerned, he must often have had
to face dilemmas. From the part which he had played in the sacrilege,
and the awkward positions in which consequently he found himself placed,
it must often have been equally difficult and dangerous for him to lie
and to speak the truth. So it is not unnatural that we should often find
sentences like the following:
‘How would each of you have acted, Gentlemen, if you had
had to choose either to die nobly, or to owe your life to a
disgraceful action?
‘Some may say that what I did was base, but many would have
chosen as I did.’[106]
This appeal to the individual feelings, especially the request by which
it is prefaced, that they will judge ‘by human standards’ (ἀνθρωπίνως),
is effective in its boldness. The speaker must have felt sure of his
audience before he ventured to appeal to the lower nature which every one
would like to repudiate.
In marked contrast to the dignity of Antiphon, Andocides from time to
time lapses into scurrility, dragging into his speech discreditable
anecdotes relating to his opponents which are quite irrelevant to his
proper subject and merely serve to raise a laugh at the moment. Thus
the long recital about the domestic affairs of Callias (§§ 123-130) has
no bearing at all on the trial. A man whose father has been three times
unhappily married may still be a trustworthy witness. The introduction
of the irrelevant story is then quite unjustifiable, but, since such
examples of bad taste were freely tolerated at Athens, it was worth while
to make a score by such foul hitting, especially if one could deliver the
blows as neatly as in the following passage:
‘At the mother’s request, the relations took the child to the
altar at the time of the Apaturia. They brought a victim, and
requested Callias to perform the sacrifice. He asked who was
the father of the child. “Callias, the son of Hipponicus.”—“But
I’m Callias.”—“Yes, and it’s your child.”’[107]
There is more to be said in justification of the attack on Epichares.
To prove, or to assert violently, that his accuser was an enemy of the
democracy and a person of vile character formed a presumption in favour
of the defendant. Demosthenes himself made a custom of such practices,
and was not less unscrupulous or less irrelevant than Andocides:
‘But Epichares, who is the worst of them all, and wants to keep
up his reputation, and so acts vindictively against himself—for
he was a member of the Council in the time of the Thirty; and
what is the provision in the law which is inscribed on the
pillar in front of the Council room? “Whosoever shall hold
office in the city when the democracy has been overthrown, may
be slain without penalty, and his slayer shall be free from
blood-guiltiness, and shall possess the property of the slain.”
Surely then, Epichares, any one who slays you now will have
clean hands, according to Solon’s law? Let me have the law on
the pillar read aloud?’[108]
But Andocides in such cases certainly violates the laws of good taste,
and in the matter of this personal abuse, though less fertile in
vocabulary, is a worthy forerunner of the great orators. His scurrility
is hardly excused by the ingenuity of its epigrammatic form:
‘You jackal, you common informer! ... are you allowed to live
and prowl about the city? Little do you deserve it; under
the democracy you lived by the informer’s trade; under the
oligarchy, for fear of being forced to give up the money you
had made by informing, you were a menial of the Thirty....’[109]
and again:
‘One result of your decision to observe the present laws is
that he has been restored from exile to citizenship, and
from legal disability to the free exercise of the informer’s
trade.’[110]
The use of parenthesis is sometimes carried by Andocides to extremes. An
instance has been quoted in which the grammatical construction breaks
down because the writer introduces an imaginary conversation into the
middle of it.[111] The style is sometimes so loose and discursive that
not only is the construction difficult to follow, but the argument is
obscure. The writer suffers from an inability to keep to the point, or
rather, he tries to explain several things at once, and so makes nothing
clear. An extreme instance is to be found in §§ 57 _sqq._ of the _de
Mysteriis_. His thoughts run too fast for his tongue, and he has not the
technical skill to guide them on their proper courses. Such sentences
afford a practical comment on the introduction to the same speech, in
which he states that he does not know where to begin.[112]
On the other hand, passages may be found in which a series of short
sentences, loosely combined, and disturbed by _anacoluthon_, are really
effective, since they simulate the broken utterance of passion. Of such
is the following:
‘Then the herald inquired who had deposited the suppliant’s
branch, and no one answered. Now we were standing close by,
and Callias could see me. When nobody answered, he retired into
the temple. Eucles, stepping forward—oblige me by calling him
up—Now then, Eucles, first of all give evidence whether I am
speaking the truth.’[113]
§ 4
I have dealt hitherto chiefly with the speech _de Mysteriis_, the best
of Andocides’ work. The other speeches now demand a short mention. The
_de Reditu_ differs remarkably from the later speech, _de Mysteriis_,
but it is chiefly a difference of tone. The verbal style is much the
same, though there is rather more tendency to antithetical structure. The
language is simple, the sentences are less hampered with parentheses.
But here Andocides is humble; he appears as a young man without friends
speaking before a critical and hostile assembly; he is moderate in
his language, apologetic in tone, careful not to give offence by any
sarcastic or ill-considered utterance. In the _de Mysteriis_ he is
speaking with the consciousness not of a better cause but of increased
powers and an assured position in the State. He is confident, almost
arrogant at times; he is bitter and violent in his attacks on his enemies.
The _de Pace_ bears a general resemblance in style to the other speeches,
except for certain grammatical peculiarities. Dionysius declared it to be
spurious, but modern critics mostly regard it as genuine.
The chief grounds for suspicion are the inaccuracies of the historical
narrative (§§ 3-9) and the curious fact that a very similar passage
occurs in Aeschines (_de F. L._, §§ 172-176), where even certain
peculiarities of phraseology[114] are reproduced. As to history,
the orators were often inaccurate about the past history of their
own country. Careless statements occur even in the _de Mysteriis_.
Demosthenes is an untrustworthy authority even for events almost
contemporary. As to the other matter, there is good reason for the belief
that Aeschines plagiarized Andocides in the fact that a reference to
Andocides, the grandfather of the orator, which occurs in both speeches,
is in place in a speech of Andocides, while there is no particular reason
why Aeschines, if he were composing the passage, should have mentioned
him. In some minor points, as Jebb has shown, Andocides is more accurate
than Aeschines. The suggestion that the _de Pace_ is a spurious speech,
composed by a later rhetor who plagiarized from Aeschines, is therefore
hardly tenable. There remains a third possibility, that both Aeschines
and Andocides borrowed from the same semi-historical compilation, perhaps
a lost rhetorical exercise.
The _de Pace_ and the _de Reditu_ are not enlivened by excursions into
anecdote or the consequent direct quotations of speech which characterize
the _de Mysteriis_. The historical argument already mentioned is dull in
itself, but the tedium of the _de Pace_ is somewhat relieved by a not
infrequent use of rhetorical question.
‘What is there left for us to discuss? The subject of Corinth
and the invitation of Argos. First, I should like to be
informed about Corinth: if the Boeotians do not join us in the
war but make peace with Sparta, what will Corinth be worth to
us? Remember the day, men of Athens, when we made our alliance
with the Boeotians; what was our feeling in that transaction?
Was it not that we and Boeotia in combination were strong
enough to stand against all the world? But now our question
is, if the Boeotians make peace, how shall we be able, without
Boeotian help, to fight against Sparta? We can do it, say some
people, if we protect Corinth, and have an alliance with Argos.
‘But when the Spartans attack Argos, are we going to help Argos
or not? We must definitely choose one course or the other.’[115]
An appeal for peace does not give such opportunities for oratory as a
call to arms; nevertheless, a greater orator might have made more of the
subject.
The speech _Against Alcibiades_ is undoubtedly spurious and belongs to a
much later date.
It is based upon a complete misconception of the nature of the law
about ostracism. The speaker is represented as discussing the question
whether he himself or Nicias or Alcibiades should be ostracized—a quite
impossible position. The speech is little more than a collection of some
of the stock anecdotes about Alcibiades, such as occur in Plutarch.
* * * * *
The names of four lost speeches are preserved:—πρὸς ἑταίρους,
συμβουλευτικός, περὶ τῆς ἐνδείξεως and ἀπολογία πρὸς Φαίακα. Fragments—a
few lines in each case—remain of two unnamed speeches. One of these
refers to Hyperbolus as still in Athens, and so must be placed not later
than 417 B.C., the year when Hyperbolus was ostracized. It deserves
quotation as being typical of the snobbishness of the young aristocrat,
not yet disciplined by misfortune.
‘I am ashamed to mention the name of Hyperbolus; his father
is a branded slave, who up to the present day works in the
public mint; he himself is a foreigner, a barbarian, and a
lampmaker.’[116]