ANDOCIDES, the son of Leogoras, [and grandson of that Andocides] who
once made a peace between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, by
descent a Cydathenian or Thorian, of a noble family, and, as Hellanicus
tells us, the offspring of Mercury himself, for the race of Heralds
belongs to him. On this account he was chosen by the people to go with
Glaucon, with twenty sail of ships, to aid the Corcyraeans against the
Corinthians. But in process of time he was accused of some notorious
acts of impiety, as that he was of the number of those who defaced the
statues of Mercury and divulged the sacred mysteries of Ceres. And
withal, he had been before this time wild and intemperate, and had
once been seen in the night in masquerade to break one of the statues
of Mercury; and when on his trial he refused to bring his servant
to examination whom his accusers named, he not only remained under
this reproach, but was also on this account very much suspected to
be guilty of the second crime too. This later action was laid to his
charge soon after the expedition of the navy sent by the Athenians into
Sicily. For, as Cratippus informs us, when the Corinthians sent the
Leontines and Egestians to the Athenians, who hesitated to lend them
assistance, they in the night defaced and brake all the statues of
Mercury which were erected in the market. To which offence Andocides
added another, that of divulging the mysteries of Ceres. He was brought
to his trial, but was acquitted on condition he would discover who were
companions with him in the crime. In which affair being very diligent,
he found out who they were that had been guilty, and among the rest he
discovered his own father. He proved all guilty, and caused them all
to be put to death except his father, whom he saved, though in prison,
by a promise of some eminent service he would do to the commonwealth.
Nor did he fail of what he promised; for Leogoras accused many who had
acted in several matters against the interest of the commonwealth, and
for this was acquitted of his own crime.
Now, though Andocides was very much esteemed of for his skill in the
management of the affairs of the commonwealth, yet his inclinations
led him rather to traffic by sea; and by this means he contracted
friendship with the kings of Cyprus and other great princes. At which
time he privily stole a damsel of the city, the daughter of Aristides,
and his own niece, and sent her as a present to the king of Cyprus. But
suspecting he should be called in question for it, he again stole her
from Cyprus, for which the king of Cyprus took him and clapped him up
in prison; whence he brake loose, and returned to Athens, just at that
time when the four hundred conspirators had usurped the government. By
whom being confined, he again escaped when the oligarchical government
was broken up.... But when the Thirty Tyrants were uppermost, he
withdrew to Elis, and there lived till Thrasybulus and his faction
returned into the city, and then he also repaired thither. And after
some time, being sent to Lacedaemon to conciliate a peace, he was again
suspected to be faulty, and on that suspicion banished.
He himself has given an account of all these transactions, in his
orations, which he has left behind him. For some of them contain his
defence of himself in regard to the mysteries; others his petition
for restoration from exile; there is one extant on _Endeixis_ (or
information laid against a criminal); also a defence against Phaeax,
and one on the peace. He flourished at the same time with Socrates
the philosopher. He was born in the seventy-eighth Olympiad, when
Theogenides was chief magistrate of Athens, so that he should seem to
be about ten years before Lysias. There is an image of Mercury, called
from his name, being given by the tribe Aegeis; and it stood near the
house where Andocides dwelt, and was therefore called by his name.
This Andocides himself was at the charge of a cyclic chorus for the
tribe Aegeis, at the performance of a dithyrambus. And having gained a
victory, he erected a tripod on an ascent opposite to the tuffstone
statue of Silenus. His style in his orations is plain and easy, without
the least affectation or any thing of a figurative ornament.