Against Andocides

​He tied his horse to the knocker of the temple door as if returning it, but on the next day he stole it away. Therefore, the one who did this perished by the most painful death, namely by hunger. For although many excellent things were placed before him on his table, the bread and the barley cake seemed to him to smell most foully, and he was unable to eat.

​And many of us heard the hierophant telling this.

​It seems to me, therefore, to be just now to recall what was said then regarding this man, and that not only his friends should be destroyed by him and by his words, but also this man himself by another. And it is also impossible for you, who are casting your vote on such a matter, either to pity or to show favor to Andocides, knowing well that these two goddesses clearly punish those who do wrong; therefore, every man must expect that the same things will happen both to himself and to others.

​For come, if Andocides should now escape unpunished through you from this trial and should go to draw lots for the nine archons and should be chosen king, would he do anything else than offer sacrifices and make prayers on your behalf according to ancestral customs, partly in the Eleusinion here, and partly in the temple at Eleusis, and take charge of the festival at the mysteries, so that no one may wrong or desecrate the sacred things?

​And what state of mind do you think the arriving initiates will have when they see who the king is and remember all the impieties committed by him, or the other Greeks who come for the sake of this festival, wishing either to sacrifice at this assembly or to view the spectacles?

​For Andocides is not unknown either to those abroad or to those here because of his impieties. For it is necessary that those who perform them should be known from their deeds that are greatly different, whether bad or good. And furthermore, he has harassed many cities in his travels abroad: Sicily, Italy, Peloponnese, Thessaly, Hellespont, Ionia, Cyprus. He has flattered many kings with whom he associated, except Dionysius the Syracusan.

​And this man is either the most fortunate of all or far excels others in judgment, who alone of those who associated with Andocides was not deceived by such a man, who has this art: to do no harm to his enemies, but to do whatever harm he can to his friends. Therefore, by Zeus, it is not easy for you, by granting him any favor contrary to justice, to escape the notice of the Greeks.

​Now, therefore, it is necessary for you to deliberate about him. For you know well, men of Athens, that it is not possible for you to use both the ancestral laws and Andocides at the same time, but of two things one: either the laws must be wiped out or the man must be removed.

​And he has arrived at such a pitch of daring that he even speaks about the law, saying that the one established concerning him has been repealed, and that it is now permitted for him to enter the agora and the temples, even now in the council chamber of the Athenians.

​And yet they say that Pericles once advised you concerning the impious, that you should use not only the written laws concerning them, but also the unwritten ones, according to which the Eumolpidae expound, which no one has ever had the authority to repeal nor dared to contradict, nor do they even know the setter of them himself; for he believed that in this way they would pay the penalty not only to men but also to the gods.

​But Andocides has so greatly despised the gods and what they must avenge, that before he had been in the city for ten days, he summoned a suit of impiety before the king, and drew lots, being Andocides and having done what he has done concerning the gods, and (so that you may pay more attention) claiming that Archippus committed impiety concerning his own ancestral Hermes. But Archippus counter-sued, swearing that the Hermes was sound and whole, and had suffered none of the things that the other Hermae did.