Against Andocides

​Indeed Batrachus, the most wicked of all except this man, who became an informer under the Thirty, although he had the treaty and oaths just like those from Eleusis, because he feared those of you whom he had wronged, lived in another city. But Andocides, who has wronged the very gods themselves, cared less for them, by entering the temples, than Batrachus did for men. Must then he, who is both more wicked and more ignorant than Batrachus, be saved by you, and should this be accepted with great satisfaction?

​Come now, on what consideration should you acquit Andocides? Is it as a good soldier? But he has never served in the army from the city, neither as a cavalryman nor as a hoplite, neither as a trierarch nor as a marine, neither before the disaster nor after the disaster, though he is more than forty years old.

​And yet others, though in exile, served as co-trierarchs with you in the Hellespont. And do you yourselves remember from how many evils and war you preserved yourselves and the city, having labored much with your bodies, and having spent much money both privately and publicly, and having buried many and good citizens because of the war that occurred.

​But Andocides, having experienced none of these evils for the safety of his country, now claims to share in the city, acting impiously in it. But because he is rich and powerful in money, and is connected by hospitality with kings and tyrants—which he will now boast of, knowing your ways—what kind of tax-contribution has become a benefit to this? ​And knowing that the city was in great tossing and danger, though a ship-owner, he did not dare to be encouraged to bring in corn to benefit his country. But metics and strangers, for the sake of their residence, benefited the city by bringing it in; but you, what good did you do, Andocides, what errors did you make amends for, what rearing did you repay? ​Athenians, remember what has been done by Andocides, and remember also the festival, on account of which you were preferred by the many. But indeed you are already stunned by his offenses because of seeing and hearing them so often, so that even dreadful things no longer seem dreadful to you. But pay attention, and let your mind seem to see what he did, ​and you will judge better. For he, having put on a robe, imitating the sacred rites, displayed them to the uninitiated, and spoke with his voice the forbidden secrets, and the gods whom we worship, and to whom we sacrifice and pray with service and purification, these he mutilated. And for these things, priestesses and priests, standing, cursed him towards the west, and shook their purple robes, according to the ancient and old custom.

​And he confessed that he did these things. And further, having transgressed the law which you made, that he should be excluded from the temples as being an accursed person, having forced his way through all these, he has entered our city, and has sacrificed on the altars on which it was not permitted for him, and met the sacred things concerning which he acted impiously, entered into the Eleusinium, and washed his hands from the sacred lustral water. Who can endure these things?

​What friend, what relative, what fellow-demesman should, to gratify this man, secretly or openly incur the hatred of the gods? Now therefore, you must think that by punishing and ridding yourselves of Andocides, you are purifying the city, and expelling the pollution, and sending away a scapegoat, and ridding yourselves of an accursed person, since he is one of these.

​I wish therefore to tell what Diocles, the son of Zacorus the hierophant, and our grandfather, advised when you were consulting what should be done with a Megarian man who had acted impiously. For when others urged to put him to death immediately without trial, he advised to judge him for the sake of men, so that the others, having heard and seen, might be more sober-minded, but for the sake of the gods, each one from home, having judged by himself what the impious man ought to suffer, should enter the court.

​And you, gentlemen of Athens (for you know what must be done), do not be persuaded by this man; you have him clearly acting impiously; you saw, you heard his offenses. He will entreat and supplicate you; do not pity him. For not those who die justly, but those who die unjustly are worthy of pity.