1. Against Andokides. [Or. VI.]—This is certainly not the work of Lysias; but in any survey of his works its claim to be ranked with them must at least be examined. It is probable that it was really spoken against Andokides at his trial in 399 B. C. The occasion and the circumstances of that trial have already been discussed ¹ . Of his three accusers—Kephisios, Epichares and Melêtos—one, Kephisios, is mentioned by the speaker (§ 42): it is possible that the speaker himself may have been one of the other two ² . Two lost pages of the Palatine MS. contained probably the latter part of the speech Against Kallias, and the first part of this speech Against Andokides. But it is not likely that the part thus lost was so large as to include, besides the proem, a connected statement of the whole case. It remains to suppose that such a statement had been made by a previous speaker and is only supplemented here. This is what might have been expected; Kephisios, the chief accuser, would properly have made the leading speech. ³

The fragment begins in the middle of a story told to show how surely the goddesses of Eleusis resent an insult. A certain man cheated them of an offering; and there came upon him this doom, that he starved amid plenty; for though good food was set before him, the goddesses made it seem loathsome to him. Let the judges beware, then, of showing mercy to Andokides, whose punishment is claimed by these same deities (§§ 1—3). If he should be acquitted, and, as Archon Basileus, should some day conduct the festival of the Mysteries, what a scandal for comers from all parts of Greece! For he is known to them, not only by his deeds at Athens, but by his conduct during his exile in Sicily, in Italy, in the Peloponnesus, at the Hellespont, in Ionia, at Cyprus (§§ 4—8).

He will say that the decree banishing him from the agora and the temples has been cancelled. Let the advice of Perikles be remembered, that impious men should be liable not only to written laws, but to the unwritten laws of the Eumolpidae. Andokides has aggravated his offence against the gods by presuming to make himself their champion. Before he had been ten days at Athens, he accused Archippos of having defaced a Hermes, and withdrew the charge only on receiving money (§§ 9—12). He will say that it is hard if the informer is to suffer when the denounced have been pardoned. The court is not responsible for that pardon; besides, these men denied their guilt; he confesses it. A man is banished for injuring his fellow; shall he not be banished for injuring the gods? Diagoras of Melos mocked the religion of a strange land; Andokides outraged the religion of his own. It is a further proof of atheism that, not dreading his own crimes, he committed himself to the dangers of the sea. [A notable petitio principii.] But the gods were reserving him for a late reckoning. Let the judges consider what his life has been since his first great crime. Imprisoned, and escaping only by betraying kinsmen and friends; disfranchised and banished; rejected by oligarchy and by democracy at home, ill-treated by tyrants abroad; and now, in this same year, twice brought to trial! Men ought not to lose faith in the gods because they see Andokides surmount so many dangers: the life of pain thus spared to him is no life (§§ 13—32).

But he is not content to have escaped punishment; he dares to meddle in public affairs, even in the concerns of religion (§§ 33, 34). And now he will be ready with various pleas. That his informations relieved Athens from distress: —but who had first caused it? That the Amnesty shields him: but it was only political. That Kephisios is as bad as he is: perhaps so, but that is irrelevant. That no one will inform in future, if he suffers: nay, he has had his reward— he saved his life. He is now in danger because he has forced himself upon Athens—more shameless than Batrachos, the informer of the Thirty, who at least hid his infamy abroad (§§ 35—45).

Why should Andokides be acquitted? Not for his services in war, for he has never made a campaign. Not for services rendered by his boasted wealth; for at the citizens' sorest need he did not so much as buy them corn (§§ 46—49). [Here, after the ἀνταποδούς, follows a lacuna: see above, p. 201.]

The profanation of the Mysteries is an old story now, and men's horror of it is faded: but let them for a moment imagine Andokides mocking the awful rites of the Initiated, and then remember the priests standing with their faces to the west, and waving the crimson banners as they cursed him! The city must be purged and the gods appeased by his expulsion. Once, when it was proposed that a Megarian guilty of impiety should be put to death without trial, Diokles said that he ought to be tried indeed, but that every judge must come into court resolved to condemn. And now, let not the judges be moved by entreaty. Compassion is not for murderers but for their victims (§§ 50—55).

The doubt with which Harpokration twice ⁴ names this speech is the only clue to the opinion of the ancients. Modern critics are all but unanimous in rejecting it. ⁵

The diction shows many words and phrases which Lysias could hardly have used ⁶ ; but it is not by the diction nor by the composition ⁷ that his authorship is disproved. The question is decided by broader characteristics. In arrangement Lysias was not faultless; but he would not have tolerated the chaotic disorder which is found here. Again, in several of those passages which dwell on the crimes of Andokides and on the vengeance of the gods there is a certain hollow pathos, a certain falseness and affected elevation, which are utterly remote from the style of Lysias. Further the whole speech has what may be called (in the Greek sense) a sycophantic tone; it is rancorous, palpably unfair and prodigal of unproved assertion. Lastly it is singularly deficient in the foremost general quality of Lysias—in tact; it is preeminently a blundering speech. The accuser makes at least four mistakes. First, he recites at length the sufferings which Andokides has been enduring without respite for the last sixteen years; intending thereby to prove the displeasure of the gods, but forgetting that he was more likely to move the compassion of men. Secondly, he observes that, strange to say, Andokides has always come safely through his perils; but that it would be wrong to suppose the gods capable of protecting him;—an awkward allusion to the natural inference, and almost a prophecy of acquittal. Thirdly, in noticing the charges brought by Andokides against Kephisios, he allows that there is something in them, and objects to them only as irrelevant; thus needlessly throwing over his own colleague, the leader of the prosecution. Fourthly, he ends by begging the court to remember a saying of his own grandfather—that, in certain cases, it was the duty of the judges to be prejudiced against the accused. Any one of these faults would have been striking: taken together, they make the authorship of Lysias inconceivable.

It is a further question whether this Accusation ⁸ was written by a contemporary of Lysias and was actually delivered in the Mysteries-trial, or is merely a rhetorical exercise of later date. Those who take the latter view, lay stress upon the discrepancies between this speech and the speech of Andokides On the Mysteries. Two of these discrepancies are important. (1) Andokides complains of having been specially charged with denouncing his own father ( De Myst. § 19): here, he is only accused generally of denouncing his kinsfolk (§ 23). Again (2) he speaks of having been charged with placing a suppliant's bough in the temple at Eleusis ( De Myst. § 110); here nothing of the kind is mentioned. But in regard to such differences, it should be remembered that this speech, itself mutilated, was not the only one for the prosecution; and that, where the subjects of accusation were so large and covered so many years, it would have been strange if every point had been touched by every accuser. On the other hand a rhetorician who had prepared himself by studying the Speech On the Mysteries would have aimed at a more exact correspondence with it. He would probably have taken the charges against Andokides in the order set by his model, and have given paragraph for paragraph, or at least topic for topic. He must have been a subtle artist indeed, if with a general agreement he combined so many intentional differences of detail. It may be noticed that in § 46. Andokides is said to be ‘upwards of forty years old.’ This statement has been used as an argument for the late origin of the speech by those who identify the orator Andokides with the general named by Thucydides (I. 51) as holding a command in 435 B.C. But if, as is most probable, the general was the grandfather of the orator, and the age of the latter in 399 B.C. was really about forty, then the statement in § 46 is one reason the more for ascribing the speech to a contemporary of Andokides ⁹ . As regards the faults of expression, of method or of general tone, these help to disprove the authorship of Lysias; but they are not of a kind which help to prove that the author was a late sophist. Bad taste is of no age; and the fact of being contemporary with Lysias need not have given a good style to Epichares or Melêtos.

2. For Kallias. [Or. V.]—The shortness of this speech does not necessarily prove it to be a fragment. It opens with an express statement that the case for the defence had already been fully argued by others; and it ends with a completed idea. Since, however, two pages of the Palatine MS. have been lost just at this place, comprising the first part of the speech Against Andokides, that For Kallias has probably suffered also ¹⁰ . As it now stands, it gives no direct clue to the special nature of the case. The traditional title, ‘Defence on a Charge of Sacrilege,’ must therefore have been taken from the part now lost. The accused is a resident alien (§ 2), an elderly man (§ 3), against whom his own slaves, in hope of being rewarded with liberty, have informed.

In the view of sacrilege taken by Attic law, its ¹¹ aspect as a robbery seems to have been more prominent than its aspect as an impiety. Thus it is mentioned in the same category with ordinary theft, housebreaking, kidnapping and like offences ¹² . In this instance it appears from the address, ἄνδρες δικασταί (§ 1), that the trial was not before the Areiopagos. The cause must have been heard by an ordinary heliastic court, under the presidency either of the Thesmothetae or of the Eleven ¹³ . ¹⁴

The speaker says that, were it not a case of life or death, he would have forborne to come forward, considering the defence to be already complete; as it is, he desires to give a public proof of friendship for Kallias (§§ 1, 2). He then refers very briefly, first, to the high character of the accused; secondly, to the worthless nature of the informations. It is the hope of winning freedom which has prompted the calumny of the slaves. If they are believed, servants who desire liberty will henceforth think, not how they are to oblige their masters, but what lie they can tell against them (§§ 3—5). ¹⁵

The phrase used by the speaker in reference to Kallias—‘those who bring themselves into danger by lending their services to the Treasury’ ( τῷ δημοσίῳ βοηθοῦντες § 4)—is noticeable. It suggests that the ‘sacrilege’ of which the title speaks may have been connected with the sacred treasury on the Acropolis. Kallias may have had some employment under the Stewards of the sacred fund ( ταμίαι τῆς θεοῦ, τῶν ἱερῶν χρημάτων) which gave him access to the inner chamber ( ὀπισθόδομος) of the Parthenon; and may have been accused of profiting by that opportunity to commit a theft.

3. On the Sacred Olive. [Or. VII.]—The man (VII. 2) for whom this defence was written—a rich Athenian citizen (§§ 21, 31)—had originally been charged with destroying a moria, or sacred olive, on a farm which belonged to him. As to do this was a fraud upon the public Treasury, the form of the original accusation had been an apographê ( ἀπεγράφην, § 2). But the charge was not supported by the persons who had rented from the State the produce of the moriae on this farm ( οἱ ἐωνημένοι τοὺς καρποὺς τῶν μοριῶν, § 2). The accusers had therefore changed their ground. They now charge the defendant merely with uprooting the fenced-in stump ( σηκός) of a moria; and they lay against him an indictment for impiety. The chief accuser is one Nikomachos ¹⁶ .

Throughout Attica, besides the olives which were private property ( ἴδιαι ἐλαῖαι, § 10), there were others which, whether growing on public or on private lands, were considered as the property of the State. These were called moriae ( μορίαι)—the legend being that they had been propagated ( μεμορημέναι) from the original olive which Athene herself had caused to spring up on the Acropolis ¹⁷ . This theory was convenient for their conservation as State property; since, by giving them a sacred character, it placed them directly under the care of the Areiopagos, which caused them to be visited once a month by Inspectors ( ἐπιμεληταί, § 29) and once a year by special Commissioners ( γνώμονες, § 25). To uproot a moria was an offence punishable by banishment and confiscation of goods (§ 41) ¹⁸ . ¹⁹

The technical terms used in this speech need definition: see especially §§ 20, 24. Ἐλαία was the generic term. Common olive-trees were called, either ἐλαῖαι simply, or ἴδιαι ἐλαῖαι; sacred, either μορίαι ἐλαῖαι, or μορίαι simply. Σηκός properly meant the enclosure or fence intended to guard the stump ( στέλεχος) of a moria which had been cut down or burnt down ( πυρκαιΐα, § 24)—as often happened in the raids of the enemy during the Peloponnesian War ²⁰ (§ 6). Then σηκός came to denote the fence with the stump itself; and this is the sense which it bears in this speech: see § 11, σηκὸν ἐκκεκόφθαι ²¹ . In §§ 2, 5 ἐλαία as opposed to σηκός means a full-grown moria.

The case is tried by the Areiopagos under the presidency of the Archon Basileus. The offence was alleged to have been committed in the archonship ²² of Suniades (§ 11), Ol. 95. 4, 397 B. C. To judge from § 42 ( τοσούτῳ χρόνῳ ὕστερον) the trial took place not earlier than 395; probably later.

A quiet life, the defendant had thought, was its own ²³ protection; but he has been taught that hired informers have a power which the unborn might dread (§§ 1—3). He will have done enough if he can show that there has been neither moria nor stump of moria on the farm since it came into his possession. This he proves by the evidence of tenants who had rented it from him (§§ 4—11).

After commenting on the unlikelihood of his having done a deed which could hardly have escaped detection (§§ 12— 18), he observes that the accuser has failed to bring any witnesses (§§ 19—23). The defendant has several other farms, on which olive-trees abound; but, notwithstanding the strict watch kept by the Areiopagos, he has never been accused of any such offence as this. And here the risk would have been peculiarly great. It is strange if Nikomachos has discovered what escaped the regular Inspectors (§§ 24—29).

He then speaks of his own public services; of the accuser's refusal to give up his slaves for torture, and of the absence of witnesses for the prosecution. He describes the malice of his enemies who had bribed Nikomachos to bring this charge; and refers to the cruel sentence which hangs over him (§§ 30—41). He then concludes with a short review of the whole case. It depends upon an unproved assertion, which the accuser has refused to bring to the test (§§ 42, 43).

One attraction, which elsewhere seldom fails Lysias, is wanting in this speech;—there is no narrative, for there is no story to tell, except the former history of the farm. In this, one rather curious point may be noticed. The farm had belonged, it seems, to Peisandros; had been confiscated; and had then been given as a public gift to Apollodôros of Megara. Now Apollodôros, as is known from the speech Against Agoratos (§ 71), was one of the two men who planned the assassination of Phrynichos; and so it appears that he had been rewarded for destroying one leader of the Four Hundred by receiving the property of another. As ²⁴ regards the character of the defendant, Lysias has described with a few touches the quiet citizen who shrinks from publicity (§ 1), but with whom, at the same time, it is a point of honour to discharge his public duties in the best way (§ 34); a man who, in Greek phrase, is at once ἀπράγμων and φιλότιμος. Photios says that some critics doubted the authenticity of this speech: and that the rhetorician Paulos of Mysia, in particular, absolutely denied its genuineness, for the unconvincing reason that he could not understand a word of it ²⁵ .