The second chapter in the life of Andokides covers the years from 415 to 402. It is the history of his exile.

On leaving Athens in 415 he appears to have adopted a merchant's life. Archelaos, king of Macedonia, a friend of his family, gave him the right of cutting timber and exporting it ¹ . In Cyprus, according to the author of the speech against him, he was imprisoned by the king of Citium on account of some treachery ² ; a story from which it would be unsafe to infer more than that Andokides had visited the island. When, after the Sicilian disaster, Samos became the headquarters of the Athenian fleet, he endeavoured to conciliate his countrymen there by supplies of corn and cargoes of oar-spars and of bronze, which his mercantile connexion enabled him to get for them at a cheap rate ³ . In the spring of 411 he made ⁴ his first attempt to re-establish himself at Athens. He was unaware, at the moment of his return, that the revolution of the Four Hundred had taken place. The hatred of the oligarchical clubs, incurred by his denunciation of his own associates, and the enmity of Peisandros, whose desire to keep up a panic had been thwarted by his reassuring disclosures, would have been enough to have prevented him from expecting any other reception than that which he actually experienced ⁵ . He was instantly denounced to the Council by Peisandros for supplying oars to the hostile democracy at Samos, and was thrown into prison ⁶ . Released by the downfall of the oligarchy, he again visited Cyprus,—where, according to his accuser he was once more imprisoned ‘for a misdeed’—this time by Evagoras king of Salamis ⁷ ; but we may hesitate whether to recognise here the monotony of fate or of invention.

In Cyprus Andokides found a new opportunity to serve the interests of Athens. The loss of her power in the Propontis had cut off her corn-trade with the Euxine; and Andokides procured the despatch of corn-ships from Cyprus to the Peiraeus. ⁸ It must have been in the spring or summer of 410, before the results of the victory at Kyzikos had removed all fear of famine ⁹ , that Andokides was again at Athens, and in a speech in the ekklesia pleaded for the removal of the disabilities under which the decree of Isotimides was held to have placed him. He expresses penitence for his errors in 415; and lays stress upon certain information which he had given to the Senate, as well as upon his services in procuring a supply of corn ¹⁰ . His application was rejected; and for the third time he went into exile. During the next eight years he is said to have visited Sicily, Italy, the Peloponnesus, Thessaly, the Hellespont, Ionia and Cyprus ¹¹ . In Cyprus he had received, perhaps from Evagoras, a grant of land ¹² ; and the fortune which afterwards enabled him to discharge costly offices at Athens, although his patrimony had been wrecked ¹³ , appears to show that he had been active and successful as a merchant.