Speech On the Mysteries.

The events with which the speech On the Mysteries is connected have been related in the life of Andokides. After his return to Athens, (probably early in 402 B. C.,) under favour of the general amnesty which followed the overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants, he had spent three years in the discharge of various public offices. At length, in 399 B. C., his enemies renewed their attack. During the festival of the Great Mysteries, which Andokides attended, in the autumn of that year, Kephisios laid an information against him before the Archon Basileus.

Mode of legal procedure.

Some obscurity hangs over the form of the accusation; we will give the account of it which appears most probable. When, in 415 B. C., Andokides made his disclosures, he did so on the guarantee of impunity ( ἄδεια) which a special decree of the ekklesia had given to all who should inform. Subsequently, however, Isotimides proposed and carried a decree that all who had committed impiety and had confessed it should be excluded from the marketplace and from the temples. The enemies of Andokides maintained that he came under this decree. This was the immediate cause of his quitting Athens in 415. In 409 he was unsuccessful in applying to have the sentence of disfranchisement cancelled. On his return in 402, however, nothing had been said at first about his disabilities.

His accusers now contended that he had broken the decree of Isotimides by attending the Mysteries and entering the Eleusinian Temple. To attend the festival or enter the temple unlawfully would, of course, be an impiety. The information which they laid against him charged him, therefore, on this ground, with impiety. It was an ἔνδειξις ἀσεβείας. But, in order to prove it, it was necessary to show that he came under the decree of Isotimides. It was necessary to show that he had committed impiety, as well as given information, in 415 B. C.

His defence is therefore directed to showing, in the first place, that he had not committed impiety at that time either by profaning the Mysteries or by mutilating the Hermae. The speech takes its ordinary title from the fact that the Mysteries form one of its prominent topics. But a more general title would have better described the range of its contents. It might have been more fitly called a Defence on a Charge of Impiety.

This view of the matter explains some difficulties. Andokides says ( de Myst. § 71), ‘Kephisios has informed against me according to the existing law, but bases his accusation on the decree of Isotimides.’ That is, Kephisios laid against Andokides an ordinary ἔνδειξις ἀσεβείας. But the charge of ἀσέβεια rested on the assumption that he had broken the decree of Isotimides. He was not directly charged either with profaning the Mysteries or with mutilating the Hermae; his guilt in one or both of these matters was assumed. He proceeds to prove that this assumption is groundless; and that, therefore, the decree does not apply to him¹.

The charge, like all connected with religion, was brought into court by the Archon Basileus. Since details connected with the Mysteries might be put in evidence, the judges were chosen exclusively from the initiated of the higher grade². Kephisios, the chief accuser³, was assisted by Melêtos, who had been implicated in the murder of Leon under the Thirty⁴, and by Epichares, who had been a member of their government⁵. On the same side were Kallias⁶ and Agyrrhios⁷, each of whom had a private quarrel with the accused. Andokides was supported by Anytos and Kephalos, both politicians of mark, and both popular for the part which they had taken in the restoration of the democracy⁸. Advocates chosen for him by his tribesmen were also in court. It is remarkable if, as there is reason to believe, two men engaged on different sides in this trial were, in the same year, united in preferring a more famous charge of impiety. Anytos undoubtedly, Meletos⁹ probably, was the accuser of Sokrates.

The speech On the Mysteries falls into three main divisions. In the first, Andokides shows his innocence in regard to the events of 415 B. C. In the second he shows that, in any case, the decree of Isotimides is now obsolete. In the third he deals with a number of minor topics.

I. §§ 1—69.

1. ( Proem.) §§ 1—7. Andokides dwells on the rancour of his enemies; insists on the fact of his having remained to stand his trial—instead of withdrawing to his property in Cyprus—as a proof of a good conscience; and appeals to the judges¹⁰.

2. §§ 8—10. He is perplexed as to what topic of his defence he shall first approach. After a fresh appeal to the judges he resolves to begin with the facts relating to the Mysteries.

3. §§ 11—33. The Mysteries Case. He neither profaned them himself, nor informed against others as having profaned them. Four persons, on four distinct occasions, did, in fact, so inform: viz.:—(i) Pythonikos, who produced the slave Andromachos, § 11: (ii) Teukros, § 15: (iii) Agariste, § 16: (iv) Lydos, § 17. Lydos implicated Leogoras the father of Andokides. Leogoras, however, not only cleared himself, but got a verdict in an action which he brought against the senator Speusippos, §§ 17, 18. (This occasions a parenthesis, in which Andokides defends himself against the imputation of having denounced his father and relations: §§ 19—24.) The largest reward for information ( μήνυτρα) was adjudged to Andromachos; the second, to Teukros: §§ 27, 28. Andokides calls upon the judges to recognise his innocence as regards the Mysteries: §§ 29—33.

4. §§ 34—69. The Hermae Case. In this matter the chief informants were (i) Teukros: §§ 34—35: (ii) Diokleides, whose allegations caused a general panic: §§ 36—46: (iii) Andokides himself. The circumstances, motives and results of his disclosure are stated at length: §§ 47—69.

II. §§ 70—91.

It is argued that the decree of Isotimides is now void, because it has been cancelled by subsequent decrees, laws and oaths, §§ 70—72. These are next enumerated, as follows.

1. §§ 73—79. During the siege of Athens by the Lacedaemonians in 405 B. C. the decree of Patrokleides was passed, reinstating all the disfranchised.

2. § 80. After the truce with Sparta in 404, when the Thirty Tyrants were established, all exiles received free permission to return.

3. § 81. After the expulsion of the Thirty in 403 a general amnesty was proclaimed.

4. §§ 82—89. At the same time, in accordance with the decree of Tisamenos, a revision of the laws was ordered. This revision having been completed, four new general laws ( νόμοι) were passed:—viz. (i) That no ‘unwritten’ law should have force: (ii) That no decree ( ψήφισμα) of ekklesia or senate should overrule a law ( νόμος): (iii) That no law should be made against an individual ( ἐπ’ ἀνδρί, § 87): (iv) That decisions of judges or arbiters, pronounced under the former democracy, should remain valid; but that, in future, all decisions should be based on the code as revised in the archonship of Eukleides in 403 B. C. [This is expressed by the phrase χρῆσθαι νόμοις ἀπ’ Εὐκλείδου ἄρχοντος, § 87.]

5. §§ 90, 91. Returning to the subject of § 81, Andokides recalls the terms of the oath of amnesty taken in 403 B. C. He then quotes the official oath of Senators and the official oath of Judges.

III. §§ 92—150 (end).

1. §§ 92—105. He shows that, if the amnesty is to be violated in his case, it may be violated to the cost of others also. The accusers, Kephisios, Meletus and Epichares, as well as others, would, in various ways, be liable to punishment.

2. §§ 106—109. He illustrates the good effect of general amnesties by two examples from the history of Athens: (i) the moderation shown after the expulsion of the Peisistratidae: (ii) an amnesty in the time of the Persian Wars.

3. §§ 110—136. He answers a charge made against him by Kallias. Kallias asserted that Andokides, terrified by the accusation hanging over him, had laid a suppliant's bough ( ἱκετηρία) on the altar in the temple at Eleusis during the festival of the Great Mysteries. To take sanctuary, or to place a symbol of supplication, in that temple at that season, was a capital offence (as implying the approach of guilt to the temple at a holy season). Andokides explains the motive of this false charge. Kallias was seeking for his son an heiress whose hand was claimed by Andokides (§§ 110—123). This leads to a digression about a scandal connected with the birth of this son (§§ 124—131). He then attacks the abettors of Kallias in this slander—especially Agyrrhios, a fraudulent tax-farmer who had a grudge against Andokides (§§ 132—136).

4. §§ 137—139. He ridicules the assertion made by the accuser, that the gods must have preserved so great a traveller from the dangers of the sea because they reserved him for the hemlock.

5. §§ 140—150. Peroration, on three topics chiefly:— (i) the credit which Athens has gained by her policy of amnesties—credit which the judges are bound to sustain: (ii) the public services of the ancestors of Andokides: (iii) his own opportunities for usefulness to the State hereafter, if he is acquitted.

Andokides was acquitted. Before speaking of the method and style of his speech, it is due to its great historical interest to notice some of the disputed statements of fact which it contains.

Historical matter in the Speech.

1. Does the speech represent that account of his own conduct which Andokides gave in 415 when he made his disclosures before the Council of Four Hundred? Next—had he, as a matter of fact, taken part in the mutilation of the Hermae? These two questions have been shortly discussed in Chapter IV.¹¹ Some reasons are there suggested for believing (1) that, in 415, Andokides had criminated himself as well as others: (2) that he was, in fact, innocent.

2. In § 11 Pythonikos, who brought forward the evidence of the slave Andromachos, is named as the first denouncer of Alkibiades. ‘Some residentaliens and slaves in attendance on their masters’ ( ἀκολούθων) are said by Thucydides (VI. 28) to have been the first accusers; and Plutarch adds that these were brought forward by Androkles. Androkles is mentioned by Andokides only in § 27, as claiming the reward ( μήνυτρα) from the Senate. In order to reconcile Andokides with Thucydides, it must be supposed either (1) that the ‘resident-aliens and slaves’ of Thucydides (VI. 28) were the witnesses of Pythonikos, and not, as Plutarch states ( Alkib. 19), of Androkles: or (2) that they were the witnesses, some of Pythonikos, some of Androkles; and that those brought forward by Androkles did not criminate Alkibiades, although Androkles afterwards found witnesses who did so. The former supposition, which makes Plutarch inaccurate, seems the most likely.

3. In § 13 it is stated that, on Pythonikos making his accusations, Polystratos was at once arrested and executed, and that the other accused persons fled. It is certain, as Grote¹² observes, that Alkibiades was accused, but neither fled nor was brought to trial; and it would seem more probable, therefore, that the charge was dropped, for the time, in reference to the others also. On this point, however, it does not seem necessary to assume inaccuracy in Andokides. The position of Alkibiades, as a commander of the expedition on which the hopes of the people were set and which was about to sail, was wholly exceptional. The evidence against him may also have been of a different nature.

4. In § 13 there is an oversight. Among those denounced by Pythonikos was Panaetios. And it is said that all persons so denounced—except Polystratos, who was put to death—fled. But in § 68 Panaetios appears as leaving Athens in consequence of the later denunciation of Andokides. As the list in § 13 contains ten names in all, the speaker might easily have made a mistake about one of the number. Or the evidence against Panaetios—who is named last of the ten—may have been so weak that he was acquitted upon this first charge.

5. In § 34 it is said that some of the persons accused by Teukros were put to death. To this Mr Grote¹³ opposes the fact that Thucydides (VI. 60) names as having suffered death only some of those who were denounced by Andokides. It seems unsafe, however, to conclude that the orator has made a wrong statement. The language of Thuc. VI. 53, ξυλλαμβάνοντες κατέδουν, hardly warrants the inference that imprisonment was the utmost rigour used in other cases. The statement of Andokides in § 34 is incidentally confirmed by the words which he ascribes to Charmides in § 49.

6. In § 38 Andokides quotes, without comment, the statement of Diokleides that he had seen the faces of some of the conspirators by the light of a full moon. Now Plutarch says that one of the informers (he does not give the name), being asked how he had recognised the faces of the mutilators, answered, ‘by the light of the moon;’ and was thus convicted of falsehood, it having been new moon on the night in question¹⁴. Diodoros (XIII. 2) tells the same story, without mentioning any name; but his account does not apply to Diokleides. Mr Grote is unquestionably right in treating the new-moon story as a later fiction¹⁵. Andokides would not have failed to notice so fatal a slip on the part of Diokleides; nor is it likely that the informer would have made it.

7. In § 17 the action brought by Leogoras against Speusippos is mentioned directly after the evidence of Lydos. But it should be observed that it is mentioned parenthetically; and that the indefinite κἄπειτα does not fix its date at all. Leogoras was in the prison with his son (§ 50); and the action was doubtless not brought until after the disclosures of Andokides.

8. In § 45 the panic, during which the citizens kept watch under arms through the night, is placed in immediate connection with the informations of Diokleides, who caused this panic by representing the plot as widely spread. It is said, also, that the Boeotians took advantage of the alarm at Athens to march to the frontier. Now Thucydides (VI. 60) states that, during one night an armed body of citizens garrisoned the Theseion; but he puts this after the disclosures of Andokides, and connects it with the appearance of a Spartan force at the isthmus. Bishop Thirlwall justly remarks that, unless there were two or more occasions on which the citizens kept armed watch, Andokides, who goes into minute detail, is more likely than Thucydides to be right about the time of it¹⁶ .

9. In § 106 the expulsion from Athens of the tyrants—that is, Hippias and his adherents—is described as following upon a battle fought ἐπὶ Παλληνίῳ, which seems to mean ‘at the Pallenion,’ the temple of Athene Pallenis at Pallene, about 10 miles E.N.E. of Athens¹⁷. Now it was near this temple that Peisistratos, on his third return, won the victory which led to the final establishment of his tyranny, probably in 545 B. C.¹⁸ But no battle at the same spot, or anywhere near it, is mentioned by any other authority in connexion with the expulsion of of the Peisistratidae. According to Herodotos, the Lacedaemonians sent, in 510, an expedition under Kleomenes. Kleomenes, on entering Attica from the isthmus, met and routed the Thessalian cavalry of Hippias; advanced to Athens; and besieged the Peisistratidae, who presently capitulated¹⁹. Herodotos and Andokides can be reconciled only by supposing that the account of Herodotos is incomplete²⁰. It seems more probable, however, that Andokides has confused the scene of a battle won by Peisistratos with the scene of a battle lost by the Peisistratidae²¹.

10. In § 107 it is said that when, later, the Persian king made an expedition against Greece, the Athenians recalled those who had been banished, and reinstated those who had been disfranchised, when the tyrants were expelled. No such amnesty is recorded in connection with the first Persian invasion in 490; but Plutarch mentions such a measure as having been passed shortly before the battle of Salamis in 480²². Now the Persian invasion in 490 was undertaken for the purpose of restoring Hippias; and the invasion in 480 was undertaken partly at the instance of his family. Men (or their descendants) who had been banished or disfranchised in 510 would certainly not have been restored to Athenian citizenship in 490 or 480. Andokides seems, then, to have remembered vaguely that an act of amnesty was passed at Athens on some occasion during the Persian wars; to have placed this act in 490 instead of 480; and to have represented it as passed in favour of the very persons who would probably have been excluded from it.

11. In § 107 it is said of the Athenians;— ‘They resolved to meet the barbarians at Marathon... They fought and conquered; they freed Greece and saved their country. And having done so great a deed, they thought it not meet to bear malice against any one for the past. Therefore, although through these things they entered upon their city desolate, their temples in ashes, their walls and houses in ruins, yet by concord they achieved the empire of Greece,’ &c. From this passage Valckenär²³, Sluiter and Grote infer that Andokides has transferred the burning of Athens by Xerxes in 480 to the first invasion in 490. This is hardly a necessary inference. Andokides is speaking of the struggle with Persia—extending from 490 to 479—as a whole. He names Marathon: he does not name Salamis or Plataea. He merely says that, after the Athenians had ‘freed Greece,’ they came back to find their city in ruins²⁴.

Arrangement and Style of the Speech.

It is impossible to read the speech On the Mysteries without feeling that, as a whole, it is powerful, in spite of some evident defects. The arrangement is best in what we have called the first division (§§ 1—69), which deals with two distinct groups of facts, those relating to the Mysteries case and those relating to the Hermae case. These facts are stated in an order which is, on the whole, clear and natural, though not free from the parentheses of which Andokides was so fond, and of which sections 19—24 form an example. Less praise is due to the second part of the speech (§§ 70—91), devoted to the various enactments which had made the decree of Isotimides obsolete. It is at once full and obscure, giving needless, and withholding necessary, details. The third part (§§ 92—end) is a mere string of topics, unconnected with each other, and but slightly connected with the case. This confused appendix to the real defence is, however, significant. It shows the anxiety of Andokides to make the judges understand the rancorous personal feeling of his enemies; an anxiety natural in a man who for sixteen years had been pursued by unproved accusations. The passages about Kallias and Agyrrhios probably had a stronger effect upon the court than any conventional appeal to compassion would have produced.

As regards style, the language of the speech is thoroughly unaffected and easy, plain without studied avoidance of ornament, and rising at the right places—as when he speaks of the old victories of freedom (§§ 106—109), and in the peroration (§§ 140 —150). But the great merit of the composition is its picturesqueness, its variety and life. The scene in the prison (§§ 48—53) and the description of the panic at Athens (§§ 43—45) are perhaps the best passages in this respect. If Andokides had not many rhetorical accomplishments, he certainly had perception of character, and the knack of describing it. Diokleides bargaining with Euphemos (§ 40)—Charmides exhorting Andokides to save the prisoners (§§ 49, 50)—Peisandros urging that Mantitheos and Aphepsion should be put on the rack (§ 43)—are well given in a few vivid touches.

Sir Richard C. Jebb The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos 1.6.2

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