Greek Texts & Translations

1.99Well, Mr. Informer, is this law in force? Yes or no, you practised villain? ^note No; and the reason for that is of course that only laws passed after the archonship of Eucleides can be applied. That is how you come to be walking about this city alive—hardly the fate which you deserved after making a living as a common informer under the democracy, and becoming the tool of the Thirty under the oligarchy to avoid having to disgorge your profits. 1.100But that is not enough. You actually talk to me of my intrigues! ^note You actually hold others up to censure— you, who had not the decency to confine your own intrigues to but a single admirer, but welcomed the entire world for next to nothing, as the court knows, and supported yourself by vice, your villainous appearance notwithstanding.

1.101But yet, although your laws deny him even the right of defending himself, ^note the fellow has the impudence to accuse others. Really, gentlemen, as I sat watching him make his speech for the prosecution, I quite thought that I had been arrested and put on trial by the Thirty. Who would have prosecuted, if I had found myself in court in those days? Epichares, none other. There he would have been, ready with a charge, unless I bought him off. And here he is once more. Who, again, but Charicles ^note would have cross-examined me? “Tell me Andocides,” he would have asked, “did you go to Decelea ^note and occupy it as a menace to your country?” “I did not.” “Well, did you lay Attica waste and pillage your fellow Athenians by land or by sea?” “No.” “Then at least you fought Athens at sea, ^note or helped to demolish her walls or put down her democracy, or reinstalled yourself by force?” ^note“No, I have done none of those things either.” “Then do you expect to escape the fate of so many others?”

1.102Do you not agree, gentlemen, that that is just how I would have been treated for remaining loyal to you, had I fallen into the clutches of the Thirty? Then will it not be a travesty of justice if a man whom the Thirty would have put to death, as they did others, for failing to commit any act of disloyalty to Athens, is not to be acquitted when tried before you whom he refused to wrong? Such a thing would be an outrage. It would make acquittal next to impossible in any case whatsoever.

1.103The truth is, gentlemen, that although the prosecution may have availed themselves of a perfectly valid law in lodging their information against me, they based their charge upon that old decree which is concerned with an entirely different matter. So if you condemn me, beware: you will find that a host of others ought to be answering for their past conduct with far more reason than I. First there are the men who fought you, with whom you swore oaths of reconciliation: then there are the exiles whom you restored: and finally there are the citizens whose rights you gave back to them. For their sakes you removed stones of record, annulled laws, and cancelled decrees; and it is because they trust you that they are still in Athens, gentlemen. 1.104What, do you imagine, will they presume their own position to be, if they find that you are allowing prosecutions for past conduct? Will any of them be ready to stand trial for his past conduct? Yet enemies and informers will spring up right and left, ready to bring every man of them into court. 1.105Today both parties have come to listen, but from very different motives. One side wants to know whether they are to rely upon the laws as they now stand and on the oaths which you and they swore to one another; while the others have come to sound our feelings, to find out whether they will be given complete licence to fill their pockets by indictments,or informations, maybe, or arrests. Thus the truth the matter is, gentlemen, that although it is my life alone which is at stake in this trial, your verdict will decide for the public at large whether they are to put faith in your laws, or whether, on the other hand, they must choose between buying off informers and quitting Athens as fast as they can.