Greek Texts & Translations

1.45The Council adjourned for a private consultation and in the course of it gave orders for our arrest and close confinement. ^note Then they summoned the Generals and bade them proclaim that citizens resident in Athens proper were to proceed under arms to the Agora; those between the Long Walls to the Theseum; and those in Peiraeus to the Agora of Hippodamus. The Knights were to be mustered at the Anaceum ^note by trumpet before nightfall, while the Council would take up its quarters on the Acropolis for the night, and the Prytanes in the Tholus. ^note

1.46Now first of all I want those of you who witnessed all this to picture it once more and describe it to those who did not. Next I will ask the clerk to call the Prytanes in office at the time, Philocrates and his colleagues. Witnesses

1.47And now I am also going to read you the names of those denounced by Diocleides, so that you may see how many relatives of mine he tried to ruin. First there was my father, and then my brother-in-law; my father he had represented as in the secret, while he had alleged that my brother-in-law's house was the scene of the meeting. The names of the rest you shall hear. Read them out to the court.

Charmides, son of Aristoteles.

That is a cousin of mine; his mother and my father were brother and sister.

Taureas.

That is a cousin of my father's.

Nisaeus.

A son of Taureas.

Callias, son of Alcmaeon.

A cousin of my father's.

Euphemus.

A brother of Callias, son of Telocles.

Phrynichus, son of Orchesamenus. ^note

A cousin.

Eucrates.

The brother of Nicias. ^note He is Callias' brother-in-law.

Critias.

Another cousin of my father's; their mothers were sisters.

All of these appeared among the last forty on Diocleides' list.

1.48We were all thrown into one prison. Darkness fell, and the gates were shut. Mothers, sisters, wives, and children had gathered. Nothing was to be heard save the cries and moans of grief-stricken wretches bewailing the calamity which had overtaken them. In the midst of it all, Charmides, a cousin of my own age who had been brought up with me in my own home since boyhood, said to me: 1.49“You see the utter hopelessness of our position, Andocides. I have never yet wished to say anything which might distress you: but now our plight leaves me no choice. Your friends and associates outside the family have all been subjected to the charges which are now to prove our own undoing: and half of them have been put to death,—while the other half have admitted their guilt by going into exile. ^note 1.50I beg of you: if you have heard anything concerning this affair, disclose it. Save yourself: save your father, who must be dearer to you than anyone in the world: save your brother-in-law, the husband of your only sister: save all those others who are bound to you by ties of blood and family: and lastly, save me, who have never vexed you in my life and who am ever ready to do anything for you and your good.”

1.51At this appeal from Charmides, gentlemen, which was echoed by the rest, who each addressed their entreaties to me in turn, I thought to myself: “Never, oh, never has a man found himself in a more terrible strait than I. Am I to look on while my own kindred perish for a crime which they have not committed: while they themselves are put to death and their goods are confiscated: nay more, while the names of persons entirely innocent of the deed which has been done are inscribed upon stones of record as the names of men accursed in the sight of heaven? Am I to pay no heed to three hundred Athenians who are to be wrongfully put to death, to the desperate plight of Athens, to the suspicions of citizen for citizen? Or am I to reveal to my countrymen the story told me by the true criminal, Euphiletus?” ^note