On The Murder of Herodes. (Helus, a Mitylenean, having been accused of the murder of Herodes, who had mysteriously disappeared from the boat in which the two had embarked in company, defended himself in the following speech, composed for him by Antiphon):

I could have wished, gentlemen, that I possessed the gift of eloquence and legal experience proportionate to my adversity. Adversity I have experienced in an unusual degree, but in eloquence and legal experience I am sadly deficient. The result is that, in circumstances where I was compelled to suffer personal ill-usage on a false charge, legal experience did not come to my rescue; and here, when my salvation depends on a true statement of the facts, I feel embarrassed by my incapacity for speaking. Many an innocent man has been condemned because of his inability to present clearly the truth and justice of his cause. Many a guilty man, on the other hand, has escaped punishment through skilful pleading. It follows, then, that if the accused lacks experience on these matters, his fate depends rather on the representation of his prosecutors than on the actual facts and true version of the case.

I shall not ask you, gentlemen, to give me an impartial hearing. And yet I am aware that such is the practice of most men on trial, who have no faith in their own cause or confidence in your justice. No, I make no such request, because I know full well that, like all good men and true, you will grant me the same hearing that you grant the prosecution. I do ask you, however, to be indulgent if I commit any indiscretion of speech, and to attribute it rather to my inexperience than to the injustice of my cause. But if my argument has any weight I pray you will ascribe it rather to the force of truth than rhetorical art.

I have always felt that it is not just either that one who has done wrong should be saved through eloquence, or that one who has done no wrong should be condemned through lack of eloquence. Unskilful speaking is but a sin of the tongue; but wrongful acts are sins of the soul. Now it is only natural that a man whose life is in danger should commit some indiscretion of speech; for he must be intent not only on what he says but on the outcome of the trial, since all that is still uncertain is controlled rather by chance than by providence. This fact inspires great fear in a man whose life is at stake. In fact, I have often observed that the most experienced orators speak with embarrassment when their lives are in danger. But whenever they seek to accomplish some purpose without danger they are more successful. My request for indulgence, then gentlemen, is both natural and lawful; and it is no less your duty to grant it than my right to make it.

I shall now consider the case for the prosecution in detail. And first I shall show you that I have been brought to trial here in violation of law and justice, not on the chance of eluding your judgment—for I would commit my life to your decision, even if you were bound by no oath to pronounce judgment according to law, since I am conscious that I have done no wrong and feel assured that you will do me justice: no, my purpose in showing you this is rather that the lawlessness and violence of my accusers may bear witness to you of their better feeling towards me.

First, then, though they imprisoned me as a malefactor, they have indicted me for homicide—an outrage that no one has ever suffered in this land. For I am not a malefactor, or amenable to the law of malefactors, which has to do only with thieves and highwaymen. So far, then, as they have dealt with me by summary process, they have made it possible for you to make my acquittal lawful and righteous.

But they argue that homicide is a species of malefaction. I admit that it is a great crime, as great as sacrilege or treason. But these crimes are dealt with each according to its own particular laws. Moreover, they compel me to undergo trial in this place of public assemblage, where all men charged with murder are usually forbidden to appear; and furthermore they would commute to a fine in my case the sentence of death imposed by law on all murderers, not for my benefit, but for their own private gain, thereby defrauding the dead of lawful satisfaction. Their reason for so doing you will perceive as my argument advances.

In the second place, you all know that the courts decide murder cases in the open air, for no reason than that the judges may not assemble in the same place with those whose hands have been defiled with blood, and that the prosecutor may not be sheltered beneath the same roof with the murderer. This custom my accusers have utterly disregarded. Nay, they have even failed to take the customary solemn oath that, whatever other crimes I may have committed, they will prosecute me for murder alone, and will allow no meritorious act of mine to stand in the way of my condemnation. Thus do they prosecute me unsworn; and even their witnesses testify against me without having taken the oath. And then they expect you, gentlemen, to believe these unsworn witnesses and condemn me to death, when they have made it impossible for you to accept such testimony by their violation and contempt of the law.

But they contend if I had been set free I would have fled. What motive could I have had? For, if I did not mind exile, I might have refused to come home when summoned, and have incurred judgment by default, or, having come, might have left voluntarily after my first trial. For such a course is open to all. And yet my accusers in their lawlessness seek to deprive me alone of the common right of all Greeks.

This leads me, gentlemen, to say a word about the laws that govern my case. And I think you will admit that they are good and righteous, since, though very ancient, they still remain unchanged—an unmistakable proof of excellence in laws. For time and experience teach men what is good and what is not good. You ought not, therefore, judge by the arguments of my accusers whether the laws are good or bad, but rather judge by the laws whether their claims are just or unjust. So perfect, indeed, are the laws that relate to homicide, that no one has ever dared to disturb them. But these men have dared to constitute themselves lawmakers in order to effect their wicked purposes, and disregarding these ordinances they seek unjustly to compass my ruin.

Their lawlessness, however, will not help them, for they well know that they have no sworn witness to testify against me. Moreover, they did not make a single decisive trial of the matter, as they would have done if they had confidence in their cause. No, they left room for controversy and argument, as if, in fact, they meant to dispute the previous verdict. The result is that I gain nothing by an acquittal, since it will be open to them to say that I was acquitted as a malefactor, not as a murderer, and catching me again they will ask to have me sentenced to death on a charge of homicide. Wicked schemers! Would ye have the judges set aside a verdict obtained by fair means, and put me a second time in jeopardy of my life for the same offense? But this is not all. They would not even allow me to offer bail according to law, and thus escape imprisonment, though they have never before denied this privilege even to an alien. And yet the officers in charge of malefactors conform to the same custom. I, alone, then, have failed to derive advantage from this common right conferred by law. This wrong they have done me for two reasons: First, that they might render me helpless to prepare for my defense; and, second, that they might influence my friends, through anxiety for my safety, to bear false witness against me. Thus, would they bring disgrace upon me and mine for life.

In this trial, then, I am at a disadvantage in respect to many points of your law and of justice. Nevertheless, I shall try to prove my innocence. And yet I realize that it will be difficult immediately to dissipate the false impression which these men have long conspired to create. For it is impossible for any man to guard against the unexpected.

Now, the facts in the case, gentlemen, are briefly these: I sailed from Mitylene in the same boat with Herodes, whom I am accused of having murdered. Our destination was the same—Aenus, but our objectives were different. I went to visit my father, who happened to be at Aenus at that time; Herodes went to sell some slaves to certain Thracian merchants. Both the slaves and the merchants sailed with us.

To confirm these statements I shall now offer the testimony of competent witnesses.

To continue, then, we were compelled by a violent storm to put in at a port on the Methymnian coast, and there we found the boat on which they allege I killed Herodes.

Now I would have you bear in mind that this whole affair took place not through design on my part, but through chance. For it was by chance that Herodes undertook the voyage with me. It was by chance that we encountered the storm, which compelled us to put in at the Methymnian port. And it was by chance that we found the cabined boat in which we sought shelter against the violence of the storm.

After we had boarded the other boat and had taken some wine, Herodes left us, never to return. But I did not leave the boat at all that night. On the day after Herodes disappeared, however, I sought him as diligently as any of our company, and felt his loss as keenly. It was I who proposed sending a messenger to Mitylene, and when no one else was willing to go I offered to send my own attendant. Of course, I would not have done this if I had murdered Herodes, for I would be sending an informant against myself. Finally, it was only after I was satisfied by diligent search that Herodes was nowhere to be found, that I sailed away with the first favorable wind. Such are the facts.

What inference can you draw from these facts other than that I am an innocent man? Even these men did not accuse me on the spot, while I was still in the country, although they knew of the affair. No, the truth was too apparent at that time. Only after I had departed, and they had had an opportunity to conspire against me, did they bring this indictment.

Now the prosecution have two theories of the death of Herodes. One is that he was killed on shore, the other that he was cast into the sea. First, then, they say that I killed Herodes on shore, by striking him on the head with a stone. This is impossible, since, as I have proved, I did not leave the boat that night. Strange that they should pretend to have accurate knowledge of the manner of his death, and yet not be able satisfactorily to account for the disappearance of his body. Evidently this must have happened near the shore, for, since it was night, and Herodes was drunk, his murderer could have had no reason to take him far from the shore. However that may be, two days’ search failed to produce any trace of him. This drives them to their second hypothesis—that I drowned Herodes. If that were so, there would be some sign in the boat that the man was murdered and cast into the sea. No such sign, however, appears. But they say they have found signs in the boat in which he drank the wine. And yet they admit he was not killed in that boat. The utter absurdity of this second view is shown by the fact that they cannot find the boat they say I used for the purpose of drowning Herodes, or any trace of it.

It was not till after I sailed away to Aenus, and the boat in which Herodes and I made the voyage had returned to Mitylene, that these men made the examination that led to the discovery of blood. At once they concluded that I killed Herodes on that very boat. But when they found that this theory was inadmissible, since the blood was proved to be that of sheep, they changed their course and sought to obtain information by torturing the crew. The poor wretch whom they first subjected to torture said nothing compromising about me. But the other, whom they did not torture till several days later, keeping him near them in the meantime, is the one who has borne false witness against me.

All that is possible for you to learn, gentlemen, from the testimony of human witnesses, you have now heard. It remains to consider the testimony of the gods, expressed by signs. For by reliance on these heaven-sent signs you will best secure the safety of the state both in adversity and in prosperity. In private matters, too, you ought to attach great weight to these signs. You all know, of course, that, when a wicked man embarks in the same boat with a righteous man, the gods not infrequently cause the shipwreck and destruction of both because of the sinfulness of one alone. Again, the righteous, by association with the wicked, have been brought, if not to destruction, at least into the greatest dangers that divine wrath can send. Finally, the presence of guilty men at a sacrifice has often caused the omens to be unfavorable. Thus do the gods testify to the guilt and wickedness of man.

In the light of divine testimony, then, my innocence is established. For no mariner with whom I have sailed has ever suffered shipwreck. Nor has my presence at a sacrifice ever caused the omens to be unfavorable.

Now, I feel sure, gentlemen, that if the prosecution could find evidence that my presence on shipboard or at a sacrifice had ever caused any mishap, they would insist upon this as the clearest proof of my guilt. Since, however, this divine testimony is adverse to their claims, they ask you to reject it, and to have faith in their representation. Thus do they run counter to the practice of reasonable men. For, instead of testing words by facts, they seek to overthrow facts by words.

Having now concluded my defense, gentlemen, against all that I can recall of the charge against me, I look to you for acquittal. On that depends my salvation and the fulfilment of your oath. For you have sworn to pronounce judgment according to law. Now, I am not liable to the laws under which I was arrested, while as to the facts with which I am charged I can still be brought to trial in the legal form. And if two trials have been made out of one, the fault is not mine, but that of my accusers. When, however, my worst enemies give me the chance of a second trial, surely you, the impartial awarders of justice, will never pronounce on the present issue a premature verdict of murder. Be not so unjust; rather leave something for that other witness, Time, who aids the zealous seekers of eternal truth. I should certainly desire that in cases of homicide the sentence be in accordance with law, but that the investigation, in every possible instance, be regulated by justice. In this way the interests of truth and right would best be secured. For in homicide cases an unjust sentence banishes truth and justice beyond recall. If, then, you condemn me, you are bound to abide by the sentence, however guiltless I may be. No one would dare, through confidence in his innocence, to contravene the sentence passed upon him, nor, if conscious of guilt, would he rebel against the law. We must yield not only to the truth, but to a verdict against the truth, especially if there be no one to support our cause. It is for these reasons that the laws, the oaths, and the solemnities in murder cases differ from those in all other cases. In this case of cases it is of the utmost importance that the issue be clear and the decisions correct. For, otherwise, either the murdered will be deprived of vengeance or an innocent man will suffer death unjustly. For their accusation is not decisive, the result depends on you. Decide, then, justly; for your decision, if wrong, admits of no remedy.

But how, you may ask, will you decide justly? By compelling my accusers to take the customary solemn oath before they put me upon my defense against an indictment for murder. And how are you to accomplish this? By acquitting me now. And remember that, even though you acquit me now, I shall not escape your judgment, since in the other trial, too, you will be my judges. By an acquittal now you make it possible to deal with me hereafter as you will, but, if you condemn me now, my case will not be open to reconsideration. If, then, you must make any mistake, an undeserved acquittal is less serious than an unjust condemnation. For the former is a mistake only; the latter an eternal disgrace. Take care, then, that you do no irreparable wrong. Some of you in the past have actually repented of condemning innocent men, but not one of you has ever repented of making an undeserved acquittal. Moreover, involuntary mistakes are pardonable, voluntary unpardonable. The former we attribute to chance; the latter to design. Of two risks, then, run the lesser; commit the involuntary mistake; acquit me.

Now, gentlemen, if my conscience were guilty, I should never have come into this city. But I did come—with an abiding faith in the justice of my cause, and strong in conscious innocence. For not once alone has a clear conscience raised up and supported a failing body in the hour of trial and tribulation. A guilty conscience, on the other hand, is a source of weakness to the strongest body. The confidence, therefore, with which I appear before you, is the confidence of innocence.

To conclude, gentlemen, I have only to say that I am not surprised that my accusers slander me. That is their part; yours is not to credit their slander. If, on the other hand, you listen to me, you can afterwards repent, if you like, and punish me by way of remedy, but, if you listen to my accusers, and do what they wish, no remedy will then be admissible. Moreover, no long time will intervene before you can decide lawfully what the prosecution now asks you to decide unlawfully. Matters like these require not haste, but deliberation. On the present occasion, then, take a survey of the case; on the next, sit in judgment on the witnesses; form, now, an opinion; later, decide the facts.

It is very easy, indeed, to testify falsely against a man charged with murder. For, if he be immediately condemned to death, his false accusers have nothing to fear, since all danger of retribution is removed on the day of execution. And, even if the friends of the condemned man cared to exact satisfaction for malicious prosecution, of what advantage would it be to him after his death?

Acquit me, then, on this issue, and compel my accusers to indict me according to law. Your judgment will then be strictly legal, and, if condemned, I cannot complain that it was contrary to law. This request I make of you with due regard to your conscience as well as to my own right. For upon your oath depends my safety. By whichever of these considerations you are influenced, you must acquit me.

In Favor of the Peloponnesian War (432 b. c.). I always adhere to the same opinion, Athenians, that we should make no concessions to the Lacedaemonians; although I know that men are not persuaded to go to war, and act when engaged in it, with the same temper; but that, according to results, they also change their views. Still I see that the same advice, or nearly the same, must be given by me now as before; and I claim from those of you who are being persuaded to war, that you will support the common resolutions, should we ever meet with any reverse; or not, on the other hand, to lay any claim to intelligence, if successful. For it frequently happens that the results of measures proceed no less incomprehensively than the counsels of man; and therefore we are accustomed to regard fortune as the author of all things that turn out contrary to our expectation.

Now the Lacedaemonians were both evidently plotting against us before, and now especially are doing so. For whereas it is expressed in the treaty, that we should give and accept judicial decisions of our differences, and each side [in the meantime] keep what we have; they have neither themselves hitherto asked for such a decision, nor do they accept it when we offer it; but wish our complaints to be settled by war rather than by words; and are now come dictating, and no longer expostulating. For they command us to raise the siege of Potidaea, and to leave Aegina independent, and to rescind the decree respecting the Megareans; while these last envoys that have come charge us also to leave the Greeks independent. But let none of you think we would be going to war for a trifle, if we did not rescind the decree respecting the Megareans, which they principally put forward [saying] that if it were rescinded, the war would not take place: nor leave it in your mind any room for self-accusation hereafter, as though you had gone to war for a trivial thing. For this trifle involves the whole confirmation, as well as trial, of your purpose. If you yield to these demands, you will soon also be ordered to do something greater, as having in this instance obeyed through fear: but by resolutely refusing you would prove clearly to them that they must treat with you more on an equal footing.

Henceforth then make up your minds, either to submit before you are hurt, or, if we go to war, as I think is better, alike to make no concession on important or trivial grounds, nor to keep with fear what we have not acquired; for both the greatest and the least demand from equals, imperiously urged on their neighbors previous to a judicial decision, amounts to the same degree of subjugation.

Now with regards to the war, and the means possessed by both parties, that we shall not be the weaker side, be convinced of hearing the particulars. The Peloponnesians are men who cultivate their land themselves; and they have no money either in private or public funds. Then they are inexperienced in long and transmarine wars, as they only wage them with each other for a short time, owing to their poverty. And men of this description can neither man fleets nor often send out land armaments; being at the same time absent from their private business, and spending from their own resources; and, moreover, being also shut out from the sea: but it is superabundant revenues that support wars, rather than compulsory contributions. And men who till the land themselves are more ready to wage war with their persons than with their money: feeling confident, with regard to the former, that they will escape from dangers; but not being sure, with regard to the latter, that they will not spend it before they have done; especially should the war be prolonged beyond their expectations, as [in this case] it probably may. For in one battle the Peloponnesians and their allies might cope with all the Greeks together; but they could not carry on a war against resources of a different description to their own; since they have no one board of council, so as to execute any measure with vigor; and all having equal votes, and not being of the same races, each forwards his own interest; for which reasons nothing generally is brought to completion.

Most of all will they be impeded by scarcity of money, while, through their slowness in providing it, they continue to delay their operations; whereas the opportunities of war wait for no one. Neither, again, is their raising works against us worth fearing, or their fleet. With regard to the former, it were difficult even in time of peace to set up a rival city; much more in a hostile country, and when we should have raised works no less against them: and if they build [only] a fort, they might perhaps hurt some part of our land by incursions and desertions; it will not, however, be possible for them to prevent our sailing to their country and raising forts, and retaliating with our ships, in which we are so strong. For we have more advantage for land-service from our naval skill, than they have for naval matters from their skill by land.

But to become skilful at sea will not easily be acquired by them. For not even have you, though practicing from the very time of the Median War, brought it to perfection as yet; how then shall men who are agriculturists and not mariners, and, moreover, will not even be permitted to practice, from being always observed by us with many ships, achieve anything worth speaking of? Against a few ships observing them they might run the risk, encouraging their ignorance by their numbers; but when kept in check by many, they will remain quiet; and through not practicing will be the less skilful, and therefore the more afraid. For naval service is a matter of art, like anything else; and does not admit of being practiced just when it may happen, as a bywork; but rather does not even allow of anything else being a bywork to it.

Even if they should take some of the funds at Olympia or Delphi, and endeavor, by higher pay, to rob us of our foreign sailors, that would be alarming, if we were not a match for them, by going on board ourselves and our resident aliens; but now this is the case; and, what is best of all, we have native steersmen, and crews at large, more numerous and better than all the rest of Greece. And with the danger before them, none of the foreigners would consent to fly his country, and at the same time with less hope of success to join them in the struggle, for the sake of a few days’ higher pay.

The circumstances of the Peloponnesians then seem, to me at least, to be of such or nearly such a character; while ours seem both to be free from the faults I have found in theirs, and to have other great advantages in more than an equal degree. Again, should they come by land against our country, we will sail against theirs; and the loss will be greater for even a part of the Peloponnese to be ravaged, than for the whole of Attica. For they will not be able to obtain any land in its stead without fighting for it; while we have abundance, both in islands and on the mainland. Moreover, consider it [in this point of view]: if we have been islanders, who would have been more impregnable? And we ought, as it is, with views as near as possible to those of islanders, to give up all thought of our land and houses, and keep watch over the sea and the city; and not, though being enraged on their account, to come to an engagement with the Peloponnesians, who are much more numerous: (for if we defeat them, we shall have to fight again with no fewer of them; and if we meet with a reverse, our allies are lost also; for they will not remain quiet if we are not able to lead our forces against them); and we should make lamentation, not for the houses and land, but for the lives [that are lost]; for it is not these things that gain men, but men that gain these things. And if I thought that I should persuade you, I would bid you go out yourselves and ravage them, and show the Peloponnesians that you will not submit to them for these things, at any rate.

I have also many other grounds for hoping that we shall conquer, if you will avoid gaining additional dominion at the time of your being engaged in the war, and bringing on yourselves dangers of your own choosing; for I am more afraid of our own mistakes than of the enemy’s plans. But those points shall be explained in another speech at the time of the events. At the present time let us send these men away with this answer: that with regard to the Megareans, we will also allow them to use our ports and markets, if the Lacedaemonians also abstain from expelling foreigners, whether ourselves or our allies (for it forbids neither the one nor the other in the treaty): with regard to the states, that we will leave them independent, if we also hold them as independent when we made the treaty; and when they, too, restore to the states a permission to be independent suitably to the interests, not of the Lacedaemonians themselves, but of the several states as they wish: that we are willing to submit to judicial decision, according to the treaty: and that we will not commence hostilities, but will defend ourselves against those who do. For this is both a right answer and a becoming one for the state to give.

But you should know that go to war we must; and if we accept it willingly rather than not, we shall find the enemy less disposed to press us hard; and, moreover, that it is from the greatest hazards that the greatest honours also are gained, both by state and by individual. Our fathers, at any rate, by withstanding the Medes—though they did not begin with such resources [as we have], but had even abandoned what they had and by counsel, more than by fortune, and by daring, more than by strength, beat off the barbarian, and advanced their resources to their present height. And we must not fall short of them; but must repel our enemies in every way, and endeavor to bequeath our power to our posterity no less [than we received it].

Speech on the Mysteries. The preparation and zeal of my enemies, gentlemen, to do me harm in every way, justly or unjustly, from the very time I arrived in this city, are by no means unknown to you. It is therefore unnecessary for me to speak at length on this matter. I shall make of you, however, a request that is both just and easy for you to grant as it is important for me to obtain. I ask you to bear in mind that I have come here now, when there was no necessity of my remaining in the city, and although I did not offer bail, and was not committed to prison. I have appeared before you simply because I have confidence in the justice of my cause, and firmly believe that you will decide fairly, and will rather justly acquit me in accordance with your laws and your oaths, than suffer me to be unjustly destroyed by my enemies.

It is only natural, gentlemen, that you should have the same opinion of a man that he has of himself. If he is unwilling to undergo trial and thus condemns himself, it is only reasonable that you, too, should condemn him. But if, confident in his innocence, he awaits your judgment, you should be predisposed to acquit him. At least you ought not to condemn him by a premature verdict of guilty.

My enemies are reported to have said that I would not dare to undergo trial, but would seek safety in flight. “For what object,” they say, “can Andocides have in submitting to trial when it is possible for him to leave the city and have all the necessaries and convenience of life elsewhere? In Cyprus, where he formerly lived, he has a large amount of good land, bestowed on him as a gift. Can he, then, be willing to put his life in jeopardy? For what purpose? Does he not perceive the feeling of our city towards him?”

My feeling in this matter, gentlemen, is very different from what my enemies suppose. Even though I do not, as these men assert, share the good will of my countrymen, I am unwilling to live elsewhere in affluence—an exile from my native land. I should much prefer to be a citizen of this commonwealth than of all others, however prosperous they may now seem to be. It is with such a feeling of patriotism that I entrust my life to your decision.

I ask you, then, gentlemen, to accord me in my defense a preponderance of your good will, since you know that, even if you grant both parties in the suit an impartial hearing, I, the defendant, must necessarily be at a disadvantage. For the prosecution, after long preparation, bring this indictment against me without danger to themselves. But I must make my defense in fear and trembling for my life, and weighed down by the obloquy that has been heaped upon me. It is, therefore, only reasonable that you should favor me rather than the prosecution. There is a further consideration to dispose you in my favor. Prosecutors have frequently been found to bring charges so palpably false that you could not but convict and punish them. Witnesses, too, who have been instrumental in bringing about the condemnation of innocent men, have been convicted only after it was too late to save the guiltless victims of their false testimony. Guided, then, and warned by the experience of the past, you will not take for granted the truth of what my accusers say. The magnitude of the charges against me you can learn from the prosecution; but the truth or falseness of that charge you cannot know until you have heard my defense.

Now, how to begin my defense, gentlemen, perplexes me not a little. I feel considerable doubt whether I ought first to show you that the prosecution have brought the wrong form of action against me; or that the decree of Isotimidas is null and void; or that certain laws and oaths forbid this action; or whether I ought to tell you all the facts from beginning to end. But what most perplexes me is the fact that you do not all perhaps regard as equally serious the same points in the charge against me. Each one of you, I suppose, has in mind some point about which he would like to have me speak first. Since, however, it is impossible to speak of all points at one and the same time, I shall set before you all the facts in order from beginning to end, omitting nothing. For if you get a right understanding of the facts you will readily perceive how false a charge the prosecution have brought against me.

I think, then, that you will feel disposed of your own accord to pronounce a just sentence. And I am led to this conclusion because I have observed that you always consider it a matter of the greatest importance, both in private and public affairs, to vote according to your oaths. It is this very thing that holds the state together, much against the will of those who would have it otherwise. Confiding, then, in your sense of justice, I ask you to hear my defense with good will, and not to act the part of adversaries in this suit. Suspect not the truth of my statements, and ensnare not my words. Hear me patiently to the end, and then pronounce whatever judgment you deem best and most in accordance with your oaths. . . .

Now with regard to the information laid on account of the mutilation of the images, I will tell you everything from the beginning. When, then, Teucrus came from Megara, having obtained special permission, he gave what information he had about the mysteries and images, and denounced eighteen men. Of the men thus denounced, some fled, and others were arrested and put to death on the strength of this information. Those who fled have returned and are now here. Many relatives of those who were put to death are likewise present. I ask, then, any one of these, who will, to interrupt me in the course of my argument and show, if he can, that I was the cause of exile or death in a single case.

After this had taken place, Pisander and Charicles, who were members of the commission of inquiry, and had the reputation at that time of being loyal to the people, declared that what had been done was not the work of merely a few men, but part of a conspiracy to overthrow the commonwealth, and that they ought, therefore, to continue the investigation.

The city was then in a sorry plight. When the herald made proclamation for the Senate to enter the council chamber and hauled down the signal, the trouble began. Then it was that the conspirators fled from the market-place in fear of arrest. Then, too, Diocleides, elated with hope over the misfortunes of the city, brought an impeachment before the Senate, declaring that he knew the men who had mutilated the Hermae, and that they were thirty in number. He told how he chanced to be an eye-witness of the affair. Now I ask you, judges, to give your attention to this matter, and recall whether I speak the truth, refreshing each other’s memories; for Diocleides spoke in your midst. To that fact you yourselves can testify.

Diocleides, you will remember, said that he had a slave at Laurium, and that he had occasion to go for a payment due to him. “He rose early in the morning, mistaking the hour, and started on his way. The moon was full. When he got near the gateway of Dionysus, he saw several men going down from the Odeum into the orchestra of the theater. Afraid of them, he drew into the shade, and crouched down between the pillar and the column with the bronze statue of the general. He saw the men, about three hundred in number, standing around in groups of fifteen and twenty. Most of them he recognized in the light of the moon.” Thus, in the first place, judges, he assumed this story—a most extraordinary one—in order, I fancy, that it might rest with him to include in this list any Athenian he pleased, or at pleasure to exempt him. After he had seen all this he went, he said, to Laurium, where he learned on the following day that the Hermae had been mutilated. He knew at once that it was the work of the men he had seen in the night. Returning to the city he learned that a commission of inquiry had been appointed and that a reward of a hundred minae had been offered for information. Seeing Euphemus, the brother of Callias, the son of Telecles, setting in his smithy, he brought him into the Hephaesteum and told him how he had seen us on that night. Now, he said, he did not desire to receive a reward from the city rather than from us, if he could have us for friends. Euphemus said that he did well to tell him, and asked him to come to the house of Leogoras, that they might there confer with Andocides and the other needful persons. He came, he declared, on the following day, and knocked at the door. He met my father going out, who said to him: “Are you the visitor whom the company here expect? Well, you ought not to reject such friends,” and with these words he was gone. In this way he sought to ruin my father, denouncing him as a confederate. He then stated that we told him we had decided to give him two talents instead of a hundred minae, as offered by the state for information, and that we pledged ourselves, in the event of our success, to make him one of us. His reply, he said, was that he would think it over. We then asked him, he maintained, to come to the house of Callias, the son of Telecles, that he, too, might be present. Thus he sought to ruin also my kinsman. He came, he said, to the home of Callias, concluded an agreement with us, and gave us pledges on the Acropolis, but we failed to pay him, as agreed, the following month. He came, therefore, he said, to give information about what had been done. Such, judges, was his impeachment. . . .

Now, after we were all arrested and the prison doors were shut at night, there came the mother of one man, the sister of another, and the wife and children of another. Then they wept and bewailed their misfortunes. And Charmides, a cousin of my own age, who had been brought up in our home from childhood, said to me: “Andocides, you see how great our calamity is. Although, then, heretofore, I had no wish to speak or to give you pain, yet I am now constrained to do so by our present evil. For all your friends and associates, except us, your relations, have either been put to death of the reasons on account of which we now perish, or have gone into exile, thereby condemning themselves. If, then, you know anything of this matter, tell it, and save first yourself, then your father, whom you ought to love exceedingly, then your brother-in-law, who married your only sister, then the rest of your numerous kinsmen and relatives, and finally me, who never grieved you in my whole life, but have ever been most eager to do whatever was for your interest.”

Now when Charmides had said this, judges, and each of the others besought and supplicated me, I reflected how unhappy I was to have fallen into such misfortune. Was I to see my kinsman put to death unjustly and their property confiscated, and see those who were in no sense to blame for what had been done have their names inscribed on columns as impious sinners against the gods? Was I further to see three hundred Athenians perish undeservedly, the city involved in calamity, and the citizens suspicious of one another? Was I, I ask, to sit by idly, and see all this, or was it my place to tell the people of Athens what I had heard from Euphiletus himself, the man who committed the outrage? I further reflected, judges, that of those who had wrought the deed of shame some had been put to death on the information of Teucrus, and others, having gone into exile, had sentence of death passed upon them in their absence. Four remained, who had not been informed against by Teucrus,—Panaetius, Chaeredamus, Diacritus, and Lysistratus. These men above all seemed likely to have been confederates of those against whom Diocleides had informed, since they were their intimate friends. For these men, then, safety was never secure; but over my own relatives hung certain destruction, unless some one told the people of Athens the actual facts. It seemed to me, therefore, better to deprive these four men of their country, who are still alive and have returned to enjoy their patrimony, than to see my own suffer an unjust death. Such were my reflections.

If now any of you, judges, had a preconceived idea that I have information to ruin these men and save myself—an assertion that my enemies make in their attempt to asperse my character—examine that idea in the light of the facts. For I must now give a truthful account of my doings in the presence of the very men who perpetrated the crime and then fled. They know best whether I lie or speak the truth, and may confute me, if they can, in the course of my speech; for I appeal to them. But you must learn the facts. For in this trial, judges, nothing is so important for me as that, if acquitted, I should be acquitted with honor; and, further, that the general public should understand my whole conduct to have been absolutely free from baseness or cowardice. I told what I had heard from Euphiletus through solicitude for my friends and kinsmen, through solicitude for the whole city, with courage and not cowardice. If, then, this is so, I ask you to acquit me and not to think me base.

Now consider—for a judge ought to examine the facts by a human standard, as if the misfortune had been his own—what would any one of you have done? If it had been a question of death with honor or life with shame, you might condemn my conduct as cowardice. And yet many would have chosen life in preference to an honorable death. But here the case was the very reverse: by keeping silent I must have perished ignominiously in my innocence, and must also have permitted the destruction of my father, of my brother-in-law, of all my cousins and relations, whom I and no one else threatened with death, by concealing the guilt of others. The falsehoods of Diocleides had sent them to prison; their only hope of deliverance lay in the Athenians learning the whole truth. I was in danger, therefore, of becoming their murderer, if I failed to tell you what I had heard. I was also in danger of destroying three hundred Athenians, and of involving Athens in the most serious evils. This, then, was the prospect, if I were silent.

How different the prospect if I had made known the truth! Then I should save myself, my father, and my kinsmen, and should deliver the city from dangers and misfortunes. Accordingly four men who participated in the crime were driven into exile through me. I had nothing, however, to do with the death or exile of the men against whom Teucrus had laid information. Considering all this, judges, I concluded that the least of the pressing evils was to tell the whole truth, and, by convicting Diocleides of falsifying, to have him punished—a man who sought to ruin us unjustly by deceiving the city, and who, for so doing, was proclaimed a public benefactor and received money from the state. I therefore told the Senate that I knew the men who did the act; that, while we were at a banquet, Euphiletus suggested this scheme, which was not carried out then on account of my opposition; but that later, when I had fallen from my horse in the Cynosarges, and had broken my collar-bone and cut my head, so that I had to be carried home on a stretcher, Euphiletus, seeing my condition, told his confederates that I had agreed to coöperate with them and would mutilate the Hermes by the Phorbanteum. Thus did he deceive them. Yet on that very account the Hermes near my father’s house, dedicated by the Aegean tribe, is, as you all know, the only one in Athens not mutilated; for that task, as Euphiletus told his companions, was assigned to me. When they found this out, they were furious, because I knew of the deed without having had a hand in it. On the following day Meletus and Euphiletus came to me and said: “We have done the deed, Andocides. And if you think fit to remain silent, you will have our friendship as heretofore; otherwise our enmity will be more effectual than any friendship you can make by betraying us.” Thereupon I told them that I considered Euphiletus a villain, and that they ought to feel furious, not because I knew it, but because they had done the abominable deed. In support of this statement I gave my own slave for the torture, to prove that I had been ill and unable even to leave my bed; and the Presidents received the female slaves for examination in the house from which the conspirators set forth to begin their work. After the Senate and the commission of inquiry found out that everything was just as I had stated, they summoned Diocleides. No words were wasted. He at once admitted that he had lied, and asked to be spared on condition of revealing the men who had put him up to it. He said they were Alcibaides of the deme of Phegeus and Amiantus from Aegina; both of whom fled in fear. After you had heard this you imprisoned Diocleides and put him to death, but delivered my relatives from destruction—all on my account. Moreover you allowed the exiles to return; and you yourselves were freed from great dangers and evils.

Wherefore, judges, you ought to pity me in my misfortune; nay, you ought to hold me in honor for what I have done. When Euphiletus proposed the most traitorous of all compacts, I opposed him, and upbraided him as he deserved. Yet I concealed the crime of the conspirators, even when some were put to death and others driven into exile through the information laid by Teucrus. Only after we were imprisoned and on the point of being put to death through the instrumentality of Diocleides, did I denounce the four conspirators—Panaetius, Diacritus, Lysistratus, and Chaeredemus. These men, I admit, were driven into exile on my account. But my act saved my father, my brother-in-law, three cousins, and seven other relatives, all of whom were about to suffer an unjust death. These now behold the light of day on my account, and they frankly admit it. Moreover, the man who threw the whole city into confusion and involved it in the greatest dangers has been convicted. Finally you have been delivered from great dangers and freed from suspicion, one against another.

Recall, now, judges, whether I speak the truth, and do those of you who know, enlighten the rest. And do you, clerk, call the persons themselves who were released through me; for they know and can tell you best. This is so, judges; as they will come up and testify as long as you care to listen. . . .

And now, gentlemen, when you are about to pronounce final judgment, there are certain things you should call to mind. Remember that you now enjoy among all the Greeks the enviable reputation of being not only brave on the field of battle, but wise in the council chamber, since you attend not so much to the punishment of past misdeeds as to the future security of the State and the concord of its citizens. Other States as well as ours have had their share of evils. But the peaceful settlement of civil discord is the triumph of the best and wisest peoples. Since, then, you have the admiration of all nations, hostile as well as friendly, take care that you do not deprive your city of its fair fame, or create the impression that your success is due rather to chance than deliberation.

I ask you further to have the same opinion of me that you have of my ancestors. Give me the chance to follow their example. They occupy a place in the memory of their countrymen by the side of the greatest benefactors of the State. They served their country nobly and well, chiefly through good will to you, and with the further purpose that, if ever they or their descendants should fall into misfortune, they might find favor and pardon with you. Forget them not; for once their meritorious deeds served our city in a time of need. When our navy was annihilated at Aegospotami, and many were bent on the destruction of Athens, the Spartans decided to save the city through respect for the memory of those men who had fought for the liberty of all Greece. Since, then, our city was saved through the merits of my ancestors; for to the deeds that saved our city my ancestors contributed no small part. Share with me, then, the salvation that you received from the Greeks.

Consider, also, if you save me, what manner of citizen you will have in me. Once rich and affluent, I have been reduced to penury and want through no fault of mine, but through calamities that befell our city. Since then I have earned my livelihood in an honest way, toiling with my hands and brain. Many friends, I have, too; among them kings and great men of the world, whose friendship you will share with me.

If, on the other hand, you destroy me, there will be no one left to perpetuate our name and family. And yet the home of Andocides and Leogoras is no disgrace to Athens. But great will be the disgrace if I am in exile, and Cleophon, the lyremaker, dwells in the house of my fathers—a house whose walls are decked with trophies taken by my ancestors from the enemies of their country.

Though my ancestors be dead, let their memory still live, and fancy that you see their shades solemnly pleading in my behalf. For whom else have I to plead for me? My father? He is dead. Brothers? I have none. Children? None have yet been born to me.

Do you, then, be to me father, brother, children. To you I flee for refuge; you I supplicate and beseech. Turn then, in supplication to yourselves, and grant me life and safety.