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Andocides was the son of Leogoras, son of that Andocides who once made peace between the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians

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; he was as regards his deme a Cydathenian or a Thorian

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and was descended from nobles, and even, according to Hellanicus,

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from Hermes; for the race of heralds traces its origin to him. On this account, too, he was once chosen along with Glaucon to go with twenty ships to aid the Corcyraeans who were embroiled with the Corinthians.

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And after this he was accused of impiety as being one of those who mutilated the Hermae

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and as profaning the mysteries of Demeter [because at an earlier time he was

dissipated and in a nocturnal revel had broken one of the images of the god, and when he was indicted refused to surrender the slave whom his accusers were looking for, so that he gained a bad name and was suspected and accused in the second suit also, which was brought shortly after the expedition went to Sicily, when the Corinthians sent in men from Leontini and Egesta and, as the Athenians hesitated about aiding them privately, they mutilated the Hermae about the market-place, as Cratippus says, and profaned the mysteries besides]. At his trial on these charges he was acquitted on condition that he should inform against the wrongdoers. He exerted himself greatly and discovered those who were guilty of the sacrilege, among whom he informed against his own father. And he brought about the conviction and death of all the others, but saved his father, although he had already been put in prison, by promising that he would be of great service to the city. And he kept his promise; for Leogoras caused the conviction of many men who were embezzling public funds and committing other misdeeds. And for these reasons he was acquitted of the charge.

But Andocides, since his reputation in public life was not good, took to merchandising and became a friend of the Cypriote kings and many other men of note, at which time he abducted a girl of Athenian birth, daughter of Aristeides and his own niece, without the knowledge of her family, and sent her as

a gift to the King of Cyprus. Then, when he was to be brought to trial for this, he stole her back again from Cyprus and was caught and put in prison by the king; but he ran away and came back to Athens at the time when the Four Hundred were in control of affairs. He was put in prison by them, but escaped, and again, when the oligarchy was overthrown, he

was banished from the city after the Thirty had taken over the government. He spent the period of his exile in Elis, but when Thrasybulus and his band returned,

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he also returned to the city. He was sent to Lacedaemon to negotiate a peace, but was suspected of wrongdoing

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and banished. He gives information about all this in the speeches which he wrote; for some of them he composed in his defence in the matter of the mysteries, and others when he was asking to be allowed to return home. There is also extant his speech

On the Indictment

, also the Defence against Phaeax and the speech

On the Peace

. He flourished at the same time as Socrates the philosopher; the date of his birth was the seventy-eighth Olympiad, when Theogenides was archon

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at Athens, so that he was about ten years older

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than Lysias. The Hermes called the

Hermes of Andocides is named after him. It is a dedication of the tribe Aegeis and is called Hermes of Andocides because Andocides lived near it. He himself supplied the chorus for his tribe

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when it was competing in a dithyrambic contest, and he gained the victory, for which he set up a tripod on a high spot opposite the limestone Silenus. He is simple and free from artifice in his orations, plain and employing no figures of speech.