[290] Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 14, 15, 35. In reference to
the deposition of Agaristê, Andokidês again includes Alkibiadês
among those who fled into banishment in consequence of it. Unless
we are to suppose another Alkibiadês, not the general in Sicily,
this statement cannot be true. There was another Alkibiadês,
of the deme Phegus: but Andokidês in mentioning him afterwards
(sect. 65), specifies his deme. He was cousin of Alkibiadês, and
was in exile at the same time with him (Xenoph. Hellen. i, 2, 13).
[291] Andokidês (sects. 13-34) affirms that some of the persons,
accused by Teukrus as mutilators of the Hermæ, were put to death
upon his deposition. But I contest his accuracy on this point.
For Thucydidês recognizes no one as having been put to death
except those against whom Andokidês himself informed (see vi,
27, 53, 61). He dwells particularly upon the number of persons,
and persons of excellent character, imprisoned on suspicion;
but he mentions none as having been put to death except those
against whom Andokidês gave testimony. He describes it as a
great harshness, and as an extraordinary proof of the reigning
excitement, that the Athenians should have detained so many
persons upon suspicion, on the evidence of informers not entitled
to credence. But he would not have specified this detention as
extraordinary harshness, if the Athenians had gone so far as to
put individuals to death upon the same evidence. Besides, to put
these men to death would have defeated their own object, the
full and entire disclosure of the plot and the conspirators.
The ignorance in which they were of their internal enemies, was
among the most agonizing of all their sentiments; and to put any
prisoner to death until they arrived, or believed themselves to
have arrived, at the knowledge of the whole, would tend so far
to bar their own chance of obtaining evidence: ὁ δὲ δῆμος ὁ τῶν
Ἀθηναίων ἄσμενος λαβὼν, ὡς ᾤετο, τὸ σαφὲς, καὶ δεινὸν ποιούμενοι
πρότερον εἰ τοὺς ἐπιβουλεύοντας σφῶν τῷ πλήθει μὴ εἴσονται, etc.
Wachsmuth says (p. 194): “The bloodthirsty dispositions of the
people had been excited by the previous murders: the greater the
number of victims to be slaughtered, the better were the people
pleased,” etc. This is an inaccuracy quite in harmony with the
general spirit of his narrative. It is contradicted, implicitly,
by the very words of Thucydidês which he transcribes in his note
108.
[292] Andokid. de Mysteriis, sects. 27-28. καὶ Ἀνδροκλῆς ~ὑπὲρ~
τῆς βουλῆς.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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