solemn covenant, the sum of two talents, or twelve thousand drachms, thus overbidding the reward of ten thousand drachms proclaimed by the senate to any truth-telling informer, with admission to a partnership in the benefits of their conspiracy, supposing that it should succeed. Upon his reply that he would consider the proposition, they desired him to meet them at the house of Kallias son of Têleklês, brother-in-law of Andokidês: which meeting accordingly took place, and a solemn bargain was concluded in the acropolis. Andokidês and his friends engaged to pay the two talents to Diokleidês at the beginning of the ensuing month, as the price of his silence. But since this engagement was never performed, Diokleidês came with his information to the senate.[297] [296] Plutarch (Alkib. c. 20) and Diodorus (xiii, 2) assert that this testimony was glaringly false, since on the night in question it was _new moon_. I presume, at least, that the remark of Diodorus refers to the deposition of Diokleidês, though he never mentions the name of the latter, and even describes the deposition referred to with many material variations as compared with Andokidês. Plutarch’s observation certainly refers to Diokleidês, whose deposition, he says, affirming that he had seen and distinguished the persons in question by the light of the moon, on a night when it was _new_ moon, shocked all sensible men, but produced no effect upon the blind fury of the people. Wachsmuth (Hellenisch. Alterth. vol. ii, ch. viii, p. 194) copies this remark from Plutarch. I disbelieve altogether the assertion that it was _new moon_ on that night. Andokidês gives in great detail the deposition of Diokleidês, with a strong wish to show that it was false and perfidiously got up. But he nowhere mentions the fact that it was _new moon_ on the night in question; though if we read his report and his comments upon the deposition of Diokleidês, we shall see that he never could have omitted such a means of discrediting the whole tale, if the fact had been so (Andokid. de Myster. sects. 37-43). Besides, it requires very good positive evidence to make us believe, that a suborned informer, giving his deposition not long after one of the most memorable nights that ever passed at Athens, would be so clumsy as to make particular reference to the circumstance that it was _full moon_ (εἶναι δὲ πανσέληνον), if it had really been _new moon_. [297] Andokid. de Myster. sects. 37-42.