Ancient critics dealt severely with Andocides. Though Alexandrine criticism included him in the list of the ten standard orators, Dionysius barely mentions him;[95] Quintilian disparages his work,[96] and Herodes Atticus modestly hopes that he himself is at least superior to Andocides;[97] Hermogenes sums up his defects as an orator as follows: ‘He aims at being a statesman, but does not quite succeed. He lacks proper articulation and distinctness in his “figures,” he lacks order in connecting his sentences and rounding them off, losing distinctness by the use of parentheses, so that he strikes some as ineffectual and needlessly obscure. He has very little finish or arrangement and little vigour. He has a small, but very small, portion of cleverness in systematic argument, but practically none of any other kind.’[98] It is with some hesitation that I give this tentative translation of a difficult passage. It seems to mean that Andocides, though he uses ‘figures,’ such as antithesis, rhetorical question and irony, does not attain ‘precision’ or make them distinct enough. His sentences are sometimes deformed because a parenthesis overpowers the main clause. His diction is unpolished and unconvincing. The only credit which he deserves is for his μέθοδος—his system of stating his case; wherein Hermogenes was perhaps thinking of the way in which the orator arranges his material, giving only part of the narrative at a time, and criticizing it as he goes along, rather than keeping narrative and arguments quite separate. Later and more practised orators have been commended for this method. By general cleverness, Hermogenes probably means skill in the use of the usual sophistries of the rhetorician. The Pseudo-Plutarch is less severe on the orator: ‘He is simple and inartificial in his narratives, straightforward and free from “figure.”’[99]