Andocide

Andocide , in Greek old Ἀνδοκίδης / Andokídês (v. -440 - v. -390), one of large the Speakers attics.

Biography

One knows few things of his youth. It was probably born in a good Athenian family, and nothing in its speeches shows the traces of a sophistical education .

In -415, it is implied in the scandal of the Hermocopides and the parody of the Mystères of Éleusis, which touches with the first chief Alcibiade the day before the Expédition of Sicily: it belongs to the Hétairie which takes share with the profanations. To save its head and that of his/her father, Andocide decides all to reveal. In spite of the promises of immunity of the court, Andocide is deposed of its civic rights, it leaves Athens then and settles with Cyprus, where it makes trade. In -403, at the time of the fall of the Thirty and the general amnesty, it can finally return to Athens. In -390, it is sent to Sparte, during the war against Corinthe, to negotiate a peace treaty. Repudiated, it is again exiled, and dies shortly after.

Works

Andocide, contrary to the other speakers attics, is thus not a professional. On the three speeches which remains us of him, two relate to its implication in the two caused scandals: the first, On the Mysteries , goes back to its lawsuit (the speech of Lysias Against Andocide answers him), and the second, On his return , relate to a request for return of exile. The third, finally, On peace , is the speech which he makes about the peace treaty negotiated with Sparte. A fourth speech was allotted to him under the Antiquité, Against Alcibiade , but it is most probably an apocryphal book. Lastly, we have fragments of what is perhaps another speech, On his/her friends .

The speeches of Andocide are the first political example of eloquence which reached us, those of Antiphon on this subject being only very fragmentary. Andocide is also one of the last large speakers amateurs: thereafter, the drafting of speech professionnalise until becoming quasi a monopoly of the logographe S. One sometimes reproached Andocide its lack of art and sophistication, which had precisely with its statute of amateur: the argumentation is often confused, and the speeches are worth only by their force of expression and their promptness. Others see there all the same a testimony of what was the attic without the influence of the sophists.

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