Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/360

 336 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE together in a Piraiiis tavern, something which she alleged to be a love-philtre. Both men died. The girl confessed forthwith, and was executed ; proceedings now being taken against the real culprit. Andocides, son of Leogoras, of the family of the Sacred Heralds, comes to us as a tough, enterprising man, embittered by persecution. In the extraordinary panic which followed the mutilation of the figures of Hermes in 415, Andocides was among the three hundred persons denounced by the informer Diocleides, and, un- like most of the rest, was in a sense privy to the outrage. It was merely a freak on the part of some young sceptics in his own club, who probably thought the Hermae both ridiculous and indecent. To stop the general panic and prevent possible executions of the innocent, he gave information under a promise of indemnity. It is one of those acts which are never quite forgiven. In spite of the indemnity, he was driven into banishment by a special decree excluding from public and sacred places *' those who had committed impiety and confessed it." His next twelve years were spent in adventurous trading, and were ruled by a constant effort to procure his return. The first attempt was in 411, after he had obtained rights of timber-cutting from Archelaus of Macedon, and sold the timber at cost price to the Athenian fleet. He was promptly re-expelled. The second return was the occasion of the speech About Returning Hojne, and took place after 410, when he had used his influence at Cyprus to have corn-ships sent to relieve the scarcity at Athens. He returned finally with Thucydides and all the other exiles, political and crimi- nal, after the amnesty in 403 (see p. 338). He spent his money lavishly on public objects, and escaped prosecu-