Andocĭdes
（Ἀνδοκίδης). The second in order of time in the roll of great Attic orators. He was born B.C. 439, and belonged by birth to the aristocratic party, but fell out with it in B.C. 415, when he was involved in the famous trial for mutilating the statues of Hermes, and, to save his own and his kinsmen's lives, betrayed his aristocratic accomplices. Having, in spite of the immunity promised him, fallen into partial loss of civic rights, he left Athens, and carried on a profitable trade in Cyprus. After two fruitless attempts to recover his status at home, he was allowed at last, upon the fall of the Thirty Tyrants and the amnesty of B.C. 403, to return to Athens, where he succeeded in repelling renewed attacks, and gaining an honourable position. Sentto Sparta in B.C. 390, during the Corinthian War, to negotiate peace, he brought back the draft of a treaty, for the ratification of which he vainly pleaded in a speech that is still extant. He is said to have been banished in consequence, and to have died in exile. Besides the above-mentioned oration, we have two delivered on his own behalf, one pleading for his recall from banishment, B.C. 410; another against the charge of unlawful participation in the mysteries, B.C. 399; a fourth, against Alcibiades, is spurious. His oratory is plain and artless, and its expressions those of the popular language of the day. A good text is that of Blass (Leipzig, 1880); and C. Müller's, with index (1868). See Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit, 3 vols. (1880).
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Andocides, or Andokides , (Greek Ἀνδοκίδης, 440–390 BC) was a logographer (speech writer) in Ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the third century BCE.
He was implicated during the Peloponnesian War in the mutilation of the Herms on the eve of the departure of the Athenian expedition against Sicily in 415 BC. Although he saved his life by turning informer, he was condemned to partial loss of civil rights and forced to leave Athens. He engaged in commercial pursuits, and returned to Athens under the general amnesty that followed the restoration of the democracy (403 BC), and filled some important offices. In 391 BC he was one of the ambassadors sent to Sparta to discuss peace terms, but the negotiations failed. Oligarchical in his sympathies, he offended his own party and was distrusted by the democrats. Andocides was no professional orator; his style is simple and lively, natural but inartistic.
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