[305] Thucyd. vi, 60. Ὁ δὲ δῆμος ὁ τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἄσμενος λαβὼν, ὡς ᾤετο, τὸ σαφὲς, etc.: compare Andokid. de Mysteriis, sects. 67, 68.
[306] Andokid. de Myster. sect 66; Thucyd. vi, 60; Philochorus, Fragment. 111, ed. Didot.
[307] Thucyd. vi, 60. ἡ μέντοι ἄλλη πόλις περιφανῶς ὠφέλητο: compare Andokid. de Reditu, sect. 8.
[308] See Andokid. de Mysteriis, sect. 17. There are several circumstances not easily intelligible respecting this γραφὴ παρανόμων, which Andokidês alleges that his father Leogoras brought against the senator Speusippus, before a dikastery of six thousand persons (a number very difficult to believe), out of whom he says that Speusippus only obtained two hundred votes; but if this trial ever took place at all, we cannot believe that it could have taken place until after the public mind was tranquillized by the disclosures of Andokidês, especially as Leogoras was actually in prison along with Andokidês immediately before those disclosures were given in.
[309] See for evidence of these general positions respecting the circumstances of Andokidês, the three Orations: Andokidês de Mysteriis, Andokidês de Reditu Suo, and Lysias contra Andokidem.
[310] Homer, Hymn. Cerer. 475. Compare the Epigram cited in Lobeck, Eleusinia, p. 47.
[311] Lysias cont. Andokid. init. et fin.; Andokid. de Myster. sect. 29. Compare the fragment of a lost Oration by Lysias against Kinêsias (Fragm. xxxi, p. 490, Bekker; Athenæus, xii, p. 551), where Kinêsias and his friends are accused of numerous impieties, one of which consisted in celebrating festivals on unlucky and forbidden days, “in derision of our gods and our laws,”—ὡς καταλεγῶντες τῶν θεῶν καὶ τῶν νόμων τῶν ἡμετέρων. The lamentable consequences which the displeasure of the gods had brought upon them are then set forth: the companions of Kinêsias had all miserably perished, while Kinêsias himself was living in wretched health and in a condition worse than death: τὸ δ’ οὕτως ἔχοντα τοσοῦτον χρόνον διατελεῖν, καὶ καθ’ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν ἀποθνήσκοντα μὴ δύνασθαι τελευτῆσαι τὸν βίον, τούτοις μόνοις προσήκει τοῖς τὰ τοιαῦτα ἅπερ οὗτος ἐξερματεκόσι.
The comic poets Strattis and Plato also marked out Kinêsias among their favorite subjects of derision and libel, and seem particularly to have represented his lean person and constant ill health as a punishment of the gods for his impiety. See Meineke, Fragm. Comic. Græc. (Strattis), vol. ii, p. 768 (Plato), p. 679.
[312] Lysias cont. Andokid. sects. 50, 51; Cornel. Nepos, Alcib. c. 4. The expressions of Pindar (Fragm. 96) and of Sophoklês (Fragm. 58, Brunck.—Œdip. Kolon. 1058) respecting the value of the Eleusinian mysteries, are very striking: also Cicero, Legg. ii, 14.
Horace will not allow himself to be under the same roof, or in the same boat, with any one who has been guilty of divulging these mysteries (Od. iii. 2, 26), much more then of deriding them.