‘You jackal, you common informer! ... are you allowed to live and prowl about the city? Little do you deserve it; under the democracy you lived by the informer’s trade; under the oligarchy, for fear of being forced to give up the money you had made by informing, you were a menial of the Thirty....’[109]
and again:
‘One result of your decision to observe the present laws is that he has been restored from exile to citizenship, and from legal disability to the free exercise of the informer’s trade.’[110]
The use of parenthesis is sometimes carried by Andocides to extremes. An instance has been quoted in which the grammatical construction breaks down because the writer introduces an imaginary conversation into the middle of it.[111] The style is sometimes so loose and discursive that not only is the construction difficult to follow, but the argument is obscure. The writer suffers from an inability to keep to the point, or rather, he tries to explain several things at once, and so makes nothing clear. An extreme instance is to be found in §§ 57 sqq. of the de Mysteriis. His thoughts run too fast for his tongue, and he has not the technical skill to guide them on their proper courses. Such sentences afford a practical comment on the introduction to the same speech, in which he states that he does not know where to begin.[112]
On the other hand, passages may be found in which a series of short sentences, loosely combined, and disturbed by anacoluthon, are really effective, since they simulate the broken utterance of passion. Of such is the following:
‘Then the herald inquired who had deposited the suppliant’s branch, and no one answered. Now we were standing close by, and Callias could see me. When nobody answered, he retired into the temple. Eucles, stepping forward—oblige me by calling him up—Now then, Eucles, first of all give evidence whether I am speaking the truth.’[113]
§ 4
I have dealt hitherto chiefly with the speech de Mysteriis, the best of Andocides’ work. The other speeches now demand a short mention. The de Reditu differs remarkably from the later speech, de Mysteriis, but it is chiefly a difference of tone. The verbal style is much the same, though there is rather more tendency to antithetical structure. The language is simple, the sentences are less hampered with parentheses. But here Andocides is humble; he appears as a young man without friends speaking before a critical and hostile assembly; he is moderate in his language, apologetic in tone, careful not to give offence by any sarcastic or ill-considered utterance. In the de Mysteriis he is speaking with the consciousness not of a better cause but of increased powers and an assured position in the State. He is confident, almost arrogant at times; he is bitter and violent in his attacks on his enemies.
The de Pace bears a general resemblance in style to the other speeches, except for certain grammatical peculiarities. Dionysius declared it to be spurious, but modern critics mostly regard it as genuine.
The chief grounds for suspicion are the inaccuracies of the historical narrative (§§ 3-9) and the curious fact that a very similar passage occurs in Aeschines (de F. L., §§ 172-176), where even certain peculiarities of phraseology[114] are reproduced. As to history, the orators were often inaccurate about the past history of their own country. Careless statements occur even in the de Mysteriis. Demosthenes is an untrustworthy authority even for events almost contemporary. As to the other matter, there is good reason for the belief that Aeschines plagiarized Andocides in the fact that a reference to Andocides, the grandfather of the orator, which occurs in both speeches, is in place in a speech of Andocides, while there is no particular reason why Aeschines, if he were composing the passage, should have mentioned him. In some minor points, as Jebb has shown, Andocides is more accurate than Aeschines. The suggestion that the de Pace is a spurious speech, composed by a later rhetor who plagiarized from Aeschines, is therefore hardly tenable. There remains a third possibility, that both Aeschines and Andocides borrowed from the same semi-historical compilation, perhaps a lost rhetorical exercise.