Your measures for reuniting Athens , gentlemen, have not been wasted; they were appropriate, and they were sound policy. To convince you of this, I wish to say a few words with regard to them. Those were dark days for Athens when the tyrants ruled her and the democrats were in exile. But, led by Leogoras, my own great-grandfather, and Charias, whose daughter bore my grandfather to Leogoras, your ancestors crushed the tyrants near the temple at Pallene , Andocides was a poor historian (cf. Peace with Sp. , Introd.). Here he confuses the battle of Pallene ( Hdt. 1.62 ), by which Peisistratus regained his tyranny for the third time (c. 546), and the battle of Sigeum which resulted in the final expulsion of his son Hippias, the last of the dynasty (510). Leogoras and Charias were not as prominent on this occasion as Andocides would have the jury believe. The fall of Hippias was mainly due to the energy of the Alcmaeonidae and the substantial help provided by Sparta . and came back to the land of their birth. Some of their enemies they put to death, some they exiled, and some they allowed to live on in Athens without the rights of citizens. Later the Great King invaded Greece . As soon as our fathers saw what an ordeal faced them and what vast forces the King was assembling, they decreed that exiles should be restored and disfranchised citizens reinstated, that these too should take their part in the perilous struggle for deliverance. After passing this decree, and exchanging solemn pledges and oaths, they fearlessly took up their stand as the protectors of the whole of Greece , and met the Persians at Marathon; for they felt that their own valour was itself a match for the enemy hordes. They fought, and they conquered. They gave back Greece her freedom, and they delivered Attica, the land of their birth. After their triumph, however, they refused to revive old quarrels. And that is how men who found their city a waste, her temples burnt to the ground, and her walls and houses in ruins, men who were utterly without resources, Another gross historical error. Andocides fails to distinguish between the first Persian invasion, which ended with the Athenian victory at Marathon ( 490 B.C.) and the second ( 480 B.C.), in the course of which Athens was sacked by the enemy. brought Greece under their sway and handed on to you the glorious and mighty Athens of today—by living in unity. Long afterwards you in your turn had to face a crisis just as great After Aegospotami . ; and by deciding to restore your exiles and give back their rights to the citizens who had lost them you showed that you still had the noble spirit of your forefathers. What, then, have you still to do to equal them in generosity? You must refuse to cherish grievances, gentlemen, remembering that Athens had far less in the old days upon which to build her greatness and prosperity. The same greatness and prosperity are hers still, were only we, her citizens, ready to control our passions and live in unity. The prosecution have also accused me in connexion with the suppliant’s bough. They allege that it was I who placed it in the Eleusinium, This stood near the Acropolis and was probably the starting-point for the procession along the Sacred Way to Eleusis during the Eleusinia. and that under ancient law the penalty for doing such a thing during the Mysteries is death. The impudence of it! They resort to a ruse for my undoing, but will not leave well alone when their plot proves a failure. They proceed to bring a formal accusation against me in spite of it. It was on our return from Eleusis , after the information had already been lodged against me. i.e. after Cephisius had lodged his ἔνδειξις ἀσεβείας with the Basileus. The Basileus would report this to the βουλή when it met in the Eleusinium, and both Cephisius and Andocides would have to attend. The Basileus appeared before the Prytanes to give the usual report on all that had occurred during the performance of the ceremonies there. The Prytanes said that they would bring him before the Council, and told him to give Cephisius and myself notice to attend at the Eleusinium, as it was there that the Council was to sit in conformity with a law of Solon’s, which lays down that a sitting shall be held in the Eleusinium on the day after the Mysteries. We duly attended; and when the Council had assembled, Callias, son of Hipponicus, who was wearing his ceremonial robes, As δᾳδοῦχος (Torch-bearer), the hereditary office of his family, who belonged to the ancient clan of the κήρυκες . The torch was symbolic of Demeter’s search through the world for her daughter. rose and announced that a suppliant’s bough had been placed on the altar. He displayed this bough to the Council. Thereupon the herald Eucles, mentioned below. He was the official town-crier of 
	 Athens (cf. 36), and appears in various inscriptions (cf. I.G. ii 2. 73). The insertion of ὁ before ἐπεξελθὼν is the simplest correction of the MS. reading in the next sentence but one. Others wish to distinguish between ὁ κῆρυξ and Eucles. called for the person responsible. There was no reply, although I was standing close by and in full view of Cephisius. When no one replied, and Eucles here, who had come out to inquire, had disappeared inside once more—but call him. Now, Eucles, testify whether these facts are correct to start with. Evidence The truth of my account has been attested and it seems to me to contradict the prosecution’s story flatly. The prosecution, you may remember, alleged that the Two Goddesses themselves infatuated me and made me place the bough on the altar in ignorance of the law, in order that I might be punished. But I maintain, gentlemen, that even if every word of the prosecution’s story is true, it was the Goddesses themselves who saved my life. Suppose that I laid the bough there, and then failed to answer the Herald. Was it not I myself who was bringing about my doom by putting the bough on the altar? And was it not a piece of good fortune, my silence, that saved me, a piece of good fortune for which I clearly had the Two Goddesses to thank? Had the Goddesses desired my death, I ought surely to have confessed that I had laid the bough there, even though I had not done so. As it was, I did not answer, nor had I placed the bough on the altar. When Eucles informed the Council that there had been no response, Callias rose once more and said that under an ancient law, as officially interpreted on a former occasion by his father, Hipponicus, the penalty for placing a bough in the Eleusinium during the Mysteries was instant death. He added that he had heard that it was I who had put it there. Thereupon Cephalus here leapt to his feet and cried: Callias, you impious scoundrel, first you are giving interpretations, when you have no right to do such a thing as a member of the Ceryces. ἐξήγησις was the prerogative of Eulmopidae alone. Then you talk of an ‘ancient law,’ when the stone at your side lays down that the penalty for placing a bough in the Eleusinium shall be a fine of a thousand drachmae. And lastly, who told you that Andocides had put the bough there? Summon him before the Council, so that we too may hear what he has to say. The stone was read, and Callias could not say who his informant was. It was thus clear to the Council that he had put the bough there himself. And now, gentlemen, you would perhaps like to know what motive Callias had in putting the bough on the altar. I will explain why he tried to trap me. Epilycus, son of Teisander, was my uncle, my mother’s brother. For the family relationships described here and in the following see p 334. He died in Sicily without male issue, but left two daughters who ought now to have passed to Leagrus and myself. If a citizen died intestate, leaving daughters, but no sons, the daughters became heiresses ( ἐπίκληροι ) and shared the estate between them. They were then obliged by law to marry their nearest male relatives, but not in the ascending line. The relatives concerned put in a claim before the Archon ( ἐπιδικασία ), and if it was not disputed, the Archon adjudged the daughters to them severally according to their degrees of relationship. If, however, as here, rival claimants appeared, a διαδικασία was held and the ἐπίκληροι were allotted accordingly. His private affairs were in confusion. The tangible property which he left did not amount to two talents, while his debts came to more than five. However, I arranged a meeting with Leagrus Leagrus, like Andocides, must have been a cousin. before our friends and told him that this was the time for decent men to show their respect for family ties.