45
Batrachus, for instance, the most wicked, next to this man, of them all, having turned informer in the time of the Thirty,404-403 B.C. and being covered by agreements and oaths along with the party at Eleusis, was yet so afraid of those of you whom he had wronged that he made his abode in another city. But Andocides, who has wronged the very gods themselves, made less account of them by entering their temples than Batrachus did of mankind. He therefore who is both more wicked and more obtuse than Batrachus ought to be only too glad to have his life spared by you.
46
Pray now, on what consideration ought you to absolve Andocides? As a good soldier? But he has never gone on any expedition from the city, either in the cavalry or in the infantry, either as a ship’s captain or as a marine, either before our disasterThe victory of the Peloponnesians over the Athenians at Aegospotami in the Hellespont, 405 B.C. or after our disaster, though he is more than forty years old.
47
Yet other exiles were captains with you at the Hellespont. Remember from what a load of trouble and warfare you by your own efforts delivered yourselves and the city: many were your bodily labours, many your payments from private and public funds, many the brave citizens whom you buried because of the war that you waged.
48
And Andocides, who suffered none of these troubles who contributed nothing Translating Cobet’s restoration of a gap in the text. to his country’s salvation, claims now to take part in the affairs of the city, the scene of his impieties! But with all his wealth, and the power of his possessions, the accepted guest of kings and despots,—so he will now boast, well acquainted as he is with your character,—
