keeper of the sacred treasury. But in 400, Callias, supported by Cephisius, Agyrrhius, Meletus, and Epichares, urged the necessity of preventing Andocides from attending the assembly, as he had never been formally freed from the civil disenfranchisement. Callias also charged him with violating the laws respecting the temple at Eleusis. The orator pleaded his case in the oration still extant "on the Mysteries" (περὶ τῶν μυστηρίων), in which he argued that he had not been involved in the profanation of the mysteries or the mutilation of the herms, that he had not violated the laws of the temple at Eleusis, that anyway he had received his citizenship back as a result of the amnesty, and that Callias was really motivated by a private dispute with Andocides over inheritance. He was acquitted. After this, he again enjoyed peace until 394, when he was sent as ambassador to Sparta regarding the peace to be concluded in consequence of Conon's victory off Cnidus. On his return he was accused of illegal conduct during his embassy. The speech "On the peace with the Lacedaemonians" (περὶ τῆς πρὸς Λακεδαιμονίους εἰρήνης), which is still extant, refers to this affair. It was delivered in 393 (though some scholars place it in 391). Andocides was found guilty, and sent into exile for the fourth time. He never returned afterwards, and seems to have died soon after this blow. Andocides appears to have fathered no children, since he is described at the age of 70 as being childless, although the scholiast on Aristophanes mentions Antiphon as a son of Andocides. The large fortune which he had inherited from his father, or acquired in his commercial undertakings, was greatly diminished in the latter years of his life. Oratory As an orator Andocides does not appear to have been held in very high esteem by the ancients, as he is seldom mentioned, though Valerius Theon is said to have written a commentary on his orations. We do not hear of his having been trained in any of the sophistical schools of the time, and he had probably developed his talents in the practical school of the popular assembly. Hence his orations have no mannerism in them, and are really, as Plutarch says, simple and free from all rhetorical pomp and ornament. Sometimes, however, his style is diffuse, and becomes tedious and obscure. The best among his orations is that "on the