The Herms and the Mysteries: Whose Account of 415 BCE?
You are investigating the events of 415 BCE, when Alcibiades was accused of profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries and mutilating the Herms. You have three sources: Thucydides 6.27–29 and 6.53–61 (brief, focused on the expedition and the oligarchic plot); Andocides, On the Mysteries (a defence speech delivered c. 400 BCE by a man himself implicated); and Plutarch, Life of Alcibiades (2nd century CE, using earlier sources but fond of anecdote). Thucydides says the Herms' faces were mutilated in one night; Andocides names specific individuals and claims a conspiracy; Plutarch reports that Alcibiades was accused by political enemies and later recalled. Your task is a 600-word source evaluation for an internal. The teacher warns against treating any one source as 'the truth' and asks you to distinguish evidence for what happened from evidence for what people believed happened.
1. Which source is most reliable for the details of the accusations, and why?
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Thucydides is the most reliable for the sequence and political consequences: he writes close to the events, is careful about causation, and places the accusations within the expedition and the oligarchic suspicion. But he is brief on the religious details and may shape the story to explain the expedition's failure. Andocides is valuable because he is a participant and names individuals, but he is a defendant in a related prosecution; his speech aims to exculpate himself and his family, so he may minimise his role, shift blame, or invent a conspiracy. His details need external corroboration. Plutarch is much later; he uses earlier sources but writes biography with a moral and anecdotal interest, so he is better evidence for the later tradition than for the 415 BCE events. The most defensible method is to use Thucydides for framework, Andocides cautiously for names and accusations, and Plutarch for reception. No single source is 'most reliable' for all details; reliability depends on the question. For 'what happened', Thucydides first; for 'who was named', Andocides with caution; for 'how was it remembered', Plutarch.
2. How would you explain the significance of the affair for Athenian democracy using these sources?
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The affair matters because it shows how religion, faction, and military command could collide in the democracy. Thucydides presents the accusations as a political crisis: Alcibiades is accused, demands a trial, is allowed to sail, and is later recalled; the city is divided and suspicious. That is evidence for the vulnerability of democratic decision-making to rumour and faction, and for the importance of religious orthodoxy. Andocides shows the affair generated lists, denunciations, and a culture of informing; his self-defence reveals how people manipulated the crisis. But his account may exaggerate the conspiracy to make his own cooperation seem necessary. Plutarch shows the affair became a moral exemplar about Alcibiades' ambition and the city's ingratitude. Used together, the sources are stronger on the affair's significance - the entanglement of religion and politics, the fragility of command - than on the exact truth of the accusations. The evaluation should therefore distinguish evidence for what happened from evidence for what Athenians believed and later remembered. That distinction is the key judgement.