BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua
BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua
BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua
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<strong>BRIBERY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> <strong>CLASSICAL</strong> <strong>ATHENS</strong><br />
<strong>Kellam</strong> Conover<br />
A DISSERTATION<br />
PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY<br />
OF PR<strong>IN</strong>CETON UNIVERSITY<br />
<strong>IN</strong> CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE<br />
OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY<br />
RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE<br />
BY THE DEPARTMENT OF<br />
CLASSICS<br />
Adviser: Andrew Ford<br />
March 2010
UMI Number: 3401570<br />
All rights reserved<br />
<strong>IN</strong>FORMATION TO ALL USERS<br />
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.<br />
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and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,<br />
a note will indicate the deletion.<br />
UMI 3401570<br />
Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC.<br />
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© Copyright by <strong>Kellam</strong> McChesney Conover, 2010. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT<br />
This dissertation proposes a fresh look at bribery and its regulation to examine<br />
how bribery shaped the development of the ancient Athenian democracy (508/7-322<br />
BCE). Political scientists and economists commonly treat bribery as a kind of<br />
inefficiency that can be minimized through proper institutional incentives and legal<br />
sanctions within a static polity. Yet Athens’ democracy was anything but static, and the<br />
very ‘problem’ of dōrodokia changed considerably over time. Exploring this dynamic<br />
change thus refocuses our understanding of the relationship between bribery and<br />
democracy.<br />
As Chapter One shows, the concept of dōrodokia was used to distinguish between<br />
legitimate and illegitimate forms of political collaboration vital to the success of the<br />
democracy. Rather than define dōrodokia by the context in which the gift, favor, or<br />
payment was made, the Athenians looked to the outcome of the transaction. ‘Good’<br />
results, processes, and players were aligned with dēmokratia, ‘bad’ with dōrodokia.<br />
Chapters Two through Four show how changing conceptions of dōrodokia were<br />
consistently tied to evolving ideas about what good democratic politics looked like. The<br />
figure of the corrupt man, or dōrodokos, was consistently conjured up in public discourse<br />
to explain bad political results. In this way, he played a central role in public discourse as<br />
a conceptual bogeyman to changing ideals within democratic politics.<br />
As Chapters Five through Seven investigate, the very hallmarks of the Athenian<br />
democracy—public accountability, selection by lot, and a clearer demarcation between<br />
public and private spheres—were developed in opposition to dōrodokia. In this sense,<br />
the Athenians articulated the constantly changing shape of their democracy by heavily<br />
i
legislating dōrodokia. Rather than focus on minimizing profit from public office, the<br />
Athenians designed their institutions so that frequent dōrodokia would be leveraged for<br />
the common good.<br />
In both public discourse and political practice, dōrodokia emerges as an integral<br />
mode of democratic politics. Not only did the Athenians think through their democracy<br />
by thinking with the figure of the dōrodokos, but they designed democratic institutions<br />
expressly as anti-dōrodokia measures. The central question about Athens thus becomes<br />
how she succeeded not in spite of, but because of such prevalent bribery.<br />
ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS<br />
Thinking about corruption for an extended period of time does funny things to<br />
one’s brain. It’s a disconcerting, frustratingly intricate topic, and prolonged exposure<br />
slowly corrupts one’s thinking, causing significant distortions to one’s social life and<br />
livelihood. In my case I fear writing this dissertation has made me a slight bit insane. It<br />
is with great pleasure, then, that I acknowledge here those who had a hand in<br />
precipitating my condition; it is hoped that others will take my words to heart, lest they<br />
incur the same affliction.<br />
The ideas in this dissertation have unsettled me for a long time. In my first<br />
graduate seminar, the play of economic images and justice in Aeschylus’ Oresteia kept<br />
me up for nights on end, and the interpretive problems I encountered at that time have<br />
lingered in my mind, festering and causing many a sleepless night since. I give fond<br />
thanks to David Rosenbloom, who encouraged me then to obsess over these images, and<br />
to the custodial staff of East Pyne, whose bright smiles tricked me into correlating<br />
positive feedback with my incipient insomnia. I doubt they knew the utter madness<br />
towards which they were leading me, but they meant well.<br />
A few other guides were not so innocent. I say ‘guides’ because they have, in<br />
their own ways, been unwitting mentors to me over the years; ‘not so innocent’ because I<br />
suspect they knew full well what they were doing in welcoming me into their fold. It is<br />
in no small part to them that my affliction took the particular form of this dissertation.<br />
Dirk Hartog introduced me to the Dark Side of law and legal history, and with that he<br />
made my life inestimably more complicated. Kim Scheppele completely dismantled my<br />
own understanding of law and its myriad roles in society; and it was her unfailing<br />
iii
encouragement that made me crazily think it a good idea to add three chapters to this<br />
work. And Viviana Zelizer, who took a chance on a maddened classicist, has generously<br />
illuminated a path to still more frustration, anxiety, insomnia, and lunacy. For their<br />
guidance and unflagging support, I owe profound thanks.<br />
My readers know particularly well the fits and fixation this work has caused me.<br />
Each and every time I felt utterly shattered, defeated by the conundra I faced, with a few<br />
choice words, a smile or an open door, and always a continuing faith that I would prevail,<br />
they helped me to put the pieces together again. Marc Domingo Gygax has been a true<br />
colleague; his warmth, humor, and strong vision of my project provided much-needed<br />
moments of clarity amid years of confusion. Josh Ober gave detailed comments on every<br />
chapter and consistently encouraged me to embrace the crazy by thinking big and outside<br />
the box. His perspective and sage wisdom have been continuing sources of inspiration.<br />
Andy Ford, friend and toughest critic, has been a stellar advisor, better than I could have<br />
dreamed. He has always known the right remedy to free my thinking, and he has taught<br />
me to grow upward from my roots. As a token of my heartfelt appreciation, and for their<br />
masterful management of a difficult, irrational, and often elusive student, I dedicate this<br />
work to my teachers.<br />
Any other institution probably would have sought to quell a neurotic student’s<br />
angst, but Princeton University has proven an uncommonly rich place for breeding<br />
anxiety. Under the extremely generous support of a Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellowship, a<br />
Robert Hoffman ’58 Scholarship, and a Center for Human Values Graduate Prize<br />
Fellowship, I was ensured to spend my every waking thought, for years, obsessing over<br />
iv
ibery and the law. Without these gifts, my anxiety might never have transformed into<br />
full-fledged neurosis. Thank you, Princeton.<br />
Writing a dissertation is often a psychological battle. Luckily, every time I<br />
thought I had answered one question, a number of people reminded me that, actually,<br />
there were many, many more unanswered questions that should be gnawing at me, daily.<br />
Warm thanks, then, go to audiences who heard presentations of parts of various chapters<br />
at the Princeton Research Symposium, the Hoffman Scholars presentation, LEGS, the<br />
CHV seminar, and the Classics Department’s dissertation colloquium, masterfully led by<br />
Brent Shaw. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Jessica Clark, Meredith Safran, Arudra<br />
Burra, Philip Pettit, and Rahul Sagar for their pointed, friendly reminders that my task<br />
was far vaster than ever I had imagined.<br />
If my experience writing this dissertation appears unusually sunny, it is only<br />
because along the way I have had such loving, supportive friends who have distracted<br />
me—repeatedly and unabashedly—from conquering these demons. A certain few have<br />
left an indelible mark on me, and, far from distracting me—good friends, they—they<br />
have but heartened me to bang my head against the wall all the more. Dana Fields,<br />
Emma Ljung, Sydnor Roy, Alana Shilling, and Tom Zanker are all bright lights each of<br />
whose warmth, heart and distinctive mind has been an inspiration. Sean Corner, Luca<br />
Grillo, and Mira Seo, carissimi, have enabled my neurosis seemingly without end. Their<br />
insistence that I eat lavish meals has taught me to taste and savor life; for their ever-<br />
loving support I am profoundly grateful.<br />
Though bearing the brunt of my madness, Breanden Beneschott repeatedly went<br />
above and beyond the call of duty as dear friend, drill sergeant, and disc jockey; his love<br />
v
and long-lasting patience were critical throughout the revision process. I cannot thank<br />
him enough. My family, especially my parents Pam Conover and Chris Conover, would<br />
probably prefer not gratitude but a sincere apology for letting myself succumb to the<br />
insanity that was this dissertation for so long. No doubt they were positively dismayed at<br />
holiday dinners when I was unable to stop talking about the intricacies of Athenian tax<br />
collecting, among other arcane topics I was writing about at the time. Yet they always so<br />
graciously pretended that I was not even the slightest bit loony. From the bottom of my<br />
heart, I’m sorry.<br />
Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank Jill Arbeiter and particularly my<br />
work spouse Stephanie Lewandowski for all they have done to make the department feel<br />
like my home for six years. As consummate administrators for the Classics Department,<br />
they made my job so easy it felt like a vacation. And as friends armed at all times with a<br />
bright smile and a warm hello, they duped me into thinking that being crazy wasn’t so<br />
bad after all. Either way, they have my warmest gratitude and sincere pledge to keep<br />
some madness with me forever.<br />
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS<br />
ABSTRACT: i<br />
<strong>IN</strong>TRODUCTION:<br />
In the Shadows of Democracy: Bribery in Classical Athens 1<br />
CHAPTER ONE:<br />
Bribery, Politics, and the Problem of Definition 26<br />
CHAPTER TWO:<br />
Dōrodokia, Elites, and the People’s Authority, 508/7-404 BCE 81<br />
CHAPTER THREE:<br />
Dōrodokia in the Generation after the Peloponnesian War, 403-378 BCE 126<br />
CHAPTER FOUR:<br />
Dōrodokia and the Rise of the “Crop of Traitors,” 378-322 BCE 169<br />
CHAPTER FIVE:<br />
Approaching Bribery and the Law at Athens 212<br />
CHAPTER SIX:<br />
Legal Innovation and the dōrodokos 252<br />
vii
CHAPTER SEVEN:<br />
Athenian dōrodokia Legislation in Practice 295<br />
CONCLUSION:<br />
Rethinking Political Bribery: The View from Athens 322<br />
REFERENCES: 333<br />
viii
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
In the Shadows of Democracy:<br />
Bribery in Classical Athens<br />
In the early summer of 367 BCE two Athenians, Timagoras and Leon, set out on<br />
an embassy to negotiate the terms of an alliance between Athens and Persia. Envoys<br />
from both Athens and Sparta were making the three-month journey to the Persian capital<br />
at Susa to discuss a most pressing concern: the recent aggression of Athens’ northerly<br />
neighbor Thebes. Just a few years prior, Thebes had overwhelmingly defeated Sparta<br />
and thereby set into motion a seismic shift in alliances. Renouncing her former alliance<br />
with Athens and turning instead to ravage Sparta’s allies in the Peloponnese, Thebes<br />
quickly became the dominant force in Greek politics. Understandably, Athens and Sparta<br />
were uneasy, and they were sending envoys in the hopes that the Persian King might help<br />
limit the Thebans’ strategic gains. 1<br />
For the Athenians, the Congress at Susa was not without its complications.<br />
Timagoras was apparently not at full health, and the trip to Susa in the summer heat<br />
would have been hard on the Athenian. When he arrived, he inexplicably refused to<br />
room with his fellow ambassador Leon, and the two spent an entire month sleeping in<br />
separate quarters. Nor was this clash of personalities Athens’ only cause for concern.<br />
Within a few weeks of Timagoras and Leon’s departure, Thebes got wind of the embassy<br />
to the King and sent forth her own ambassador, the renowned general Pelopidas, together<br />
with envoys from her new allies in the Peloponnese. Given Timagoras’ sickness and<br />
1 Xen. Hell. 7.1.33-8; Dem. 19.31, 137, 191; Plut. Pelop. 30.6-7, Art. 22.4-6; Athen. 6. 251b; Val. Max.<br />
6.3.ext.2. Mosley (1968), Perlman (1976: 228-9), Buckler (1980: 153-8), Lewis (1989: 228-9), Heskel<br />
(1997: 101-8), Mitchell (1997: 128-9). For the chronology of this embassy, see especially Heskel (1997:<br />
105-7). Thebes’ ascendancy during the 360’s: Davies (1978: 217-27), Buckler (1980).<br />
1
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
unexpected unfriendliness with Leon, and up against the peerless reputation of Pelopidas,<br />
Athens increasingly seemed to be fighting a losing battle at Susa. The city’s hopes were<br />
finally dashed when Timagoras supported Pelopidas’ counsel to the King, in effect<br />
defending Thebes’ interests, not Athens’, and leaving only Leon to protest the final, pro-<br />
Theban terms of the alliance. 2<br />
Even so, Timagoras surely emerged from Susa in good spirits. Given Thebes’<br />
recent ascendancy, it was unclear whether Athens would have any real bargaining power<br />
with the King, so the pro-Theban terms of the alliance were not unexpected. And, in any<br />
case, Timagoras’ embassy had secured at least the chance for further negotiation, for the<br />
King had explicitly invited the Athenians to send another embassy if they found the terms<br />
of the treaty unfair. Personally, too, the Athenian fared quite well at the Congress, for the<br />
King had held him in esteem second only to the Theban Pelopidas. At his departure he<br />
consequently received substantial parting gifts (dōra) from the King. All told, he<br />
returned to Athens with a number of aids for his ailment: among other dōra, an<br />
amazingly expensive couch made with luxurious bedding so intricate that slaves were<br />
provided solely to make it (because Greeks did not know how); 80 cows with 80<br />
cowherds to tend them so that he could have cow’s milk for his illness; and even a litter<br />
to ride on from Susa, together with four talents’ pay for the carriers. 3 Of course, the rest<br />
2 Timagoras’ ailment: Plut. Pelop. 30.6, Art. 22.4-6. Plutarch’s biographies of Pelopidas and Artaxerxes<br />
are the only sources referring to Timagoras’ ailment, and both depict the King’s gifts to Timagoras as relief<br />
for his illness. Although it is entirely possible that the narrative of an illness was a later rationalization<br />
added to the story, it is difficult to understand when or why this element would have been added; one<br />
possibility, however, is that, in order to defend himself against Leon’s accusations and suspicions about the<br />
King’s gifts, Timagoras himself later claimed that he was sick. Problems during the embassy: Xen. Hell.<br />
7.1.35-38.<br />
3 Plut. Pelop. 30.6, Art. 22.5. Future negotiations: Xen. Hell. 7.1.37 with Heskel (1991: 107-8).<br />
According to Demosthenes, the King gave Timagoras the colossal sum of 40 talents, but this figure is more<br />
likely an exaggeration by the orator himself or by others (cf. w(j le/getai, Dem. 19.137), a total reached by<br />
multiplying by ten the misthos given Timagoras in Plutarch’s account (Pelop. 30.6).<br />
2
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
of the Athenians were not so pleased with the ambassador’s efforts. Upon his return to<br />
Athens, Timagoras was brought to trial for bribery (dōrodokia) and sentenced to death.<br />
No doubt shocked by this turn of events, the King reportedly never gave an ambassador<br />
money again. 4<br />
To modern eyes, Timagoras’ fate provokes diametrically opposed reactions. In<br />
reading our sources, one is struck by how quickly the charming details of the story give<br />
way to its macabre conclusion. Particularly in Plutarch’s hands, Timagoras’ embassy<br />
becomes a parable writ large: in a dramatic twist of Sophoclean irony, the seemingly<br />
innocuous gifts the Athenian takes to cure his illness become the very cause of his<br />
demise. Yet in that case it is equally striking just how much the story of Timagoras lurks<br />
only in the background of Plutarch’s narrative, in the shadows of the history he crafts.<br />
Timagoras’ fate is something of a tangent in Plutarch’s Life of Pelopidas, at best a<br />
counterpoint for Pelopidas’ own virtue in taking but few gifts from the Persian King. In<br />
this sense, Plutarch uses Timagoras’ bribery as only a narrative foil, an implicit reminder<br />
of how things with Pelopidas could have turned out.<br />
And this leads to a second reaction, common among ancient historians in<br />
particular: no reaction at all. Classical Athenian history is rife with stories of bribery. A<br />
4 Conviction of Timagoras: Xen. Hell. 1.38; Dem. 19.31, 137, 191; Plut. Pelop. 30.6, Art. 22.6; Athen.<br />
6.251b. The charge was most likely one of dōrodokia, as given in Plutarch (Art. 22.6) and as accords with<br />
Demosthenes’ references (esp. Dem. 19.137). Contrary to this view, on the basis that Xenophon seemingly<br />
does not mention any bribery of Timagoras, Perlman (1976: 229) presumes that dōrodokia was not part of<br />
the original charge against Timagoras, but was later added to the story. Yet Xenophon does appear to<br />
allude to some kind of dōrodokia: in describing how Antiochus the Arcadian ambassador refused the<br />
King’s gifts, Xenophon refers to them as ta\ dw=ra (Xen. Hell. 7.1.38). The use of the definite article here<br />
presupposes that the dōra had already been mentioned—in other words, that they were, in fact, implicit in<br />
the historian’s remarks about Timagoras’ conviction. On this reading, we should understand the<br />
w(jclause describing Timagoras’ conviction as an elaboration from Leon’s prosecution of Timagoras, not<br />
as the formal charge itself. Similarly, Athenaeus’ explanation that Timagoras was prosecuted for obeisance<br />
to the King (w(j basile/a proseku/nhsen, Athen. 6.251b) is most likely just another way of indicating that<br />
he had been bribed to join allegiance with the King. On the King’s subsequent refraining from dōrodokia,<br />
see Dem. 19.137.<br />
3
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
bribe-taker like Timagoras appears on average once in every twelve pages of Greek for<br />
the democracy, amounting to well over 450 accusations and descriptions of bribery in<br />
extant sources ranging from tragedy and comedy to historiography, inscriptions, forensic<br />
oratory and philosophy. 5 When we encounter yet another instance of Athenian bribery,<br />
the sheer familiarity of the phenomenon, its omnipresence, renders it invisible. 6<br />
As the shocking events surrounding Timagoras’ execution call to witness, though,<br />
bribery was never so invisible in the democracy. Just as Timagoras’ own politicking<br />
serves as a narrative foil to Pelopidas’ virtuous course in Plutarch’s biography—a bad<br />
alternative, a reminder of how Pelopidas could have erred—at every incremental step in<br />
the development of the democracy bribery seems to have been there, lurking, reminding<br />
the Athenians of how their polity might still err. Far from being invisible, instances of<br />
bribery always brought to light an important decision for the Athenians to make. Should<br />
they follow the course of a Timagoras or of a Leon? Should they punish the purported<br />
bribe-taker or legitimate his actions? To chart the course of the democracy, therefore, is<br />
to uncover from its shadows a continuous series of historical foils, points at which the<br />
Athenians briefly considered which direction their polity should take.<br />
5 Particularly given our dearth of contemporary sources for nearly half of the democracy, this number<br />
seems remarkably high. It amounts to, on average, one accusation per oration of Lysias, one account of<br />
bribery per year in Thucydides’ Histories (excluding the Archaeology in Book I), and three accusations per<br />
Aristophanic comedy. My count is derived from the index of sources in Harvey (1985) as compared to<br />
pages of non-fragmentary Greek in the Oxford Classical Text series of classical authors.<br />
6 Within the past 80 years, there have been only a handful of articles devoted expressly to Athenian bribery,<br />
despite the fact that each author notes the omnipresence of bribery in our sources: see recently Perlman<br />
(1976), Wankel (1982), Cargill (1985), Harvey (1985), Strauss (1985), Kulesza (1995), Taylor (2001); cf.<br />
Lipsius (1905-15: esp. 2.401-6), MacDowell (1983a), Herman (1987: 73-81), Mitchell (1987: 181-6),<br />
Noetlichs (1987), von Reden (1995: 93-99, 117-20), Mastrocinque (1996), Hashiba (2006). Athenian<br />
bribery features in only two footnotes in Noonan’s (1984) otherwise magisterial study of bribery and was<br />
absent from Heidenheimer’s handbook on political corruption until the second edition.<br />
When Athenian bribery has been analyzed, scholars have been content merely to answer basic<br />
questions: what was bribery? who committed it? how prevalent was it, and why was it so prevalent? and<br />
how was it kept under control? To my mind these kinds of questions, while undoubtedly helpful, only<br />
perpetuate the invisibility of Athenian bribery as a phenomenon, for they do not engage with the more<br />
profound ways in which bribery, as practice or idea, fundamentally shaped the democracy.<br />
4
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
This dissertation seeks to recover Timagoras and countless others like him from<br />
the shadows of the democracy: to restore to mind the significance, for Athenians then as<br />
for us now, of viewing bribery as a foil to the desired course of political history. I aim<br />
here to uncover how someone like Timagoras understood his own actions: not simply<br />
whether they were ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but how they were envisioned as fitting into the<br />
workings of the democracy. Such an inquiry certainly entails examining what the<br />
Athenians thought about bribery. Yet in bringing to light the significance of bribery as an<br />
alternate trajectory for democracy—an alternate path for conceptualizing and practicing<br />
politics, an alternative that the people could always choose to legitimate at any given<br />
time—I am especially interested in uncovering how the Athenians thought with and<br />
through bribery. In essence, this dissertation hopes to rid our minds forever of the<br />
assumed familiarity of Athenian bribery. My hope is that, for every mention of bribery,<br />
we might take to heart both why an Athenian in that position chose to take dōra and why<br />
Athens in that context responded as she did.<br />
Rescuing Timagoras from the murky shadows of Athenian history is a difficult<br />
endeavor, for we must thereby confront our own preconceived ideas about why he might<br />
have taken bribes or how Athens should have responded. The more we peer into the<br />
story, picking out the details that give it such distinct color—the lingering illness, the in-<br />
fighting with Leon, the extensive list of dōra, the death sentence—the more bizarre and<br />
alarming it becomes. Specifically, two glaring incongruities emerge: why, after all, did<br />
Timagoras take the King’s gifts, and why did the Athenians kill (!) him for doing so?<br />
Our sources note that certain other ambassadors refused to take gifts (Xen. Hell.<br />
7.1.38) while even the Theban Pelopidas limited himself in what he took home (Plut.<br />
5
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
Pelop. 30.6). Even with the well-documented Persian custom of giving dōra to<br />
ambassadors, then, Timagoras did not need to take any gifts. 7 He certainly did not need<br />
to take home such an ornate couch, together with 80 cows and 80 cowherds, a litter and<br />
attendants. So why did he?<br />
Plutarch’s account of Timagoras’ embassy attempts to answer this question, but in<br />
so doing it only complicates our efforts at understanding the ambassador’s motivations.<br />
According to Plutarch, Timagoras recalled what a certain Epicrates had once said about<br />
receiving gifts on an embassy and apparently not being punished. Presumably it was this<br />
memory that gave Timagoras confidence in his own gift-taking with the Persian King<br />
(Plut. Pelop. 30.7). This Epicrates had been a prominent politician in the 390’s, and here<br />
we should understand reference to an embassy to the Persian King in the late 390’s<br />
during the Corinthian War. 8 On the face of it, the pair had much in common. Both were<br />
sent to draft an alliance with the King in an effort to curb the aggression of one power:<br />
Sparta in Epicrates’ case, Thebes for Timagoras. And both, apparently, took bribes.<br />
Plutarch’s Timagoras recalls Epicrates’ embassy ostensibly as a reminder that the<br />
Athenians did not care if an envoy received gifts, but this is a baffling, selective reading<br />
of the earlier embassy. Though Plutarch does not indicate this, the specific anecdote that<br />
Timagoras purportedly recalled seems to have come from a comedy lampooning<br />
Epicrates’ expedition to the King. There, having returned laden in dōra from the King,<br />
7<br />
On bribery and gifts from the Persian King, see especially Perlman (1976), Lewis (1979), and Mitchell<br />
(1997: 111-33).<br />
8<br />
Epicrates is called ‘shield-bearer’, sakesfo/roj at Plut. Pelop. 30.7. Ancient scholiasts note that this was<br />
the nickname of Epicrates because he had a big beard: schol. Ar. Ec. 71, Harpocrat. ad ’Epikra/thj. This<br />
confirms the identification. The embassy of Epicrates and Phormisius, along with Plato Comicus’ Presbeis<br />
can be dated to 394/3 or 393/2. The embassies of Timagoras and Epicrates are juxtaposed again in<br />
Athenaeus 6.251b. Conceivably, both Plutarch and Athenaeus were drawing on the same source, i.e. the<br />
third-century collector of anecdotes Hegesander, but we have no indication that Plutarch had actually read<br />
Hegesander’s work. Epicrates’ embassy: Lys. 27.3; Plato Com. frr. 119-27; Hegesander FHG<br />
4.414=Athen.6.251b; Athen. 6.221f, 6.251a-b.<br />
6
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
Epicrates wittily remarks that the Athenians should send to Persia numerous ambassadors<br />
drawn from the ranks of the poor, that they, too, might share in the King’s wealth and<br />
thereby solve the city’s financial woes. 9 As Timagoras recalls, the people on that<br />
occasion—that is, at the comic performance—laughed at Epicrates. By no means,<br />
however, did this laughter signal approval. The entire embassy seems to have been put<br />
on trial for dōrodokia; while Epicrates was famously acquitted in that trial, Epicrates’<br />
fellow ambassador Onomasas was found guilty and sentenced to death, just like<br />
Timagoras later would be. 10 And within two years Epicrates himself would be sentenced<br />
to death, again on a charge of dōrodokia while on an embassy. 11<br />
If we follow Plutarch, Timagoras’ fatal misstep came in recalling the wrong<br />
ambassador, or perhaps the wrong embassy altogether. In that case, though, we are hard-<br />
9 That Epicrates is here referred to by his nickname as ‘shield-bearer’ strongly suggests that Timagoras was<br />
recalling not a private conversation between himself and his ‘shield-bearer’, but some public event that had<br />
involved the well-known figure of Epicrates ‘shield-bearer’. I propose that the event he recalls was the<br />
very scene parodied in Plato’s Presbeis, precisely the kind of context in which we would expect the dēmos<br />
to ‘laugh’ at Epicrates’ words. Dover (1950) notes, contra the standard view, that the comedy itself need<br />
not have referred to any actual expedition but could have been a comic fiction, much like Trygaeus’ private<br />
embassy in Aristophanes’ Peace. Yet in response it should be pointed out that even a private fiction could<br />
have parodied an actual expedition.<br />
10 Following Lysias 27.3. There are, however, considerable problems with the chronology of Lysias 27 and<br />
the reference therein to an expedition with Epicrates and Onomasas. Including these two embassies, there<br />
were potentially five different major events involving Epicrates in the second half of the 390’s. In 395<br />
Timocrates was sent by the King to bribe Greek leaders, including Epicrates and Cephalus at Athens, to<br />
adopt an anti-Spartan alliance: Paus. 3.9.7-8, Hell. Oxy. 2.2-5, Xen. Hell. 3.9.1-2 with Bruce (1967: 60 ad<br />
Hell. Oxy.II.2) and Rung (2004). Epicrates’ envoy to Persia with Phormisius (394/3 or 393/2) is parodied<br />
in Plato Comicus’ Presbeis; see also Athen. 6.251a-b. Finally, Epicrates was part of the embassy to Sparta<br />
to secure ratification of the King’s Peace (392/1). I follow Davies’ (1971: 181 ad APF 4859) suggestion<br />
that the reference at Lys. 27.3 is to the very embassy parodied in Plato’s Presbeis, meaning that that<br />
embassy included Epicrates, Phormisius, and Onomasas.<br />
The date of Lysias 27 is more problematic. It cannot be from 394/3, for then when would the<br />
previous embassy with Onomasas have occurred? It might refer to 393/2, but we would have to posit an<br />
otherwise unattested embassy in that case. One difficulty with assuming that the speech comes from the<br />
trial of 392/1 is that Philochorus records that Epicrates and the others were tried in absentia (328 FGrH<br />
F149a); still, Epicrates potentially was present for his own trial but left before he was sentenced. This<br />
accords well with other instances in which those sentenced to death left Athens before the sentence was<br />
pronounced: see Chapter Six below.<br />
11 Dem. 19.277-80, Philochorus 328 FGrH F149a, Aristid. 1.283 Dindorff with schol. Our evidence is<br />
inconclusive, but possibly Epicrates was allowed to return to Athens: see APF 181 on an early fourthcentury<br />
gravestone for an Epicrates of Cephisia (IG ii 2 6444).<br />
7
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
pressed to answer how Timagoras could have been so wrong or why he would have<br />
risked the decision that he did, particularly when the stakes for being wrong were so<br />
incredibly high. Framed this way, we have fundamental problems in understanding<br />
Timagoras’ intent in taking the King’s dōra.<br />
And this leads us to the second apparent incongruity in the story: why were the<br />
stakes so high? Given the ascendancy of Thebes, Athens had effectively little bargaining<br />
power when Timagoras’ embassy went to Susa; she realistically could have hoped for<br />
little more than the negotiations gained her. As a result, any bribes from the Persian King<br />
had probably little effect on the resultant terms of the alliance, so it is difficult to see how<br />
Timagoras was solely to blame for the treaty. It is hard to understand, moreover, how his<br />
offense could have been considered egregious enough to warrant capital punishment. On<br />
both counts, we fail to understand the Athenians’ intent in killing Timagoras.<br />
Addressing both of these ‘incongruities’ entails placing ancient Athens into<br />
critical dialogue with the present: confronting differences between ‘then’ and ‘now’, but<br />
also—I would argue ‘especially’—using the past to refocus how we think about the<br />
present. Certainly there were considerable differences between Athenian-style<br />
democracy and the democracy we are used to: notably the exclusion of women, slaves,<br />
and resident aliens from the political franchise; direct participation as opposed to<br />
representation and delegation; in the second-half of the fifth century the largest Greek<br />
empire over other Greeks; and no robust conception of ‘rights’ as we might think of<br />
them. 12 Still, there were striking similarities as well, particularly in terms of the<br />
12 See generally Finley (1973), Ober and Hedrick (1996). On Athens’ treatment of slaves, metics, and<br />
women, see variously Whitehead (1977), Cohen (2002), and the essays collected in Hunter and Edmondson<br />
(2001). Empire: e.g. AE (passim), Finley (1973: esp. 95-6), Raaflaub (1994). Increased participation:<br />
Sinclair (1988a). Rights: Finley (1976), cf. Wallace (2006).<br />
8
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
ideological principles that underpinned political organization. Political and legal equality<br />
among citizens, cooperation and collective action, public accountability, and the<br />
preservation of certain quasi-rights like personal security or the liberty to speak out in<br />
public were all hallmarks of the Athenian democracy. 13 In this respect, trying to<br />
understand Timagoras’ motivations does not require stepping into a wholly ‘different’<br />
world; as such, it can allow us to look back and see that our own world might be more<br />
‘different’ than we normally assume.<br />
By confronting the assumptions that differentiate ‘then’ from ‘now’, I mean to<br />
call into question why we make those assumptions in the first place. In other words,<br />
examining the potential trajectories of Athens’ democracy—recovering bribery from its<br />
shadows—can be a valuable exercise in re-examining the potential paths of our own<br />
government, in rethinking the tenuous line we draw between politics and corruption, and<br />
in reconceptualizing the relationship between bribery and democracy. One goal of the<br />
chapters to come is to present a different way of drawing these lines, using Athens as an<br />
example but always being careful to abstract an analytical framework that can readily be<br />
applied to the contemporary world. That said, this dissertation can provide only<br />
suggestions for future work and ultimately leaves such application to others.<br />
There are three main assumptions, three specific ways of thinking about bribery<br />
and its regulation that must be set aside if we are to understand the actions of Timagoras<br />
and the Athenians. We can group these assumptions into theoretical problems as follows.<br />
In order to understand Timagoras’ motivations in taking dōra, we must first clearly<br />
13 Viewing Athens as a case-study in democratization has been recently championed by Ober (2008); cf.<br />
Lanni (2006; forthcoming), Karayannis and Hatzis (2008). For detailed studies of the development—<br />
though not necessarily the ‘democratization’—of the Athenian polity, see Ostwald (1986) and Sealey<br />
(1987); for an overview of the Athenian democracy in the fourth century, Ober (1989), Hansen (1991).<br />
Equality: Raaflaub (1996). Quasi-rights: Ober (2005: 92-127).<br />
9
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
define what actually constituted his action—was it bribery or not? This is the problem of<br />
definition. With that established, we can move on to his intent in performing that action:<br />
how did he frame his decision, and what, accordingly, was his motivation? This is the<br />
problem of intent. Finally, we must investigate the motivation behind Athens’ use of the<br />
death penalty here. Why was Timagoras killed, rather than fined or sentenced to some<br />
other punishment? This is the problem of the role of law. Each of these problems will be<br />
discussed in a bit more detail here before we turn to a different, more fruitful way of<br />
understanding Timagoras’ embassy.<br />
When we think of bribery, we tend to think of a kind of abuse of public power for<br />
private gain, but how should this ‘abuse’ be defined? 14 This problem was hotly debated<br />
by political scientists and legal scholars in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Three distinct<br />
definitions of the ‘abuse’ inherent in bribery emerged from that literature, each of which<br />
proved helpful as an analytical category, yet none of which was commonly accepted as a<br />
comprehensive definition of bribery. Certain social scientists defined ‘abuse’ according<br />
to formal, legal regulations: bribery was thus a kind of illegal use of public power for<br />
private profit. Alternatively, recognizing that legal definitions were not always<br />
comprehensive and were sometimes at odds with the interests of the public at large, other<br />
scholars posited that ‘abuse’ should be defined according to what is against the public<br />
interest: bribery, so defined, was when an official profited from public office in a way<br />
detrimental to the public interest. Finally, a third group posited that, in part because the<br />
public interest was a complex idea often difficult to gauge, ‘abuse’ was to be defined<br />
14 See especially Johnston (2005: 10-12) and Chapter One below.<br />
10
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according to prevailing public attitudes about the proper use of public office. On this<br />
definition, bribery constituted an illegitimate use of public power for private profit. 15<br />
With the rise of a market-centered approach to studying bribery, in recent decades<br />
the problem of definition has been eschewed or, to be more precise, thought settled. On a<br />
market-centered model, public officials are a kind of agent who, in abusing their power,<br />
thereby violate the terms of a contract they have between themselves and their principal<br />
(usually the people as a whole). By viewing public office through a principal-agent<br />
relationship, political economists have reached some striking albeit conventionally<br />
accepted conclusions: namely, that all public officials are inclined to use their office to<br />
maximize private gain or influence provided the costs do not outweigh the gains; and<br />
that, accordingly, bribery can be minimized but never completely eliminated. 16 The<br />
significance of this model will be clear in a moment when we examine the problem of<br />
intent. For now it is enough to point out that, in reality, a market-based approach is<br />
predicated on a legalistic definition of bribery, as ‘bribery’ is always defined in reference<br />
to the ‘contract’ between principal and agent. 17<br />
Note how all of these definitions focus on the intent of the bribe. By positing that<br />
private gain is the reason for the abuse of public power—however we define it—these<br />
15 This is a modification of the categories set forth by Heidenheimer (1989); cf. Caiden and Caiden (1977),<br />
Philp (1997, 2002), Johnston (2005) and Chapter One below. Instead of the public opinion, Heidenheimer<br />
includes market-based approaches, on which see further below. Legalistic definitions: Leys (1965), Nye<br />
(1967), Scott (1972). Public interest approach: Gronbeck (1978). The public opinion model set forth by<br />
Peters and Welch (1972) and Gibbons (1989) never gained much traction with other scholars, but see the<br />
recent legal anthropological approach in Pardo (2004a), Haller and Shore (2005).<br />
16 Market-based model: Banfield (1975), Rose-Ackerman (1978, 1999), Goudie and Stasavage (1998),<br />
della Porta and Vannuci (1999), Lambsdorff (2002). A principal-agent model is also employed in section 1<br />
of the British Prevention of Corruption Act (1906). This kind of approach has been criticized both for<br />
failing to explain collaboration and cooperation within politics (i.e. ‘altruistic’ acts at odds with an<br />
inherently selfish rational actor) and for failing to predict the efficacy of certain anti-corruption reforms:<br />
see DiIulio (1994) for the former and Robinson (1998) for the latter. Sarat and Simon (2001: 11-12) point<br />
out that the turn to rational actor modeling is a broader shift in legal studies more generally.<br />
17 On this point, Philp (1997: 445) is particularly helpful.<br />
11
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
definitions hinge on an actor’s self-conscious decision to commit an abuse in order to<br />
receive, or because she has already received, a bribe. In this sense, a bribe is constituted<br />
by a corrupting intent. This is precisely how numerous laws define bribery. 18 When we<br />
ask whether or not bribery was committed, therefore, we tend to frame this question in<br />
terms of intent. In the case of Timagoras, the question becomes, “Did Timagoras intend<br />
to abuse his power in order to receive dōra from the King?”<br />
By focusing on the intent of the bribe, these definitions all implicitly answer the<br />
very problem of intent: “What was Timagoras’ motivation in abusing his power? To win<br />
dōra from the King.” Market-based approaches to bribery have been particularly popular<br />
theoretical models, in this regard, precisely because they promise to predict the behavior<br />
of political agents who, like Timagoras, are placed into a situation in which they must<br />
represent the interests of their agent, here the Athenian people. Perhaps unsurprisingly<br />
given that this model was developed by political economists, such predictions stem from<br />
rational actor models of behavior. Why, then, did Timagoras take the King’s dōra? A<br />
more specific answer would posit that the incentives—the dōra themselves—outweighed<br />
the risks of any potential costs, such as death, loss of prestige, or, in Timagoras’ case,<br />
prolonged illness. In gauging the intent of someone like Timagoras, the question is thus<br />
framed in terms of a cost-benefit analysis, precisely as we asked earlier: “why, given the<br />
high risk of death, did Timagoras take bribes?”<br />
It should be noted that the most prominent factor in structuring an agent’s cost-<br />
benefit analysis is usually taken to be the law itself; this is, in fact, a major reason why<br />
market-based approaches feature so heavily in public policy debates today. To be sure,<br />
18 See, for example, 18 U.S.C. § 201 (b) and, generally, “Campaign Contributions and Federal Bribery<br />
Law,” 92 Har. L. R. 451 [1978]; section 1 of the British Prevention of Corruption Act (1906).<br />
12
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
this assumes that the law plays a particular role in society—namely as a force that deters<br />
people from performing certain actions, and as the sole legitimate force in society for<br />
doing just that—but ultimately this assumption is presumed to be trivial. Yes, the law<br />
seems to act as a deterrent after all; and, yes, it seems reasonable to conclude that laws<br />
are intended to be legitimate. Given these assumptions, our question about the use of the<br />
death penalty against Timagoras becomes, “why did the Athenians place such a high<br />
penalty on bribery? Was bribery that bad? Or was no other punishment acting as a<br />
deterrent?”<br />
I have reframed each of the problems of definition, intent, and the role of law in<br />
terms of questions that might typically be posed by someone, scholar or layman, coming<br />
across the story of Timagoras. As we will see shortly, however, these questions are<br />
essentially dead-ends in the Athenian context for they incorporate theoretical assumptions<br />
that simply do not apply to ancient Athens—ironically, I would argue, they may not<br />
apply to most contemporary polities, as well. 19 A more particularistic analysis is needed<br />
for examining the Athenian case, and this dissertation aims to provide just such an<br />
analysis. The above theoretical questions about how to approach bribery provide a<br />
skeleton for the dissertation. Turning now to the ways in which Timagoras’ embassy<br />
19 Finally, it should be noted that my account focuses solely on dōrodokia, which, unlike extortion,<br />
coercion, or blackmail, was thought to have been devoid of any violence or force (bia). While I do not<br />
deny that bribery can often be combined with these other forms of corruption, dōrodokia, as the Athenians<br />
conceptualized it, was a discrete problem and will be treated accordingly. It was also a far more prevalent<br />
problem, based on the relatively scarce reference made to extortion during the democracy. Note how the<br />
practice of sycophancy, in which a citizen blackmailed another citizen by bringing a false suit against him,<br />
was in fact depicted in the language of violence and coercion: Christ (1998) is essential here; cf. Osborne<br />
(1985) and Harvey (1985). Yet even such blackmail was relegated to the judicial sphere and does not<br />
appear to have carried over into other political spheres. That an official like Miltiades might extort money<br />
was, by comparison to the frequency of dōrodokia charges, exceedingly rare: Hdt. 6.136, Corn. Nep. Milt.<br />
7; cf. Plut. Them. 21.<br />
13
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
signals a different approach to bribery and its regulation will thus motivate a synopsis of<br />
the larger argument to come.<br />
In defining what bribery was, the Athenians focused on outcome, not intent. The<br />
Athenian word for bribery was dōrodokia, which literally meant “the receipt of gifts in<br />
anticipation of some bad outcome.” 20 There was no word for ‘bribes’, and without a bad<br />
outcome associated with the gifts, there was no bribery to speak of. Thus, the main law<br />
against dōrodokia explicitly defined the offense of bribery as whenever someone gives or<br />
receives “to the harm of the people” (e)pi\ bla/bh| tou= dh/mou, Dem. 21.113). The<br />
Athenians conceptualized dōrodokia by focusing on the outcome: what mattered was the<br />
result of the gifts, not the context in or intent with which they were given. Gifts with bad<br />
outcomes were bribes; and bad outcomes were presumed to be caused by bribery. 21 In<br />
this sense, the appropriate question we should ask about Timagoras was not whether or<br />
not he intended to abuse his power, but whether or not the outcome of his actions was<br />
acceptable.<br />
Surely disagreements over what constituted an acceptable outcome arose in the<br />
democracy: witness Timagoras’ misestimation of Athenian attitudes towards his gift-<br />
taking and especially towards the outcome of the treaty he negotiated with the King.<br />
These evaluative discrepancies underpin Chapter One, in which I respond to the problem<br />
of definition by outlining a relational model of bribery. This model treats bribery not as a<br />
class of political actions, but as a political claim about actions. Bribery, on my view, is a<br />
kind of social frame: a normative assessment of a sequence of events positing a<br />
20 This is a controversial translation, defended at length in Chapter One. Usually scholars translate<br />
dōrodokia as “receipt of gifts”: Harvey (1985: 83), Kulesza (1995: 11-12), Taylor (2001: 53), Hashiba<br />
(2006: 62), but this is inherently problematic: Chapter One below.<br />
21 I thank Arudra Burra for clarifying for me the distinction between these constitutive and denominative<br />
definitions of bribery.<br />
14
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
particular exchange as the cause of some normative violation. Whether or not an<br />
exchange really did cause the violation is beside the point, I argue, because accusing<br />
someone of bribery was a particular mode of Athenian politics. In this sense, it would<br />
have mattered little to the Athenians whether Timagoras’ actions as ambassador were<br />
caused by, specifically, the dōra he received from the King; all that would have mattered<br />
was that he had failed to advocate Athens’ interests enough.<br />
Accordingly, we can see how discrete claims that bribery had been committed<br />
could be linked up with broader political narratives about bribery and the democracy.<br />
This is the value of the ‘potential trajectory’ represented by Timagoras’ bribery. By<br />
weighing whether or not Timagoras’ actions should be deemed legitimate, the Athenians<br />
transformed an accusation of bribery into a constitutive part of public discourse. As will<br />
be outlined in Chapter One, individual accusations of bribery framed a bribe-giver or<br />
bribe-taker in terms of a broader social type, the dōrodokos or ‘corrupt man’. By casting<br />
an offending individual as a stereotype, each accusation of bribery thus negotiated broad<br />
public norms structuring who the dōrodokos was and what role he should play in the<br />
democracy.<br />
For his contemporaries, Timagoras qua a dōrodokos was an example of a bad<br />
friend, a man who betrayed his friend and fellow ambassador Leon for money and the<br />
company of others. Timagoras was thus prosecuted in part because he refused to room<br />
with his fellow ambassador and because he followed the Theban ambassador Pelopidas’<br />
counsel in all matters (Xen. Hell. 1.35). As Demosthenes clearly indicates, these two<br />
accusations were conceptually linked, for both represented the breaking of a “compact”<br />
15
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
(spondai/), whether between friends or between a citizen and his country. 22 By not<br />
rooming with Leon, Timagoras was thought to be signaling his alignment with a different<br />
set of political friends—here, Pelopidas, whose policy recommendations he endorsed<br />
even when they proved detrimental to Athens’ interests (Xen. Hell. 1.35-6). Similarly,<br />
when the King followed Pelopidas’ recommendations and demanded that Athens beach<br />
her warships, Leon warned that the King was no longer behaving like Athens’ friend (cf.<br />
fi/lon, Xen. Hell. 1.37). Just as the King’s policy suggested a rupture of the friendship<br />
he enjoyed with Athens, Timagoras’ actions towards Leon and his counsel to the King<br />
suggested that he was betraying friend and city, alike. 23<br />
In Timagoras’ case, the dōrodokos was, specifically, a traitor to the city. So the<br />
end of Plutarch’s story hints that it was Timagoras’ implicit treason that explains his<br />
punishment, for the Athenians had a hard time accepting that everything had gone to the<br />
Thebans’ advantage. This explanation also underpins the more contemporary treatments<br />
given by Xenophon and Demosthenes. In both of these accounts, there is considerably<br />
more at stake than an unfavorable peace settlement. Instead, these versions underscore<br />
that what was Thebes’ gain was explicitly Athens’ loss: in this light Timagoras’ actions<br />
reflected a reprehensible readiness to join with Athens’ enemies; he was a traitor. 24 From<br />
this we can begin to see that the way in which Athenians conceptualized dōrodokia might<br />
22<br />
Note here the parallel structure of Demosthenes’ thought, which syntactically balances public and private<br />
compacts: oi9 a)dikou~ntej dhlono&ti ta_j ta_j o3 o3lhj o3 lhj ge th~j patri/doj sponda&j sponda&j...ou) sponda&j<br />
mo&non ta_j ta_j i0di/aj i0di/aj (Dem.<br />
19.191). Moreover, the orator underscores how such private bonds emphatically connoted public bonds, as<br />
well, for he fronts the word o3lhj (“entire”), which is itself already intensified by , within the articleadjective-noun-noun<br />
sequence. <br />
23<br />
In the same vein, Xenophon contrasts Timagoras’ actions in being a bad friend to Leon with those of<br />
Antiochus the Arcadian, who refuses the King’s gifts precisely because the Arcadian League was<br />
“slighted” by the King (h)lattou=to, Xen. Hell. 7.1.38.).<br />
24<br />
Dem 19.137, 191; Xen. Hell. 7.1.37. Plutarch is even more explicit on this point in calling the King’s<br />
gifts a “reproach unto treason more than a token of friendly charis” (o)neidismo\j e)j prodosi/an ma=llon h) \<br />
xa/ritoj u(po/mnhsij, Plut. Art. 22.6).<br />
16
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
have a significant effect on how they regulated it. After all, we might be less inclined to<br />
query the death of a traitor than that of a venal politician.<br />
It is precisely on this point that Plutarch’s juxtaposition of Epicrates and<br />
Timagoras becomes so instructive, for accounts of Epicrates’ embassy condemn him not<br />
for treason, but for profiteering. With Epicrates, the excessive amount of the King’s gifts<br />
seems to have been the only issue. In his comedy The Presbeis, Plato Comicus describes<br />
in detail the range of different gold and silver cups that Epicrates took (Plato Com. frr.<br />
119-21K). The comic poet even comments on how many of them there were (cf.<br />
plei=sta, Pl. Com. fr. 119.2K) and notes that both ambassadors made off like thieves (cf.<br />
e)klepte/thn, Pl. Com. fr. 120K; kle/yaj, Pl. Com. fr. 121K). Indeed, the entire anecdote<br />
is framed around how Epicrates had profited, while the rest of the city remained poor<br />
(Plut. Pelop. 30.7). Earlier, too, when Epicrates purportedly took dōra from Timocrates,<br />
the author of the Hellenica Oxyrhyncia notes that the dōra themselves did not change<br />
Epicrates’ mind; they were pure profit (Hell. Oxy. 2.2-5). Instead of being a traitor,<br />
Epicrates seems to have been much closer to a thief.<br />
In this way we can tease out of Plutarch’s account the idea that conceptions of<br />
who the dōrodokos was actually changed throughout the democracy. This fundamental<br />
point courses through Chapters Two through Four, which examine how and why political<br />
narratives about the dōrodokos changed throughout the democracy. Building on the<br />
relational model developed in Chapter One, these chapters explore how changing<br />
economic and political circumstances, as well as patterns of social relations in politics all<br />
shaped how the dōrodokos was conceived: he changed from a kind of disobedient citizen<br />
in the fifth century (Chapter Two), to a thief in the early fourth century (Chapter Three),<br />
17
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
and finally to a traitor in the last half century of the democracy (Chapter Four). As will<br />
be clear, by focusing on changing social relations and the obligations that inhere therein,<br />
we are forced to frame the intent of the dōrodokos in a very different light. Rather than<br />
behave like a rational actor pursuing his own (financial) utility, the dōrodokos emerges as<br />
a bad friend unsuccessfully negotiating a range of different relationships, in particular his<br />
‘friendship’ with the community itself. In these cases, the ‘motivation’ we seek to<br />
explain is not so much why a given individual violated a norm for personal gain as why<br />
he failed to frame his actions in those terms.<br />
This was true of Timagoras, who delicately balanced relationships with Leon,<br />
Pelopidas, and the Persian King, in addition to his civic ‘friendship’ with the Athenian<br />
people. Hence, contemporary accounts of the embassy focused intensely on the<br />
friendships forged and broken in Susa. Timagoras effectively renounced his personal<br />
friendship with Leon (a major reason for his subsequent trial) and in doing so signaled<br />
that he was renouncing his friendship with Athens, too. In addition, the details of<br />
Xenophon’s and Demosthenes’ versions suggest that Timagoras may also have been<br />
thought to have conspired with Pelopidas and the King: this would explain why<br />
Timagoras “testified on behalf of” Pelopidas’ speech and why the King subsequently held<br />
Timagoras in such high esteem (sunemartu/rei, Xen. Hell. 7.1.35). On this<br />
reconstruction, for Timagoras’ critics, the danger he posed was that he was actively<br />
colluding with political friends outside the city in order to do damage to the city itself.<br />
As Plutarch notes, the gift given by the King was not in itself considered bad, but the<br />
exchange was blamed because of the collusion and treason it concealed. For all we<br />
know, however, Timagoras simply viewed things differently: he might have thought<br />
18
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
Athens had little negotiating power, and he might have blamed his sickness for why he<br />
would not room with Leon. In short, we must take seriously the possibility that<br />
Timagoras never considered himself a traitor. To that extent, a rational actor model<br />
simply fails to understand his motivation.<br />
Timagoras was not alone in being wholly ignorant of the ways in which he was<br />
unsuccessfully negotiating his relationship with the community. The first four chapters<br />
reveal how Athens’ greatest politicians—Themistocles, Cimon, Pericles, Cleon,<br />
Aeschines and Demosthenes—were all accused of dōrodokia, yet few seemed to think of<br />
their actions as ‘bribery’. Indeed, if Timagoras and countless other officials like him<br />
were somehow unaware that they had failed the Athenians, they must have understood<br />
their own actions as benefiting the democracy in some way. They must have slotted their<br />
own actions into some larger political narrative about how a ‘good’ democracy functions.<br />
This claim will be taken up extensively in Chapters Two through Four, which<br />
collectively show how dōrodokia operated very much in the shadows of democracy: the<br />
monies taken by the dōrodokos were constantly weighed against the monies of<br />
democracy as two sides of the same coin. In effect, Timagoras and other dōrodokoi may<br />
have thought they were dealing in legitimate political monies, only to discover, too late,<br />
that the Athenians considered them bribe monies. Considerable disagreement arose, in<br />
large part, because within both dōrodokia and the democracy, monies were used as<br />
metaphors for the relationships they negotiated. Bribes signified corrupt social relations<br />
in politics, just as the legitimate monies of the democracy—e.g. state pay, public honors,<br />
tribute—signaled the proper social relations constitutive of the democracy itself. Such<br />
‘weighing’ of monies, then, underscored a more profound weighing of how politics<br />
19
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
should be conducted. Whereas the dōrodokos might have thought his actions were<br />
legitimate, even downright beneficial to the polity, his opponents called them dōrodokia<br />
and corruptive of the democracy.<br />
It is in this sense that discursive shifts in the figure of the dōrodokos reflected<br />
changes in broader political narratives about the democracy. As the polity developed,<br />
new monies were used to negotiate new social relations within politics, and these new<br />
monies reflected new ways to conceptualize the ideal relationship between citizen and<br />
community. What we will discover in these chapters, though, is that the Athenians<br />
essentially thought through such discursive shifts by thinking with the figure of the<br />
dōrodokos. Bribe monies signaled illegitimate relations, processes or outcomes; by<br />
articulating what constituted such illegitimate monies, the Athenians implicitly outlined<br />
the contours of the legitimate practice of politics.<br />
In detailing how the Athenians conceptualized dōrodokia, the first four chapters<br />
illustrate just how far removed we are from intent-based, rational actor approaches to<br />
bribery. Indeed, the Athenians focused on outcomes, and they located bribery squarely<br />
within the framework of gift exchange and the relationships it negotiates. The relevant<br />
questions they would have posed of Timagoras would have been: “was the outcome of<br />
his actions good?” and “what made him think he was successfully negotiating his<br />
relationship with the community?” Answering these questions would have answered, for<br />
an Athenian, whether Timagoras’ actions constituted dōrodokia, and what his ultimate<br />
motivation was. Again, accusing someone like Timagoras of dōrodokia was a way to<br />
signal that a given political outcome was bad. It opened up public discussion about<br />
20
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
whether or not the ‘potential trajectory’ constituted by his actions was, in fact, a desirable<br />
path for the democracy.<br />
Judging by the rates of bribery trials in the democracy, the Athenians apparently<br />
thought that a lot of just such ‘potential trajectories’ in their democracy had been bad; in<br />
this sense, the outright presumption of bribery was perhaps not entirely unwarranted.<br />
Scholarly estimates of the prevalence of Athenian bribery have varied considerably, but<br />
the number of bribery prosecutions and convictions, to say nothing of instances that never<br />
came to trial, is enormously high by Western standards. 25 Even with considerable gaps in<br />
our evidence, we have attested 32 different prosecutions of bribery with an additional 22<br />
cases of varying degrees of certainty; all but a handful of these cases fall during the<br />
period 430-322, the best-attested period of the democracy. 26 At least 36 of these 54 trials<br />
resulted in conviction. 27 Although extrapolating from our evidence is hazardous, we can<br />
plausibly estimate that roughly 6-10% of major public officials would have been brought<br />
to trial on accusations of bribery, and roughly half of these officials would have been<br />
convicted. 28<br />
25<br />
Kulesza (1995: 39-40) rightly remarks that, given the tremendous gaps in our sources, the unusually<br />
high prevalence of bribery attested in our sources is most likely only the tip of the iceberg. Scholarly<br />
estimates run the gamut from positing widespread peculation—MacDowell (1983), Cargill (1985), Strauss<br />
(1985)—to claiming that dōrodokia was “more [frequent] than would be regarded as acceptable in our own<br />
society” (Harvey [1985]) or, in the exceptional view of Perlman (1976: 231), “not very widespread.”<br />
Estimating the prevalence of bribery is notoriously difficult even in non-historical societies and cannot be<br />
our aim here. Still, it is worth considering that, by the standards defined by political scientists—on which<br />
see Chapter One—bribery was probably a regular occurrence in the democracy: cf. Cargill (1985: 79).<br />
26<br />
For the catalog of bribery trials, see Kulesza (1995: 85-90) and, for a slightly modified list in English,<br />
Taylor (2001).<br />
27<br />
For the 34 known dōrodokia trials (32 known plus 2 for which dōrodokia is mentioned in our sources but<br />
not at the trial), 19 resulted in conviction, 4 resulted in acquittal, 6 presumably resulted in acquittal, and the<br />
result for 5 is unknown. Of the remaining 20 trials, 17 resulted in conviction, 1 probably did so, there was<br />
1 acquittal, and 1 with unknown outcome. Of these latter 17 convictions, however, 9 come from the trial of<br />
the Treasurers of Hellas (Hellēnotamiai), who reportedly were convicted unjustly; the tenth was saved from<br />
certain death when proof of their innocence was discovered during his trial (Ant. 5.69-71).<br />
28<br />
The vast majority of our attested bribery trials are prosecutions of generals, public speakers (rhētores),<br />
or ambassadors (the latter two categories after 411). If we assume roughly 100 rhētores during the 90 or so<br />
years after the introduction of an eisangelia for bribe-taking by a rhētor and, on average, a total of roughly<br />
21
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
Our sources suggest, moreover, that the Athenians enacted and modified more<br />
legislative and institutional reforms dealing with bribery than for any other offense. They<br />
created no fewer than seven legal processes for prosecuting the gift or receipt of bribes,<br />
whether generally or involving specific officials in specific contexts; some of these were<br />
modified more than once over the course of the democracy. The penalties attached to<br />
these legal processes—a tenfold fine, disfranchisement, or death—were considerable.<br />
There were, in addition, public curses and oaths against taking bribes, as well as<br />
numerous changes to the jury and magistrate allotment procedures, reportedly to reduce<br />
the potential for corruption. And in the fourth century, on at least one occasion the entire<br />
registry of citizens had to be re-ratified under suspicion that some residents had bribed<br />
their way into the citizenry. 29<br />
These legal and institutional reforms certainly suggest that dōrodokia was a<br />
persistent problem at Athens, but is that all they suggest? Were the severe penalties for<br />
dōrodokia indications that the Athenians had trouble deterring it? Timagoras’ embassy<br />
provides two clues to the contrary. First, it is important to note that, in all of our<br />
accounts, the only person who was ‘deterred’ by these laws was the Persian King, not<br />
Timagoras or any other potential dōrodokos. Demosthenes remarks that, once the King<br />
saw how serious the Athenians were about dōrodokia—by killing Timagoras—he<br />
15 unique ambassadors and generals per year over the same time period, this amounts to around 1500<br />
possible bribery cases during this time for the most prestigious public positions, of which we have attested<br />
in one form or another 45 trials. Given the tremendous gaps in our evidence—with the high frequency of<br />
trials in the early fourth century (so Strauss [1985]), the general dearth of evidence for the 370’s is<br />
particularly striking—let us assume that these trials represent only half of the actual number of trials, or<br />
about 90 (6%) out of 1500 possible cases. By contrast, Hansen (1975; cf. 1999: 217) points out that, for<br />
the most important position, the generalship, we know of only 289, or 37%, of the 770 generalships held<br />
between 432 and 355 BCE. A more accurate assessment of the prevalence of bribery trials thus might be<br />
closer to 10% (or even 15%) of the major political positions held. This figure excludes prosecution of<br />
minor officials, for an example of which see Ant. 6.49-50.<br />
29 On these legal procedures, penalties, and institutional reforms, see most recently MacDowell (1983),<br />
Hashiba (2006). All of these developments will be treated in detail below in Chapters Five and Six.<br />
22
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
decided never to give anyone dōra again (Dem. 19.137). While we might take<br />
Demosthenes’ words with a grain of salt, it is significant that an Athenian like<br />
Demosthenes viewed the law’s deterrent effect in terms of bribe-givers, not bribe-takers.<br />
At the very least, we should reconsider our assumption that the law was intended<br />
primarily to deter potential bribe-takers. Second, it is also significant that, at least in<br />
Plutarch’s account, Timagoras weighs his decision not in terms of the letter of the law—<br />
i.e. what the law actually says—but in terms of the law in action. He recalls how<br />
Epicrates happily took dōra and went unpunished, and it was this purported legal result,<br />
rather than the law itself, that influenced his own decision.<br />
Accordingly, Chapters Five through Seven show that, in order to understand why<br />
the Athenians created the specific anti-dōrodokia legislation that they did, we need to<br />
move beyond thinking about the law solely in terms of deterrence. Chapter Five<br />
develops a theoretical framework for examining Athenian legislation on dōrodokia. In<br />
particular, it focuses on the ways in which such legislation ‘translated’ the figure of the<br />
dōrodokos into a legal entity. This framework will then be used, in Chapter Six, to trace<br />
a legal history of dōrodokia: both the kinds of legal spaces created for dōrodokia, and<br />
how those spaces were used to articulate ‘democratic’ legal and political institutions.<br />
Finally, Chapter Seven considers the function of those laws and legal processes in action,<br />
specifically how dōrodokia trials might be used not only to educate Athenians in civic<br />
values, but even to legitimate policies, political processes, and even political players.<br />
Given the sheer number of attested dōrodokia trials as well as the extensive<br />
breadth and depth of reforms geared towards dōrodokia, this legal history provides us<br />
with a uniquely detailed look at the changing relationship between law and society at<br />
23
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
Athens throughout the democracy. As the second half of the dissertation shows, in the<br />
same way as the dōrodokos was articulated in opposition to the good democratic citizen,<br />
the Athenians used the dōrodokos in law to think through what ‘democratic’ institutions<br />
and legal processes should look like. We find, then, a complex process of norm<br />
articulation whereby legal and institutional changes both reflected and influenced social<br />
norms governing the dōrodokos. In particular, picking up on the idea of bribery as an<br />
alternate trajectory for the democracy, these chapters suggest that the Athenians actively<br />
sought to create a political space in which the power of bribery as a distinct mode of<br />
politics could be leveraged for the good of the democracy. The Athenians took seriously<br />
the idea that political outcomes were neither good nor bad until they were so legitimated<br />
(or delegitimized) by the people. And one prominent way to legitimate outcomes was<br />
through dōrodokia trials. Hence, the reason why the Athenians killed dōrodokoi like<br />
Timagoras often had more to do with this process of legitimization than with any inherent<br />
desire to deter dōrodokia.<br />
There are numerous areas of Athenian political practice that will always be<br />
frustratingly beyond our reach. How often were dōra given with the explicit intent of<br />
changing an official’s mind? Were dōra given and received only within the context of<br />
pre-existing relations, or were one-off bribes also common? What were the real-life<br />
political and economic effects of undeniable cases of dōrodokia? These are big questions<br />
for any account of bribery. As often, even in modern case-studies, they will regrettably<br />
be left unanswered. For a host of reasons, there is no systematic way to gather evidence<br />
on bribery, ancient or modern, including records of bribes received or testimonies of the<br />
parties involved. The Athenian case, though frustratingly incomplete, might nevertheless<br />
24
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction<br />
be of just as much use as any contemporary study in shedding light on current models<br />
used to examine bribery.<br />
On the whole, the goal of the following seven chapters is to paint a picture of how<br />
dōrodokia shaped the development of the Athenian democracy: representing an alternate<br />
trajectory that the democracy might take, instances of purported bribery were significant<br />
political and cultural moments at Athens. The Athenians consequently enacted a range of<br />
legal and institutional measures to weigh these moments and leverage them for the<br />
collective good. Each time dōrodokia was thought to have arisen, the Athenians decided<br />
as a collective body whether a particular outcome associated with dōrodokia was<br />
legitimate—and hence consonant with the democracy—or illegitimate—and hence<br />
bribery. And in looking back at the development of the democracy, they repeatedly<br />
looked to the dōrodokos as the conceptual bogeyman of their polity: the anti-citizen who<br />
violated his ‘friendship’ with the community. As we will consider in the Conclusion,<br />
even though dōrodokia appears to have been quite frequent, it need not have been<br />
detrimental to the polity. In fact, this dissertation suggests that we should take seriously<br />
the idea that more frequent bribery, playing the specific role it did in Classical Athens,<br />
actually may have helped, not harmed the emergence and persistence of democracy.<br />
25
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
Bribery, Politics, and the Problem of Definition<br />
Every inquiry into bribery must grapple with the question of definition: what is<br />
bribery? Typically, bribery is assumed to be an illicit payment to an official to obtain<br />
services or to avoid costs; that is, bribery is considered a particular type of abuse of<br />
public power for private gain. 1 So, for instance, paying a policeman not to write a<br />
speeding ticket, paying a legislator to vote a particular way, or paying a bureaucrat for a<br />
public contract or to expedite some public service are all classic examples of bribery in<br />
action, according to this definition. But what about paying a student to get good grades, a<br />
referee or athlete to throw a sporting event, or a bureaucrat who demands additional<br />
compensation for the provision of a public service? Are these not bribery, as well? Are<br />
they somehow qualitatively and meaningfully distinct from the above definition?<br />
One response might be to narrow our scope to include only ‘political’ bribery—so<br />
that pay-for-grades and athletic bribery are not included—and to differentiate between<br />
bribery and extortion, which might eliminate the last example given. In this way, we<br />
might arrive at a satisfactory set of actions, all firmly located within the public sphere<br />
(however that is defined), and all readily described as bribery. This is, in fact, the course<br />
adopted by most scholars, and there is much to recommend it, as it allows us to compare<br />
cross-culturally what does and does not constitute bribery. In the case of ancient Athens,<br />
1 On this definition, see the recent discussion in Johnston (2005: 10-12). Alternatively, bribery is<br />
conceptualized as a means to corrupt a person’s (sc. public official’s) judgment, a definition used by<br />
Harvey (1985: 77) and Taylor (2001: 53) in their examinations of ancient bribery. Such a definition,<br />
however, quickly blends into an “illicit payment”: if it were licit, there would be no corruption of<br />
judgment; and the payment would not be necessary if the official was already going to do what was being<br />
paid for. The definition of bribery given above can thus be taken, simply, as an elaboration of why a<br />
corrupting payment is successful (because it succeeds in creating an abuse of public power for private<br />
gain).<br />
26
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
for example, by obtaining even just a rough approximation of what the Athenians<br />
considered an ‘abuse’, ‘public’, ‘power’, ‘private’ and ‘gain’, we might begin to<br />
understand which actions did and did not constitute bribery at Athens. From there we<br />
could more accurately differentiate between those actions that were really bribery at<br />
Athens and those that only seem (to us) like bribery but were perfectly licit for the<br />
Athenians, and so forth.<br />
Or so the theory goes. There are immediate, salient problems with taking a<br />
definition like “abuse of public power for private gain”—already laden in specific<br />
normative terms, it seems—and trying to translate it from one normative context to<br />
another. Even within a given set of cultural norms, it is unclear on what grounds<br />
‘abuse’ should be defined. Is it a violation of formal (legal) rules regarding the conduct<br />
of public officials, an action that goes contrary to the public interest, or one that goes<br />
against the public’s conception of what is acceptable? 2 Again, we could simply limit<br />
ourselves to one way of defining ‘abuse’ (or ‘power’ or ‘gain’, for that matter). But<br />
doing so obscures the crucial political work done by, say, limiting our scope to formal<br />
regulations of official conduct while disregarding both public opinion about what the law<br />
should say and the extent to which the law is seen to foster the public interest. This is not<br />
just an issue of asking, when a particular law is thought unjust, whether it should be<br />
2 These three options correspond to a modified version of Arnold Heidenheimer’s (1989) threefold<br />
typology of definitions of corruption. Heidenheimer differentiates between defining ‘abuse’ according to<br />
the norms of public office (i.e. legal norms) or the public interest; alternatively, under a market-based<br />
approach, public officials qua rational (utility maximizing) agents always tend to use public office to<br />
maximize private gain or influence. As Philp (1997: 445) has convincingly shown, however, market-based<br />
approaches always already incorporate legalistic definitions insofar as they presume that proper official<br />
conduct is determined by the law. In place of the market-oriented approach, therefore, I have included<br />
Gibbons’ (1989) definition based on public opinion even though this approach has not gained much<br />
traction; see also Peters and Welch (1978). Legalistic approaches can be found in Leys (1965), Nye<br />
(1967), Scott (1972). Public interest approach: Gronbeck (1978). Market-based model: Banfield (1975),<br />
Rose-Ackerman (1978, 1999), Klitgaard (1988), Goudie and Stasavage (1998), della Porta and Vannuci<br />
(1999), Lambsdorff (2002).<br />
27
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
considered bribery if officials follow public opinion and the public interest by regularly<br />
accepting bribes not to heed the law; or, conversely, whether perfectly legal lobbying<br />
efforts or campaign contributions should not, in fact, be considered legalized bribery.<br />
Rather, I am calling into question what is at stake—what is actually being measured—by<br />
terming such instances ‘bribery’.<br />
Certainly it is valuable to try to reduce bribery to an essential core which can then<br />
be compared across normative contexts, but the standard definition seems to<br />
misunderstand the nature of that core. In positing an apolitical, neutral definition of<br />
bribery that need only be adapted to a particular culture’s norms, the standard view<br />
misses the fact that every definition of bribery is a political claim: by marking out what<br />
is considered ‘bad’ government, the actions that constitute bribery negatively define the<br />
contours of good government. 3 To that extent, the standard definition actually posits a<br />
specific normative framework for understanding bribery, while allowing only the<br />
contents of that framework to vary cross-culturally; far from being apolitical or<br />
normatively neutral, the standard definition is, itself, a political, normative definition.<br />
Definitions of ‘abuse’ likewise hinge on the terms by which we define the<br />
workings of good government: whether it functions in accordance with the law, public<br />
interest, or public opinion. While it might be illuminating to measure to what extent<br />
different countries adhere to a given definition of good government, this is ultimately a<br />
bizarre comparison, not least because different polities can be organized under different<br />
guiding principles. Phrased this way, the standard approach to defining and measuring<br />
3 Euben (1989), Philp (1997), Génaux (2004) and, with reference to US campaign contribution debates,<br />
Burke (2006). Harrison (2004) highlights the importance and power entailed in naming something<br />
‘corruption’.<br />
28
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
bribery seems an odd approach to take particularly for historical societies like ancient<br />
Athens.<br />
This chapter presents a different approach to how we should define and measure<br />
bribery, one that treats bribery not as a class of political actions, but as a political claim<br />
about actions. The first section will present an overview of this approach, examining<br />
how bribery, as a social frame, creates distinct normative patterns in every polity. The<br />
following section will apply this approach to the case of democratic Athens by focusing,<br />
in particular, on the language of bribery and the practice of politics. There it will be<br />
shown that the medium of bribery, the bribe, is emblematic of a host of different ways in<br />
which the Athenians leveraged social relationships in the practice of politics. In the<br />
third and last section, we will consider how the normative value of the bribe often shifts<br />
depending on whether one adopts the frame of an insider—someone part of the bribe<br />
relationship—or an outsider. In turn, public discourse on what did and did not constitute<br />
bribery was, itself, composed of numerous, competing accusations of bribery.<br />
Understanding how this public discourse was constructed will enable us, in the chapters<br />
to come, to measure how and why Athenian conceptions of bribery changed over the<br />
course of the democracy, and how bribery played an integral role in how the Athenians<br />
thought through their democracy.<br />
A Relational Approach to Bribery<br />
The relational approach adopted here begins with the simple claim that bribery<br />
entails both social relations and norms. First, bribery is never conducted in a social<br />
vacuum: there are always at least two participants linked by some kind of social tie, even<br />
29
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
if that tie is as bare as an arms-length bureaucrat-citizen relationship. Second, and this is<br />
precisely the phenomenon captured by defining bribery as a kind of “illicit payment” or<br />
“abuse,” bribery implies a violation of some norm. The crucial distinction between the<br />
standard view and my own is how these two components—social relations and norms—<br />
are combined with each other to create the category ‘bribery’.<br />
On the standard view, the norms are taken to define the social relations involved<br />
in bribery. As noted earlier, once we define the categories of ‘abuse’, ‘public’, ‘power’,<br />
etc., we purportedly can determine the class of actions that constitute bribery. The social<br />
relations that pertain in these actions are thus wholly incidental, but they are also,<br />
themselves, determined by how we define the prevailing norms concerning ‘abuse’,<br />
‘public’, etc. For an illicit payment to constitute bribery, in the sense that we want, it<br />
would necessarily entail some counterbalancing of ‘public’ and ‘private’. In other words,<br />
bribery would be possible only among those social relations that involve a ‘public’<br />
individual.<br />
This may seem like an acceptable result, but note how quickly it can both under-<br />
determine and over-determine what scholars are actually trying to measure. Where a<br />
strong informal network holds considerable power in society, for example, even if it does<br />
not control the formal organs of government, within the network there may be no ‘public’<br />
individuals, proper. Hence, the use of bribe-like payments within the network should not<br />
strictly be considered bribery under the standard definition. Conversely, it is not always<br />
an ‘abuse’ of power for a public official to receive some kind of gain in exchange for a<br />
favorable vote: again, vote-swapping, campaign financing, and lobbying by special<br />
30
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
interest groups may be perfectly legal modes of conducting politics, even if to most<br />
observers such payments may look like bribes.<br />
What we find, then, is that by forcing actions into an already culturally<br />
determined framework, scholars have defined a pattern of actions that only imperfectly<br />
approximates the phenomenon they wish to study. It should be noted that the same<br />
problem will recur given any attempt to define bribery in apolitical terms: bribery is a<br />
political phenomenon, so we should expect that there are as many definitions of bribery<br />
as there are of polity. Accordingly, bribery qua a pattern of actions defies rigorous<br />
definition.<br />
I propose, instead, a relational approach to bribery in which the social relations,<br />
not the norms, assume a prior role in definition; in this way, we should think of bribery<br />
not as a distinct pattern of actions generated by specific cultural norms, but as a<br />
normative pattern generated by distinct social relations. 4 My approach follows on recent<br />
work by economic sociologists, who have sought to break down the orthodox divide<br />
between ‘economic’ and ‘social’ modes of behavior, traditionally considered to occupy<br />
separate spheres of action and hence to be predicated on different logics of action. 5<br />
4 By ‘relational’ I intend to move past the concept of ‘embeddedness’, as classicists might recognize from<br />
the influential work of Polanyi (1968)—e.g. Finley (1977), von Reden (1995a), Kurke (1999)—and as<br />
underpins the work of recent economic sociologists like Granovetter (1985), Uzzi and Lancaster (2004).<br />
Embeddedness points towards how social relations shape economic activity. Yet these social relations are<br />
largely taken to be a flat structure within which ‘economic’, as distinct from ‘relational’, activity is carried<br />
out. On a relational view, within this structure the only work that occurs—the only meaning that is defined,<br />
contested, and negotiated—is relational work. In this sense, ‘economics’ does not occur within social<br />
relations—it is not simply “embedded” in them. Rather, economics is about social relations and is, in this<br />
sense, constitutive of them. For a helpful overview of the differences and similarities between a relational<br />
approach and Polanyi’s work on embeddedness, see Steiner (2009).<br />
5 People have persistent fears over mixing money and relationships, as if the former are destructive or<br />
corruptive of the latter. Zelizer calls this fear “Hostile Worlds” and discusses it at length in Zelizer<br />
(2005b). In terms of ‘economic’ activity, this dichotomy had until recently amounted to scholars’<br />
polarization of gifts and commodities—that is, inalienable goods exchanged between interdependent actors<br />
and alienable goods exchanged between independent actors, in Gregory’s (1982) influential formulation—<br />
which are, accordingly, exchanged according to different logics: see also Sahlins (1972: 277-314). As<br />
31
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
Instead of claiming, like neo-classical economists, that economic behavior is not shaped<br />
in any significant way by social context or prevailing social norms, economic sociologists<br />
posit that economic actions are constitutive of social relations and the cultural meanings<br />
attached to them. 6 Production, distribution, and consumption, the traditional spheres of<br />
‘economic’ activity, are always already relational activities, playing a valuable role in the<br />
relational work people perform every day. 7<br />
In particular, Viviana Zelizer has developed a relational framework for analyzing<br />
economic activity, one that will lay the foundation for our investigation of bribery.<br />
Zelizer defines economic transactions by the presence of a transaction medium, called a<br />
‘money’: “a representation of rights to goods and services, usually in the form of<br />
concrete tokens.” 8 Just as important as the transaction medium (the money given or<br />
received) are the transaction context and the social relation of the transactors. While the<br />
relations of the transactors can vary almost infinitely, Zelizer distinguishes among only<br />
three types of transaction contexts—gift, compensation, and entitlement—which<br />
Bourdieu (1977: 171-7) points out, however, transacting even in gifts requires misrecognition; ‘economic’<br />
calculation can and does factor into how or what gifts are exchanged. See further discussion at Appadurai<br />
(1986: 13), Bloch and Parry (1989: 8-12). What economic sociologists like Zelizer have done, therefore,<br />
is to posit that the logic of the exchange is oriented around the social relations of the transaction, not<br />
necessarily the exchanged goods, themselves.<br />
6<br />
To be sure, recent literature in the New Institutional Economics and the contextualist camp of the New<br />
Economic Sociology has modified the neo-classical model tremendously: see the overview in Lambsdorff,<br />
Taube and Schramm (2005), with examples in della Porta and Vannuci (1999) and Warburton (2001) on<br />
networks and corruption. Still, the essential core of these models is assumed to be the traditional homo<br />
economicus rational actor. It is here, in dissolving a rational actor approach, that the alternative camp of<br />
economic sociologists makes its boldest and most stimulating claims.<br />
7<br />
See further Abolafia (1996), Tilly and Tilly (1998), Biggart and Delbridge (2004), Fourcade and Healy<br />
(2007).<br />
8<br />
Quote from Zelizer (2001: 9992). Zelizer (2001) provides a helpful overview of the sociology of money<br />
summarized here; see also Davis (1992), Zelizer (1994; 2005b), Zelizer and Tilly (2006).<br />
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correspond, respectively, to whether or not the transaction medium represents a voluntary<br />
bestowal on another, direct exchange, or rightful claim to a share. 9<br />
Building on Zelizer’s ideas, I argue that bribery should be understood no less as a<br />
way of negotiating social relations. After all, bribes are commonly taken to be just such a<br />
form of money, as it is the bribe itself—whether in cash or in kind, explicit or not—that<br />
establishes someone’s right to a particular good or service. Given that bribery is thought<br />
of as a kind of quid pro quo, we can readily classify it as a transaction of compensation<br />
(direct exchange). More specifically, I propose, something is ‘bribery’ if and only if<br />
there is an exchange, a violation of an obligation inhering in a social relationship, and a<br />
causal link between the two such that the violation is thought to occur because of the<br />
exchange. These three components should be uncontroversial given that they are always<br />
implicit whether we define bribery as a kind of “abuse [violation] of public power for<br />
[causality] private gain [exchange]” or as an “illicit [violation] payment [exchange]<br />
meant [causality] to change one’s mind.” Yet bribery occupies a special role within<br />
Zelizer’s typology because the relevant, violated social relationship is usually not that<br />
between bribe-giver and bribe-taker (i.e. the two transactors); instead, it is usually a<br />
relationship between the bribe-taker and some third party. 10<br />
Note how extending the frame in this way to encompass the perspective of a third-<br />
party creates the potential for a crucial conflict between social frames. In part because of<br />
uncertainty surrounding what constitutes bribery, in part because of the high risks<br />
9 This is a different typology than the schema of general, balanced, and negative reciprocities developed by<br />
Sahlins (1972: 185-230, esp. 191-6) and which classicists typically use: see most recently Herman (2006:<br />
30-8).<br />
10 Of course, this is not always the case. I would argue that, in the case of ‘bribing’ a child to get good<br />
grades, the child is thought to have violated an obligation either to herself or, more likely, to her parents. In<br />
this case, the exchange constitutes the violation: thereafter the child presumably would be striving to get<br />
good grades not because she owed it to her parents, but because she would be compensated for doing so.<br />
33
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associated with bribery, transacting in bribes—i.e. violating social norms—requires an<br />
enormous amount of trust. Typically, high-risk transactions are conducted through<br />
previously existing social relations, as the social relations themselves act to diffuse the<br />
risk associated with the transaction. 11 Where there are no previous social relations to<br />
guide transactors, local norms can guarantee the security of the transaction: where bribes<br />
are expected, there is little risk that they will be punished. 12 The majority of bribe<br />
transactions is thus conducted between actors who are either already linked through some<br />
social network or who can rely on prevailing institutional norms to know that the<br />
transaction is safe. This confines the giving and taking of bribes predominantly to well-<br />
defined networks of actors; people are either ‘in’ the network, or they are ‘out’ of it. 13<br />
Conflicting social frames arise when ‘insiders’ view the actions in terms of one<br />
frame, ‘outsiders’ another. On the one hand, bribe-giver and bribe-taker (the insiders)<br />
regularly frame the bribe and the service for which it is purportedly exchanged as distinct<br />
media for negotiating, contesting, and constituting a local relationship amongst<br />
themselves. As such, bribe and service can readily be framed as reciprocal gifts, not as<br />
quid pro quo compensation 14 ; often, too, they are understood as part of a longer sequence<br />
11<br />
DiMaggio and Louch (1998), and, on bribery, Humphrey (1991), Ledeneva (1998, 2008), Lambsdorff<br />
(2002), Uslaner (2004), Pardo (2004b).<br />
12<br />
Graeff (2005).<br />
13<br />
Pardo (2004b)’s study of Italian corruption demonstrates this point well in illustrating how low-level<br />
corruption requiring relatively little trust was conducted among individuals outside of any network whereas<br />
high-level corruption, requiring much higher levels of trust, was conducted via networks. Of course, in the<br />
case of prevailing local norms, simply entering into the correct institutional context—e.g. interacting with<br />
the appropriate governmental office, widely known to demand bribes—can be all it takes to become an<br />
‘insider’: see further Humphrey (1991) on outsider distinctions involving bribery. Ledeneva (1998: 39-<br />
42) differentiates bribery from blat (personal influence) by the presence or absence of networks, but she<br />
takes too narrow an understanding of bribery as entailing the use of money (qua cash). Instead, I would<br />
point out that the currency of blat networks can appear to be bribes to outsiders. In this sense, blat and<br />
bribery on Ledeneva’s definition are gradations of a range of collaborative activity that can be termed<br />
‘bribery’ on my definition.<br />
14<br />
Indeed, when there is frequent reciprocal giving within a relationship, the particular ‘bribe’ and service<br />
may be thought by insiders as completely unrelated to each other. Note how the reverse is usually the case<br />
34
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
of reciprocal exchanges that define the dynamics of that local relationship. 15 Within this<br />
frame, the transactors readily view their own actions as unproblematic or, at worst,<br />
normatively ambiguous. Even when it is recognized that some kind of non-local ‘line’<br />
has been crossed, this short-term violation is frequently justified on the grounds that it is<br />
necessary or will bring a benefit in the long-term. 16<br />
On the other hand, outsiders might frame the transaction as a bribe, that is, as<br />
compensation constituting or resulting in a violation of broader societal norms—though<br />
precisely which norms have been violated is often contested. On this view, too, the bribe<br />
performs crucial relational work, but the proper field for that relational work is often<br />
viewed as a bribe-taker’s relationship not to some bribe-giver, but to society as a whole. 17<br />
For precisely this reason, public officials who take bribes are thought to have breached<br />
some kind of public trust or to have transgressed the formal rules for office. 18<br />
in bureaucratic contexts where bribery is expected. There, ‘bribe’ and service can be closely correlated as<br />
direct exchange precisely because the local bureaucrat-citizen relationship being negotiated is an armslength<br />
tie in which market norms (like direct compensation, not gifts) prevail. On the distinction between<br />
market and social frames, see especially Heyman and Ariely (2004); as MacKenzie, Muniesa, and Siu<br />
(2007) point out, however, an arms-length tie is nevertheless a relational distance that must be constantly<br />
negotiated by two social transactors.<br />
15 Ethnographic accounts of bribery are particularly helpful on this point, as they point to how the discourse<br />
of friendship pervades how transactors frame the transaction: e.g. Ledeneva (1998: 59-66), Parry (2000:<br />
33), Pardo (2004b: 40), Rigi (2004: 111), Sedlenieks (2004: 125), Smith (2007: 85-6).<br />
16 American legislators frequently justify lobbyists and campaign contributions from special interest groups<br />
on precisely these grounds as necessary, if ambiguous, means for them to stay in office; after all, they can<br />
represent their constituents well only by remaining in office. Cf. Thompson (1995: 66). In examining US<br />
federal laws on campaign financing, Lowenstein (2004) underscores the role corrupt intent plays both in<br />
the law and in how people negotiate the giving and receiving of campaign contributions. I would reframe<br />
his question of intent (is quid pro quo intended?) as a question of framing (according to the transactors, is it<br />
quid pro quo or gift exchange?).<br />
17 Alternatively, some set of non-universal norms might provide a competing frame. So a local high-school<br />
athletic team might be let down if one of the teammates is bribed to throw the game, but we probably<br />
would not say that a societal or universal norm had been transgressed. Schweitzer’s (2005) analysis of<br />
bribery through the lens of particular vs. universal norms should thus be modified, as there is no<br />
requirement that bribery be framed from the perspective of universal, societal norms. Often times, in fact,<br />
which norms should be considered universal, which particular, is precisely the kind of political question<br />
that is negotiated through practice.<br />
18 This is, of course, where public-office and public-interest definitions of corruption derive their normative<br />
force. For the relationship between corruption and the breach of trust, see especially Uslaner (2002, 2005),<br />
Graeff (2005).<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
In the final section we will address some of the crucial implications that emerge<br />
from this conflict in social frames, but for now I would like to point out two advantages<br />
that a relational model of bribery has over the standard view. First, thinking of bribery as<br />
a social frame allows us to underscore the contiguities between bribery both inside and<br />
outside the practice of politics. Bribing a legislator is structurally homologous to bribing<br />
an agent, corrupting an athlete, or simply bribing a child to get good grades; that the one<br />
happens within the ‘political sphere’, while the others do not, is incidental to a large<br />
degree. English readily uses the same verb, “to bribe,” in each context, after all. Because<br />
there is little reason to think that political bribery is somehow unique among social<br />
practices, a proper understanding of bribery would locate political bribery within the<br />
larger context of norm violations purportedly induced by gain. This is precisely what a<br />
relational approach does.<br />
Even so, what does change among these last examples is the normative value of<br />
the bribe. 19 In other words, within each distinct social (hence normative) context this<br />
social frame takes on different normative values. For Zelizer, the ‘social meaning’ of<br />
money—whether we understand it as gift, sale, salary, bonus, bribe, allowance, tip, etc.—<br />
derives from the precise combination of transaction medium, transaction context, and<br />
relationship between the transactors. Though partially independent, these categories must<br />
always be ‘matched’; a mismatch can result in an undesirable, even an immoral,<br />
exchange. 20 For example, pretend you come across a man handing a woman $100 in<br />
19<br />
Underscored by Pardo (2004a: 4-7) and the essays collected in the same volume; see also Sahlins (1972:<br />
196-9).<br />
20<br />
Zelizer (1994; 2001: 9993-4). That the ‘meaning’ of money thus stems from the context in which it is<br />
transferred is likewise highlighted by Appadurai (1986: 3-6) and Bloch and Parry (1989: 19-23), who<br />
emphasize the role played by cultural context in specifying which ways money can be represented, i.e.<br />
which specific ‘meanings’ money can have. See also the essays collected in Parry and Bloch (1989),<br />
DiMaggio (1994) and Levin (2008).<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
cash: how do you evaluate that scene normatively? Understanding the pair’s<br />
relationship—husband/wife, father/daughter, citizen/politician, store-owner/customer, to<br />
name but a few examples—is absolutely necessary. So, too, is understanding whether the<br />
cash represents a gift, payment, loan, kickback and so forth. Just as the social meaning of<br />
money hinges on the other two categories, the social meaning of a relationship or even of<br />
the transaction context can hinge on how much money is given, of what kind, to whom or<br />
from what source. 21<br />
In the case of bribery, therefore, for different outcomes (i.e. when different<br />
obligations have been violated), for different social actors or for different relationships<br />
between them, the degree of illicitness varies. 22 This is a second crucial advantage to the<br />
standard view’s focus on what does and does not constitute bribery, an advantage that<br />
allows us to assess why there might be a normative distinction between, say, bribing an<br />
opponent in court to drop a lawsuit and bribing a bureaucrat to obtain a public contract.<br />
On the standard view, identical actions within two different normative contexts (e.g. two<br />
different countries) are very difficult to compare. Often scholars must resort to the<br />
blanket assumption that there are ‘different values’ involved, without clearly pinpointing<br />
what exactly motivates the change in normative value. By contrast, as we will see in the<br />
21 Zelizer (1994: esp. 208-16) focuses on the social meaning of money and analyzes how people ‘earmark’<br />
currencies with specific meaning, making the currencies non-fungible so that the specific content of<br />
discrete social ties can be maintained. Thus, an allowance is different from a gift, which is different still<br />
from payment for chores—all of which transactions can signal different aspects of a parent-child<br />
relationship. Note, though, how the amount of payment for chores, including whether or not such<br />
‘payment’ is distinct from an allowance, can signal a distinctively parent-child relationship and not, say,<br />
that between employer and employee, as in the case of hiring someone to do the same chores.<br />
22 Rigi (2004: 105-8) makes a similar point in isolating the various social variables—like relational<br />
distance, amount of trust, power dynamic between transactors—that influence how and when bribery<br />
occurs.<br />
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sections that follow, with a relational approach we can directly obtain how and why<br />
normative assessments change across social contexts. 23<br />
Two caveats before moving on to how this relational approach can be applied to<br />
Athens. Perhaps the most controversial difference between my own approach and the<br />
standard view of bribery is that I am taking bribery to be a social frame for understanding<br />
actions, not a class of actions per se. In this sense I am defining bribery by its outcome<br />
(normative violation) rather than assuming its outcome by focusing on intent (corrupting<br />
payments). When I claim that a particular transaction was an instance of bribery, I am<br />
saying, merely, that one could construct a narrative of events such that A paid (or<br />
promised to pay) B to do C, and that either C or this payment (or both) constituted a<br />
violation of some norm. This is only a narrative frame. It does not establish any fact of<br />
the matter; I think, and doubtless most scholars would agree, that normally it is<br />
23 Although this will play little role in my analysis here, it should be noted that a third advantage to a<br />
relational approach to bribery is that it allows us to be more precise about the relationship between bribery<br />
and other forms of corrupt activity, specifically extortion and conflicts of interest. I do not focus on either<br />
extortion or conflict of interest largely because the former seems to have been rare at Athens—except under<br />
the Thirty, on which see Chapter Three—and the latter was simply a non-issue, as the Athenians were<br />
concerned not that officials might take gifts, but that they might take gifts from the wrong source: e.g. Plat.<br />
Leg. 955c8, Hyp. 4.24-5, pace Humphreys (1978b). Contemporary scholars frequently confess difficulty<br />
in distinguishing among these three concepts. When something is given to a politician, is it a ‘gift’<br />
(without any specific strings attached) that thereby creates a conflict of interest, or is it a ‘bribe’ (with<br />
specific strings attached)? When a bureaucrat must be given an inducement to do her job, is this bribery<br />
(meaning the bribe was voluntarily initiated on both sides) or extortion (meaning the payment was<br />
expected, not voluntarily given)?<br />
Our relational approach would point out that these distinctions stem from differences in framing:<br />
bribery (compensation), extortion (entitlement), and conflict of interest (gift) fundamentally differ in terms<br />
of perceived transaction context. Moreover, and this is the crucial advantage gleaned from our relational<br />
model, to the extent that differences in transaction context are shaped by the social relationship of the<br />
transactors, these differences stem, in part, from the patterns of social relationships that configure them.<br />
We simply would not expect a gift between relative strangers, just as we would not expect direct exchange<br />
between close friends. This is one reason why there is often a difference between how participants (who<br />
might be close friends) and observers understand a particular transaction. Finally, a relational model allows<br />
for shades of distinctions between these categories: surely there is a difference—different causes, different<br />
effects, and different meanings—between explicit extortion and when a citizen thinks a bureaucrat is<br />
extorting money, while the bureaucrat views the money as a bribe. Rather than having to call such a<br />
situation either bribery or extortion, a relational view helpfully explains how and why there might be<br />
different understandings of the events. With a relational approach, we can thus gain tremendous insight<br />
into when and where we might expect bribery, extortion, and conflicts of interest to arise.<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
impossible to establish any fact of the matter. Hence, I am not saying that A actually<br />
paid B to do C—meaning both A and B considered the transaction context a ‘payment’,<br />
as opposed to a ‘gift’ or ‘entitlement’—nor am I saying that C actually constituted some<br />
norm violation. Instead, I am indicating that, according to one perspective, ‘A bribed B<br />
to do C’ is a valid way to construe the events in question, meaning it is a valid way to<br />
understand C and the causal link, if any, between C and the transaction between A and<br />
B. 24<br />
Adopting the social frame of bribery necessarily assumes that A paid B to do C,<br />
and it accordingly assigns these events a particular normative value; but, again, note how<br />
A and B, or anybody else for that matter, might adopt a different frame for understanding<br />
the situation and thus might evaluate it differently. This is an inevitable agnosticism in<br />
assessing any individual’s real motivations, I think, and for this reason intention-based<br />
models of bribery have a critical problem in that they can rarely, if ever, be accurately<br />
measured. As a corrective, therefore, the relational view I am espousing focuses on the<br />
outcome, not the intent, of the ‘bribe’. Shifting our focus in this way from bribery qua a<br />
set of actions to bribery as a political claim—and, specifically, allowing that different<br />
frames might prevail among participants and observers—can have major implications for<br />
how we think about anti-corruption agendas. Although these implications will be<br />
addressed formally at the end of the dissertation, it is hoped that insights on this question<br />
will emerge periodically throughout the chapters that follow.<br />
A second disclaimer that should be mentioned is that following a relational model<br />
of bribery necessarily moves us away from rational actor explanations for bribery as a<br />
24 On this point, I have benefited greatly from extended conversations with Arudra Burra, whose own work<br />
on coercion takes a similar approach.<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
form of behavior. It is, after all, a premise of relational models that ‘economic’ actions<br />
really are about negotiating social relationships. Moreover, because we are focusing on<br />
outcome, not intent, our relational model seeks to uncover why individuals might frame<br />
an action as bribery, not necessarily why they might decide to pursue bribery as a course<br />
of action. Indeed, if they do not think of their own actions as ‘bribery’, it is difficult to<br />
understand in what sense they could be said to have ‘decided’ to takes bribes. One<br />
significant shortcoming of rational actor models, I suggest, is that they simply presume<br />
that individuals always frame the transaction as bribery. Undoubtedly this is true some of<br />
the time, but, as was noted above, the prevalence of conflicting social frames suggests<br />
that it is not true a significant amount of the time. In those cases, explaining the person’s<br />
exact ‘intent’ is almost impossible; by contrast, explaining why somebody might be<br />
inclined to frame the situation as bribery is almost always measurable. This is precisely<br />
what we will seek to do in outlining a relational model of bribery in democratic Athens.<br />
Bribery and Relational Work in Athenian Politics<br />
In 480, the Athenian stratēgos Themistocles was in charge of the Athenian fleet<br />
as it fought against the Persians. According to Herodotus, when the Greeks arrived at the<br />
town of Artemisium in Euboea, they feared the size of the Persian fleet and wanted to<br />
leave. The Euboeans tried to convince the Spartan leader Eurybiades to stay, but they<br />
could not persuade him. They turned instead to Themistocles, offering him 30 talents of<br />
silver should the Greeks stay and defend Euboea. With this money, Themistocles gave<br />
five talents to Eurybiades, three to the Corinthian admiral Adimantus—purportedly more<br />
40
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
than the Persian King would have offered—and kept the rest for himself. So the Greeks<br />
remained at Artemisium. 25<br />
The details of this story are bizarre and defy interpretation under the standard<br />
view. If we think of the thirty talents and subsequent payments as bribes given and<br />
received by rational actors, we are left with a few puzzling facts. First, if Eurybiades<br />
could be bribed by Themistocles for only five talents, why were the Euboeans unable to<br />
persuade him? Why did they not simply offer the Spartan general five—or thirty!—<br />
talents from the beginning? Second, if the Persian King would have paid Adimantus less<br />
than three talents to betray the fleet, then we would expect that three talents would have<br />
been the going price for treason in this case. So why would it have taken a full five<br />
talents to persuade Eurybiades? And third, why was Themistocles’ price so high? Why<br />
did he require 22 talents, when the others required only 3 or 5 talents? Why did the<br />
Euboeans not pay him, instead, a more modest bribe of, say, 20 talents, or even 15?<br />
In theory, if Eurybiades, Adimantus, and Themistocles were rational rent-seeking<br />
politicians, we would expect that their bribe-price would have been set at a market-<br />
clearing price just above whatever the Persian King would have paid. Anything below<br />
such a price would have been irrational for themselves because they could have always<br />
received more money from the King; anything above such a price, though, would have<br />
been irrational for the Euboeans, since theoretically they should always desire the lowest<br />
price possible. Neither the bribe prices nor the eventual series of payments seems<br />
‘rational’ under the standard model. Thus, even if these details have little historicity, at<br />
25 Hdt. 8.4.2-8.5.3; cf. Plut. Them. 7.5-6=Phanias fr. 24 Wehrli.<br />
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the very least we are hard-pressed to ascertain why Herodotus, or one of his sources,<br />
would have accepted, let alone passed on, the story at face value. 26<br />
Understanding the significance of the events at Artemisium requires moving past<br />
the standard view. This section presents a case for how a relational approach can help.<br />
Two aspects of a relational approach to bribery lend themselves particularly well to the<br />
Athenian context. Because the Athenians had no word for ‘bribe’, the Athenian<br />
vocabulary of bribery focused on compensation and the violation of social norms. As we<br />
saw in the previous section, these were the two critical components in a relational model<br />
of bribery. Moreover, as has been underscored by much recent literature on gift<br />
exchange and economic activity in ancient Athens, gifts like those given to the Greek<br />
generals at Artemisium were consistently used to negotiate social relationships. 27 We<br />
have good reason to think, therefore, that the Athenians themselves understood bribery<br />
through the relationships that structured it. Both claims will be treated in this section as<br />
we investigate the vocabulary of bribery and the social contexts in which it could have<br />
appeared at Athens. The next section will examine how contested claims about bribery<br />
implicated broader public discussions about politics.<br />
26 The historicity of the scene at Artemisium has been seriously questioned for a number of reasons, not<br />
least of which is the curious problem that, because the fleet was stationed at Artemisium explicitly in order<br />
to back up the Spartan land forces at nearby Thermopylae, it is odd that the Spartan leader Eurybiades<br />
would have wanted to leave. See further Cawkwell (1970: 41), Wallace (1974: 22-5), Podlecki (1975:<br />
17-18), Frost (1980: 107-8 ad 7.6-7), Kurke (2002: 90). Cf. Plut. De Hdt. Mal.872BC. Doubts of<br />
historicity aside, many scholars paint Themistocles as a venal profiteer: see discussion, including ancient<br />
testimony, in Kurke (2002). Recently, Blösel (2001; 2005: 135-44), Baragwanath (2008: 292-4) and, less<br />
so, Fornara (1971: 66-74) have attempted to salvage Themistocles’ reputation as a cunning patriot.<br />
Blösel’s proposed scenario in which Herodotus uses Themistocles as a metaphor for Athens’ imperialism is<br />
possible—similarly, Cresci Marrone (1986), Balot (2001: 99-135 esp. 117-20)—but he goes too far in<br />
trying to model this scene off of, specifically, Pericles’ bribing of Pleistoanax: cf. Steinbock (2006). While<br />
I do not come down on either side of this issue, I would like to underscore that these normative assessments<br />
are all inherently political claims.<br />
27 By ‘negotiate’ here and throughout I intend reference to some kind of relational work. Two social actors<br />
‘negotiate’ a relationship in defining, redefining, adjusting, calibrating, or rejecting the obligations that<br />
inhere in their relationship. That is to say, they negotiate a social relationship in performing the work<br />
necessary to create, maintain or end it.<br />
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The Athenians had no word for a ‘bribe’, no noun that signified that something—<br />
whether a gift, a tip, a wage, perquisite or inducement—was a ‘bribe’. They had only the<br />
word dōron (plural dōra), which should always be translated as ‘gift’. This is not to say<br />
that the Athenians had no concept of bribery; clearly they did, as witnessed by the verbs<br />
dōrodokeō (“receive bribes”), dekazō (“bribe”) and the noun dōrodokia (“bribery”). Nor<br />
is it to suggest that the Athenians euphemistically described all ‘bribes’ as ‘gifts’—they<br />
did not. Rather, when the Athenians wanted to mark something linguistically as bribery,<br />
they did so through context, usually with a verb or attendant prepositional phrases; they<br />
never marked the noun, the ‘bribe’ itself. 28<br />
Classicists regularly complicate this picture by claiming that the Athenians in fact<br />
used the same word dōra to denote both gifts and bribes, but this idea is untenable. 29 On<br />
their view, if an Athenian wanted to talk about any ‘bribes’ given or received, she would<br />
have used the word dōra or, occasionally, lēmmata (“takings”), and context would have<br />
dictated whether the dōra were ‘gifts’ or ‘bribes’. 30 But if context always indicated that<br />
something was a bribe, it is curious to assume that, nevertheless, the word dōra continued<br />
to denote an explicit ‘bribe’ on its own. By analogy, note how, whereas we might<br />
distinguish ‘dog’ from ‘animal’ either by using distinct words (‘dog’, ‘animal’) or by<br />
28 On the vocabulary of Greek bribery, Harvey (1985: 82-9) is indispensable and see further below. Here, it<br />
is telling that when the Athenians did use a noun for “a bribe” (dwrodo/khma), not only was it<br />
exceptionally rare—attested once in Comedy (Pl. Com. fr. 119K)—but its meaning was also not clearly<br />
defined as a “bribe” given or received. It sometimes referred, instead, to an instance of bribery: e.g. Dem.<br />
18.29, 31.<br />
29 It would be entirely unexpected for the same word—whether dōron or lēmma—to connote, on its own,<br />
dramatically opposite meanings within a language, particularly given the social and political significance of<br />
a concept like bribery. After all, having the same word denote both ‘gift’ and ‘bribe’ would create a<br />
tremendous amount of confusion; we would expect, instead, that the two would always be distinguished, if<br />
not with different words—just as our word ‘bribe’ is always a marked term distinct from ‘gift’—then by<br />
some other linguistic means.<br />
30 The comments of Harvey are characteristic in this regard: “It is important to stress that dōron means<br />
both what we call a gift and what we call a bribe…one and the same word is used for both types of<br />
transaction” (1985: 82, emphasis retained). Cf. Herman (1987: 85), Lewis (1989: 229), von Reden<br />
(1995a: 94), Taylor (2001: 53).<br />
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context (“The animal that is furry and barks...”), we would never use both at the same<br />
time (“The dog that is furry and barks…”) merely to convey the idea of ‘dog’. 31 Given<br />
that the Athenians always provided some additional indication that something was a<br />
‘bribe’, we should think not that the Athenians used the same word for both ‘gift’ and<br />
‘bribe’, but that they had no word for ‘bribe’. 32 As in a relational model of bribery, there<br />
was nothing that could inherently be considered a bribe; it was the outcome of the gift,<br />
the way in which it was framed, that determined its normative value.<br />
The language of gift exchange and persuasion was regularly used to describe the<br />
workings of Athenian politics and society. 33 Indeed, scenes of bribery were often<br />
described in much the same language—a curious yet understandable result given that the<br />
Athenians had no word for ‘bribe’. Note how the entire scene at Artemisium is couched<br />
in the neutral language of gift exchange and persuasion and thus provides no indication<br />
that Themistocles’ actions would have constituted bribery (Hdt. 8.4-5). The Euboeans<br />
unsuccessfully tried to “persuade” Eurybiades (e1peiqon), but successfully “persuaded”<br />
Themistocles (pei/qousi), who then “won over” Eurybiades and Adimantus<br />
(a)nepe/peisto; a)napepeisme/noi). In each case, Herodotus says that persuasion was<br />
successful because it was coupled with either the giving of “gifts” (dw=ra dw=sw;<br />
dw/roisi) or “money” (e.g. tw=n xrhma/twn metadidoi=) or, in Themistocles’ case, the<br />
31 Thus, in the sentence, “The dog that is furry and barks is mine,” we do legitimately use both kinds of<br />
linguistic markers, yet they do not perform the same function. While “dog” marks out that the subject is a<br />
dog—not, say, an ‘animal’ generally—the limiting phrase “that is furry and barks” signals which dog is<br />
intended, much like “the animal that is furry and barks” signals which animal is intended (a dog).<br />
32 On comparative grounds, too, this interpretation may be preferable. For instance, the French language<br />
notoriously lacks a word for ‘bribe’; but, like ancient Greek, it successfully conveys the notion of ‘bribery’<br />
through verbs, euphemisms, and context. Outlining the Russian vocabulary for blat (personal influence)<br />
and bribery, Dunn (2000) shows how the popular language of bribery is neither identical to the language of<br />
everyday transactions, nor is it aligned with vocabulary used in criminal circles; it is marked off in some<br />
way from both categories because it fits neither.<br />
33 Harvey (1985: 82-3), Strauss (1985: 72-3), Taylor (2001: 160-2).<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
provision of a “payment” (misqw| =). 34 Although we might think of bribery when someone<br />
persuades with gifts or money, as in Themistocles’ case, we should be aware that such a<br />
phrase by itself did not denote bribery, as it need not entail a violation of norms. 35<br />
Again, just as we might expect, the exact same description of an unproblematic<br />
giving or receiving of dōra never denoted, on its own, the highly problematic idea of<br />
bribery. Instead, there was always some additional clue to indicate that a speaker<br />
intended ‘bribery’ (compensation + norm violation): a distinct verb, euphemism,<br />
additional phrase, or contextualizing details. What we are after, therefore, is those<br />
additional clues, a set of lexical tools that an Athenian had at his disposal to communicate<br />
the social frame of bribery. Let us call this the Athenian vocabulary of bribery.<br />
It was noted in the Introduction that, in evaluating a scene, the Athenians stressed<br />
the outcome of any transaction. This outcome was conceptualized in two different ways.<br />
The Athenians measured the result of a gift, meaning they tried to establish whether<br />
something had been given in exchange for something else (i.e. compensation); and they<br />
measured the acceptability of the final result, whether the outcome was to be deemed<br />
good or bad (norm violation). Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, we find that the<br />
vocabulary of bribery was broken down into two groups of words, each consonant with a<br />
different way of conceptualizing an ‘outcome’: those that conveyed compensation, and<br />
those that signaled a violation of some norm. In other words, the Athenians’ focus on<br />
outcomes inclined them well towards a relational model of bribery.<br />
34 Even the verb anapeithein (cf. a)nepe/peisto, a)napepeisme/noi, Hdt. 8.5), though often used in<br />
dōrodokia contexts—e.g. Ar. Pax 622, Eq. 473, V. 101—is no clear indication of wrongdoing: LSJ s.v.<br />
a)napei/qw 1-2.<br />
35 Far from it: as Baragwanath (2008: 292) plausibly argues, Themistocles’ reputation may have been<br />
enhanced, not hurt, by the fact that he profited while reconciling Greek and Euboean interests; similarly,<br />
Frost (1980: 10). Persuasion with gifts or money need not entail bribery: e.g. Hom. Il. 9.112-13, Hdt.<br />
8.134.1, Lys. 21.10, Xen. Cyr. 1.5.3. Cf. Theog. 192-3.<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
As in English, in Greek the word for ‘bribery’ and its cognates conveyed both<br />
compensation and norm violation: so dōrodokia (“bribery”), dōrodokeō (“be bribed”),<br />
and dekazō (“bribe”), all of which are attested only from the classical period onward. 36<br />
The literal translation of dōrodokia is commonly taken to be “the receipt of dōra,” taken<br />
from dōra (“gifts”) + dekhomai (“receive”). 37 Note how this derivation implies neither<br />
compensation per se nor normative violation. As we will see, however, this literal<br />
translation is misleading because it misses crucial nuance in the verb dekhomai. In fact,<br />
the morphology of ‘bribery’ words in Greek points toward a semantic meaning closer to<br />
“the receipt of dōra in expectation of something bad.” Just as we might expect, therefore,<br />
dōrodokia, dōrodokeō, and dekazō were a marked class of words that conveyed,<br />
specifically, direct exchange (compensation) and a bad outcome (normative violation).<br />
Let us take a closer look.<br />
Both dekazō 38 and cognates of dōrodokia 39 (dōra + dekhomai) stem from an early<br />
Greek verb *dekmai (“receive what is given”). 40 The literal translation of dōrodokia<br />
36 Dekazō first appears sometime between 440 and 420 (sundeka/sai, rightly emended from the<br />
manuscripts’ sundika/sai, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 3.7), dōrodokeō around the same time (Hdt. 6.72, 6.82).<br />
37 E.g. Harvey (1985: 83), Kulesza (1995: 11-12), Taylor (2001: 53), Hashiba (2006: 62). This<br />
seemingly innocuous translation is highly misleading, however, as dōrodokia never has such an innocent<br />
meaning in the classical period, and there is no evidence that it ‘originally’ meant “the receipt of dōra.”<br />
38 As the factitive form of the thematic verb de/komai, deka/zw literally meant “to cause someone to receive<br />
in exchange for something,” but it always has connotations of bribery in the classical period: cf.<br />
Szemerényi (1964: 126-8), Chantraine s.v. deka/zw. Note how Hesychius defines de/kwn as “the one who<br />
has been bribed” (o( dekazo/menoj). Some scholars have followed an ancient folk etymology in positing a<br />
different derivation of deka/zw from the way that jurors supposedly lined up in groups of ten (deka/j) to<br />
receive their bribes: Frist s.v. de/ka, MacDowell (1983: 63-8), Harvey (1985: 88-9). Certainly this<br />
derivation n is preferable from a formal perspective, but semantically it is not at all clear that deka/zw is the<br />
correct formation from de/ka. After all, it is the jurors, not the bribe-giver, who ‘make a decad’; we would<br />
thus expect deka/zw to describe the jurors. Moreover, the force of the prefix sun- in sundeka/sai is<br />
redundant if we assume that ‘tenning’ entailed bribing the entire jury. sun- is perfectly understandable,<br />
however, if we derive deka/zw from de/komai. This is to say nothing of the dubious value of Eratosthenes<br />
as our source—pace Harvey (1985: 88)—or the implausibility of an etymology which, as Szeremerenyi<br />
(1964: 126) aptly notes, “explains nothing and clearly bears the stamp of desperate invention.” At best,<br />
Eratosthenes’ testimony might be a good indication of how entire juries were bribed—although<br />
MacDowell’s (1983: 63-8) reconstruction seems fanciful—but we should seek the origins of deka/zw in<br />
de/komai, not de/ka. Cf. Lipsius (1905-15: 174), Calhoun (1913: 67-70), Boeghold (1967: 113-14).<br />
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straightforwardly follows this derivation and posits that the word literally meant ‘the<br />
receipt of gifts’. This etymology is dangerously simplistic, however, and overlooks<br />
crucial details about the peculiar morphology of dōrodokia and its cognates. In fact, the<br />
morphology of dōrodokia suggests strong affinity to the verb dokeō. To make matters a<br />
bit more confusing, dokeō, like dekhomai, was also derived from IE*dek̂-, albeit in the<br />
form IE*dek̂-eye (cf. Gr. dokeuō). 41<br />
So was dōrodokia derived from dokeō? Not exactly. Dokeō is actually a<br />
relatively late verb formed in the classical period. Even before the archaic period, the<br />
early Greek verb *dekmai began to split into two verbs: dekomai (dekhomai in the Attic<br />
dialect), from which dōrodokia is usually taken, and a group of iterative forms that would<br />
eventually converge in the verb dokeō. In other words, in the archaic period the forms<br />
39 For the sake of clarity, throughout this discussion I transliterate x as ‘kh’.<br />
40 Throughout this discussion, I use the standard linguistic convention of an asterisk (*) to indicate a form<br />
that is unattested yet hypothesized. Gr. *de/kmai comes from an Indo-European root *dek̂- or *dēk̂-, but the<br />
precise meaning of this original root has been hotly contested. There is still no consensus on how to<br />
sequence the subsequent morphological and semantic change. At issue are how and why the athematic,<br />
acrodynamic Greek verb *de/kmai transformed into the thematic verb de/komai, or de/xomai in the Attic<br />
dialect. Were the latter formed from a root aorist which became generalized and lost its aspect (cf. García<br />
Ramón [2004: 506n.40])? Or do they represent subjunctive forms—de/ketai > *dék̂-e-toi, an IE<br />
subjunctive—which later became a thematic present (cf. Tichy [1976])? Amid semantic shifts in<br />
reduplicated forms, aorists that work like presents and presents that look like aorists, to say nothing of the<br />
semantic swamp of dek̂- verbs ranging in meaning from “wait” or “honor” to “receive” and “watch”—the<br />
linguistic problems behind dōrodokia are thorny indeed. For a guide through the quagmire, see Szemerényi<br />
(1964: 170-6), Chantraine s.v. de/xomai, Frisk s.v. de/xomai, with treatments of various aspects of the<br />
problem by Tichy (1976), Forssman (1978), García Ramón (2004), and Ruijgh (2005). I offer here a<br />
plausible new alternative, although I am not qualified to explain precisely how it may have arisen.<br />
41 LSJ s.v. doke/w I, Chantraine s.v. doka/w II, Frisk s.v. doke/w. With the sole exception of dōrodokia and<br />
its cognates, for every compound formed from the e-grade de/xomai (“receive”), there is a combination of<br />
aspirated and unaspirated forms based on the –dek root: nouns end in –doki/a or –doxi/a, adjectives appear<br />
as –do/koj or –do/xoj, and compound verbs end in –doke/w or –doxe/w. So we find cenodoxi/a,<br />
cenodo/xoj, cenodoxe/w with cenodo/koj and cenodoke/w; qewrodo/xoj with qewrodo/koj and<br />
qewrodoke/w; oi)nodoxei=on and oi)nodo/xoj with oi)nodo/koj. For all forms related to dōrodokia, however,<br />
there is never any aspiration, as every compound retains –dok–: dwrodoki/a, dwrodoke/w, dwrodo/koj,<br />
dwrodo/khma, a)dwrodo/khtoj. Strikingly, these latter compounds have a morphology identical to that of<br />
compounds derived from the classical o-grade verb doke/w (“expect, await”): thus karadoke/w (“eagerly<br />
expect”), karadoki/a, a)karado/khtoj and prosdoke/w (“expect”), a)prosdoki/a, prosdokh/toj, and<br />
especially a)prosdo/khtoj next to a)pro/sdektoj from prosde/xomai (“receive favorably”).<br />
47
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
that would become dokeō were crucially linked to dekomai as iterative forms of that verb:<br />
“receive again and again” (iterative) later turned into “expect, await.” 42 Over time,<br />
therefore, a special meaning of dekomai (“expect, await”) came to be attached to an<br />
entirely new verb (dokeō).<br />
But was there anything left behind? When these iterative forms broke off from<br />
Gk. *dekmai, did any of their semantic meaning (“expect, await”) subsequently remain<br />
attached to the verb dekomai? I propose that, yes, a meaning akin to “expect, await” was<br />
preserved in dekomai and the Attic form dekhomai—and that this meaning was later<br />
preserved in the noun dōrodokia and other similar compounds. 43 Positing this kind of<br />
semantic affinity to the verb dokeō explains why dōrodokia follows the morphology of<br />
42 Note how the rare verb dokeuō (“watch, observe”), off of which dokeō is based, appears in contexts that<br />
suggest that it, too, functioned as an iterative form of Gr.*dekmai.Cf. Tichy (1976: 81-2). Homeric<br />
evidence for de/xomai (“expect, await”) unquestionably proves that the classical meaning of doke/w<br />
(“expect, await”) was formed as an iterative of de/komai and hence is derived from Gr. *de/kmai: e.g. Hom.<br />
Il. 4.107, 5.228, 238, 20.377. This has no bearing on the problematic relationship between Homeric<br />
dei/dex- (“greet, honor,” e.g. dei/dekto, Hom. Il. 9.224) and de/dex- (“await,” e.g. de/deco, Hom. Il. 5.228,<br />
Od. 20.377, 22.340), the former of which has been derived alternately from IE *deik̂- (“show”)—see most<br />
recently Forssman (1978)—or from IE *dēk̂- (“accept”): e.g. Frisk s.v. doke/w, Chantraine s.v. doka/w,<br />
Tichy (1976).<br />
43 My derivation is motivated by the following observation: instead of beginning with de/xomai and asking<br />
why dōrodokia compounds follow the morphology of doke/w, it is fruitful to ask why, if dōrodokia<br />
compounds look like doke/w, the verb doke/w does not also mean “receive” or “receive illicitly.” We need<br />
to account for this. For my argument, it is sufficient to point out only that Homer evinces semantic<br />
convergence of forms of de/xomai and dokeu/w (later doke/w). What I propose here is that in the shift from<br />
Gr.*de/kmai (“receive”) to its iterative meaning in reduplicated forms (“expect, await”), an intermediary<br />
semantic form—“receive” + “expect”—was also retained. This meaning subsequently inhered in the verb<br />
de/xomai; when compounds were formed from this particular meaning, they were marked in a formally<br />
distinct way by following the morphology of the distinct yet closely related verb doke/w. Ruijgh (2004:<br />
58-9) traces a similar development from *de/khti to doke/ei (“it seems good”) through influence by doke/w<br />
(“think”).<br />
This morphological divergence, suggesting as it does that dōrodokia was derived not solely from<br />
de/xomai but was also influenced by doke/w, cannot be explained simply in terms of distinction in dialect or<br />
time. That Attic consistently aspirates –dok- compounds is clear enough from a wide range of compounds,<br />
many of which are attested only once or twice. By contrast, dōrodokia and its cognates, by far the most<br />
prevalent –dok- compounds, are attested hundreds of times in Attic, yet not one of these compounds is<br />
aspirated. Perhaps in recognition of this point, both the Suida (s.v. dwrografh/) and Thucydides (dw/rwn<br />
do/khsin, 5.16.3) derive dwrodoki/a not from dw=ra + de/xomai but from dw/ra + doke/w (“be suspected of<br />
[the legal suit of] dōra”). My own derivation follows the spirit, if not the content, of their etymologizing.<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
dokeō, not dekhomai. After all, all other –dok- words with similar morphologies connote<br />
“expect, await,” not “receive.”<br />
If this derivation is correct—and no other derivation satisfactorily accounts for<br />
these problems in morphology—then dōrodokia conceals a meaning of dekhomai used to<br />
mark out a category of transactions expecting a specific return (“receive [what is given]<br />
in expectation of something”). 44 As the above reconstruction indicates, this meaning<br />
probably dates back to early Gk.*dekmai, when the iterative forms that would much later<br />
become dokeō began to diverge from those that would become dekhomai. 45 Incidentally,<br />
such a reconstruction compellingly explains why dekomai/dekhomai was often used in<br />
scenes of bribery in archaic poetry. 46<br />
So already in the archaic period dekomai/dekhomai could, on its own, denote<br />
compensation. What about normative violation? Certainly by the classical period, the<br />
verb on its own could unambiguously signal bribery (i.e. “receive what is given in<br />
44<br />
Cf. von Reden (1995a: 93-5). de/xomai (“receive gifts”): Hom. Od. 8.419-20; Hes. WD 86-7; Hdt. 3.39,<br />
3.135; Eur. Alc. 375-6, Med. 958, 973, 1003; Soph. Aj. 662-3. Likewise, de/xomai (“receive gifts in return<br />
for something”): Hom. Il.11.124, 24.420, Od. 11.327, 18.286-7; Hes. fr. 76.10; Sapph. 1.22; Pi. O. 2.62;<br />
Hdt. 9.91. Cf. Frisk s.v. doko/j.<br />
45<br />
Dating this meaning of de/xomai back to Gr. *de/kmai is preferable for the following reason. By the time<br />
of Homer, the expectation of receiving dōra—and in a bribery-like scenario, at that—can be represented<br />
not only by de/xomai/de/komai (“receive what is given”), but also by iterative forms of the earlier Gr.<br />
*de/kmai (“expect”). For the latter, note how in the Odyssey Eurymachus rebukes Halitherses’ speech on the<br />
grounds that he had spoken “looking for a gift for [his] home, whatever [Telemachus] might provide” (sw= |<br />
oi1kw| dw=ron dw=ron potide/gmenoj<br />
potide/gmenoj, potide/gmenoj ai1 ke po/rh|sin, Od. 2.186). Here, Halitherses is thought to provide counsel in<br />
expectation of receiving dōra from Telemachus, and the result is considered explicitly bad counsel (cf. Od.<br />
2.188-93; similarly xruso\n…dedegme/noj, Il.11.124). Likewise, when Priam tries to give gold to Achilles’<br />
guard to be let into the Greek camp, Homer uses the verb de/cai (Il.24.429; cf. de/xesqai, 24.434). Note<br />
here how it is the verb de/xomai, not any of the other verbs of giving and receiving, that differentiates this<br />
scene from regular, unproblematic gift exchange, and it does so, specifically, by indicating that the gift of<br />
Priam’s goblet was to be conducted behind Achilles’ back (pare\c 0Axilh=a, 24.434). Positing a shared<br />
semantic root in Gr. *de/kmai (i.e. “receive what is given in expectation of something”) would help explain<br />
why two different meanings of the same verb—meanings that later split into two different verbs—might be<br />
used to describe similar situations.<br />
46<br />
Hom. Il. 24.429, 434, Od. 11.327; Hom. H.Mer. 549. Without the additional semantic nuance of<br />
“receiving in expectation of something given,” nothing would have distinguished de/xomai from other verbs<br />
of receiving; with this addition, however, the verb became a natural choice for describing bribery.<br />
49
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
exchange for something bad”=“receive as a bribe”), just like cognates of dōrodokia. 47<br />
How, then, did dekhomai come to acquire such an association with bad outcomes? One<br />
likely source of influence was the law. Early codification of dekhomai in law could have<br />
subsequently conditioned, though not caused, the word’s semantic shift outside of legal<br />
contexts. 48 Whatever the reason, by the time of the classical period, the verb dekhomai<br />
and its cognates—like dōrodokeō and dekazō—were used, on their own, to denote<br />
“receive in exchange for something bad.” Likewise, dōrodokia should be translated<br />
literally as “the receipt of dōra in exchange for something bad”, i.e. “bribery.” In this<br />
way, the Athenians’ main vocabulary for bribery all indicated quid pro quo compensation<br />
and normative violation.<br />
Dōrodokeō and dekazō represent distinct ways of using a single verb to signal the<br />
frame of bribery; by contrast, if the regular verbs of giving, receiving, or persuading were<br />
used, an Athenian could still signal ‘bribery’ by indicating both that the dōra were a kind<br />
of compensation and that this compensation had caused some bad result. In those cases,<br />
commercial metaphors and prepositional phrases could be used for the former, while the<br />
verb diaphtheirō (“corrupt”) and alimentary metaphors could be used to indicate the<br />
47 Cf. Harvey (1985: 83). There are two notable exceptions to this rule: Harvey (1985: 83n.30) notes how<br />
at Ar. EN 1163b11 dōrodokos refers to someone who receives gifts, not bribes, but see also Ar. Eq. 403, Pl.<br />
Rep. 390d7, Dem. 18.61; similarly, Sosiades lists in his Maxims of the Seven Sages that one should<br />
“usefully receive gifts that demand a return” (Dwrodo/kei xrhsi/mwj, Phil. Sent. 215.27). In all likelihood,<br />
however, this is a late fabrication. A few examples where dw=ra + de/xomai does not appear to indicate<br />
bribery can be found at Xen. Cyrop. 8.5.18 and in Plato’s Laws, where taking gifts from good sources is<br />
contrasted with taking gifts from bad sources or with an eye to bad results: para\ de\ miarou=<br />
dw=ra…de/xesqai, Leg. 716e3; w(j e)p’ a)gaqoi=j me\n dei= de/xesqai dw=ra, e)pi\ de\ flau/roij ou!, Leg.<br />
955c8; cf. Leg. 905d4. This distinction helps affirm the Athenian focus on outcomes.<br />
48 For the (early sixth century) use of de/xomai in Athenian law, see below Chapter Six. In the same vein,<br />
deka/zw might represent a similar crystallization of semantic meaning due to its codification in the law<br />
governing the graphē dekasmou: cf. Dem. 46.26 for the text of a compilation of laws including that for the<br />
graphē dekasmou, with discussion in Chapter Six below. Ultimately, it is impossible to prove these kinds of<br />
correlations. If this reconstruction is correct, it would be a rare instance in which explicitly legal language<br />
at Athens influenced the semantic field of a word used in popular contexts: so Todd (2000a: 26-31) and<br />
see further discussion in Chapter Seven.<br />
50
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latter. Of course, contextualizing details could also make it clear that one or both of these<br />
components was present. 49<br />
When the language of gift exchange was used—‘giving’, ‘receiving’, ‘gifts’,<br />
etc.—usually the transaction context was closer to gift than to compensation. In order to<br />
signal that, in fact, some kind of quid pro quo had occurred, commercial language was<br />
frequently used. Verbs like priamai (“buy”) or pōlō (“sell”), and nouns like misthos<br />
(“payment, wage”) or kerdos (“profit”) and their cognates all clearly shifted the<br />
transaction context from gift to compensation. 50 Likewise, a dative of instrument or<br />
prepositional phrases like e3neka + gen. (“for the sake of X”), e)pi/ + dat. (“with an eye<br />
towards X” or “for the price of”), or i3na + purpose clause could reframe a voluntary gift<br />
as compensatory exchange. 51 These prepositional phrases played a particularly important<br />
role in legal regulations of dōrodokia: archons swore never to receive gifts “for the sake<br />
of [their] office” (th=j a)rxh=j e3neka, AP 55.5, cf. Pollux 8.86); jurors swore never to take<br />
gifts “for the sake of [their] role on the jurycourt” (th=j h(lia/sewj e#neka, Dem. 24.150);<br />
and the law against dōrodokia specified that no one could give or take “to the harm of the<br />
people” (e)pi\ bla/bh| tou= dh/mou, Dem. 21.113); similarly, the law against judicial bribery<br />
49<br />
One or the other of these components could just as easily be implicit—and not clearly evident in the<br />
language used. Hence, I do not maintain that, in order to employ the frame of bribery, both of those<br />
elements must be included. I would argue, instead, that explicit inclusion of any of these elements can, but<br />
need not, indicate that a scene is being viewed through the frame of bribery. What I would like to avoid,<br />
however, is the common scholarly mistake of reading a scene of gift exchange—with no explicit markers of<br />
compensation or normative violation—and calling it ‘bribery’ simply because it involves a public official.<br />
As a social frame, bribery has tremendous social significance, so any time the frame of bribery is employed<br />
we should expect to find some linguistic trace of this significance.<br />
50<br />
Harvey (1985: 84-6) comprehensively surveys the commercial language of bribery; see also von Reden<br />
(1995a: 89-92) on misthos.<br />
51<br />
I list a few examples of each. Dative of instrument: Hdt. 5.63, Plut. Cim. 14.3, Thuc. 4.65.3. e3neka +<br />
gen.: Hom. Od. 11.521, 15.247, Theog. 46 West. e)pi/ + dat.: Pl. Rep. 590a2, Leg. 955c8; Dem. 21.113,<br />
46.26. i3na + purpose clause: Hom. Il. 23.297, schol. ad Ar. Ach. 6.<br />
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prohibited giving money to anyone on a judicial body “for the sake of dōrodokia” (e)pi\<br />
dwrodoki/a|, Dem. 46.26).<br />
All of these contextual markers focused on the explicit return expected for the<br />
dōra, thereby characterizing the transaction as quid pro quo compensation. In<br />
Herodotus’ story of Themistocles at Artemisium, for example, the thirty talents given to<br />
Themistocles are explicitly called a “payment” (e)pi\ misqw| = trih/konta tala/ntoisi)<br />
given “on the condition that” (e)p’ w{ |) the Greek fleet stay and fight the Persians.<br />
Similarly, the historian later juxtaposes the gifts to the Greek generals with the return (cf.<br />
e)kexa/risto) given to the Euboeans (Hdt. 8.4-5). Such characterizations sometimes also<br />
implied a negative evaluation of the scene. For instance, prepositional phrases denoting<br />
“against X” or “against the interests of X” (e.g. kata/ + gen.) could be used, while<br />
compounds derived from misthos always indicated the speaker’s disapproval. 52<br />
Alternatively, Athenians might denounce a particular exchange by saying that its<br />
outcome constituted some sort of bad (violation of norms). It should be noted that no<br />
explicit condemnation can be found in Herodotus’ story.<br />
Whereas commercial language and prepositional phrases differentiated the<br />
transaction context, alimentary metaphors and the verb diaphtheirō (“to corrupt”) could<br />
signal that some kind of norm violation had occurred. For the Athenians, alimentary<br />
metaphors usually conveyed some negative value about a particular exchange. 53 We hear<br />
of “gift-devouring” kings who judged cases unjustly (dwrafa/goi, Hes. WD 11, 202,<br />
52 The use of kata/ + gen. implied both exchange and a bad outcome: taking gifts “against the dēmos’<br />
interests” was shorthand for taking money in return for a specific outcome that ended up harming the<br />
dēmos. Harvey (1985: 85) on the use of misthos compounds exclusively to connote censure and abuse:<br />
e.g. mistharnia, misthōtos.<br />
53 These metaphors recur throughout the Aristophanic corpus: see Taillardat (1962: 310-11, 414-18) and<br />
generally Davidson (1993).<br />
52
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238); “stuffing” someone’s mouth with money (xrusi/w|…e)bu/noun to\ sto/ma, Aristoph.<br />
Pax, 645; to\ sto/m’ e)pibu/saj ke/rmasin, Aristoph. Pl. 379); and vomiting up bribe<br />
monies received (Aristoph. Eq. 1149). In fact, in a different version of the scene at<br />
Artemisium, the Athenian leader Architeles reportedly wanted to leave because he did<br />
not have enough money to pay his men. Themistocles hid a talent of silver beneath<br />
Architeles’ dinner and bid him to dine on it and feed his men in the morning (Plut. Them.<br />
7.6-7=Phanias fr. 24 Wehrli). Consuming the food became a metaphor for taking the<br />
talent of silver. 54<br />
Likewise, the verb diaphtheirō (“corrupt”=“bribe”), itself the most negative<br />
Greek word for bribery, indicated a bad outcome; frequently, it also indicated a causal<br />
link between the means of corruption and the outcome itself. The verb phtheirō, at the<br />
root of diaphtheirō, meant “to destroy,” and diaphtheirō consequently had a range of<br />
meanings, including “to destroy,” “to seduce,” and finally “to corrupt.” 55 The semantic<br />
range of diaphtheirō is not easily explained, but by the end of the fifth century we find it<br />
repeatedly denoting a deterioration—one might say a ‘destroying’—of the nature or<br />
54 In the same vein, the Rhodian poet Timocreon censures Themistocles for serving “cold meats” (yuxra_<br />
krei=a) or “leftovers” to others (PMG 727.10). Timocreon seems to suggest that these leftovers were<br />
monetary in nature when he insinuates that Themistocles was “full of silver” at the Isthmus (a)rguri/wn d'<br />
u(po&plewj, following Bergk at 727 PMG 9). This appellation works nicely on two levels: first as a<br />
straightforward indication of how Themistocles had the means to serve cold meats to everyone (he had a lot<br />
of money after receiving so many bribes); and, second, as a euphemistic signal of the food imagery to come<br />
(though himself ‘full on silver’, he served but leftovers to everyone else).<br />
55 Accordingly, the development of this semantic field, specifically its extension to the realm of bribery, has<br />
troubled scholars. Wankel (1976: 315) has suggested that the ‘corruption’ at the root of bribery is a kind<br />
of ‘seduction’, while Harvey (1985: 86-7) has posited that diaphtheirein represents a surrendering of free<br />
will, an idea extended to bribery more generally by Ober (1989: 236-8), von Reden (1995a: 95), Euben<br />
(1997: 103). Yet Harvey’s interpretation gives too much weight to select evidence (e.g. Dem. 19.118, his<br />
only cited example) and I disagree with his interpretation of Lys. 1.33 (tou\j de\ pei/santaj ou#twj au)tw=n<br />
ta\j yuxa\j diafqei/rein). There the point is not that a seduced woman surrenders her free will, but that<br />
she no longer belongs exclusively to her husband—a morally unacceptable outcome. In other words, her<br />
subordinate role in the household is destroyed and changed for the worse. Note how nearly identical syntax<br />
is used at Xen. Symp. 8.21—cf. o( de\ pei/qwn th\n tou= a)napeiqome/nou yuxh\n diafqei/rei—where the<br />
concern is not about the surrendering of free will, but about changing the character of a lover.<br />
53
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character of something. 56 Given that the emergence of diaphtheirō (“bribe”) was<br />
contemporary with this shift towards the destruction of character, I suggest that this is the<br />
conceptual link between the two meanings of diaphtheirō as “to bribe” and “to<br />
destroy.” 57 What ‘corruption’ (diaphtheirō) does, therefore, is to change the character of<br />
an outcome so that it is bad; when a payment is the source of this corruption, we have<br />
bribery.<br />
So the Athenians used a relational vocabulary for bribery, couching descriptions<br />
of politics in the language of social relations. We can push this point even further,<br />
however, and this brings us to the second reason why a relational approach is particularly<br />
well-suited to the study of Athenian bribery. For the Athenians, describing politics in the<br />
vocabulary of gift exchange and persuasion belied a close conceptual affinity between<br />
56 I find this meaning of diaphtheirein more likely a product of late fifth-century nomos-physis debates.<br />
Just prior to this time, in Sophocles’ Antigone dated to around 440, Creon complains of the potential evil<br />
that money can cause: “by its teaching perverts men’s good minds so that they take to evil actions!” (to/d’<br />
e)kdida/skei kai\ paralla/ssei fre/naj/xrhsta\j pro\j ai)sxra\ pra/gmat’ i3stasqai brotw=n, Soph. An.<br />
298-9). The concern that something might change one’s nature or character emerges later in the play when<br />
erōs, too, smashes men’s wits unto ruin (Soph. An. 791-2). Euripides likewise talks of ‘corrupting’ the<br />
name or physis of something: Hec. 398, Or. 297, fr. 377.3, 411.1, 526.2; cf. Aesch. Ag. 932; Isoc. Paneg.<br />
151, Areo. 47, Panath. 32, 196. In the fourth century, we often find mention of ‘corrupting’ the nature of<br />
something, including archai (Lys. 30.28), the polis (Pl. Rep. 415c5), legal documents (Isoc. Trap. 23, 24,<br />
31, 33), and the laws (Isoc. In Call. 11, Pl. Crito 50b5, 53b7, Leg. 788b6, 864d2, 891b5, 913c6).<br />
Harvey (1985: 87n.44) rightly points out that ideas of ‘impurity’ may have something to do with<br />
the extension of the semantic field of diaptheirein to bribery: see Thuc. 7.84.5, Lys. 30.28; Aristotle’s<br />
explicit comparison of political corruption and the muddying of water at Pol.1286a31-5; and instances<br />
where the character of someone or something is so corrupted, e.g. Isoc. Antid. 30, Xen. Mem. 1.2.8, Pl. Ap.<br />
25d5, Men. 89b6, Rep. 421d1, Leg. 894a7. I would note, in addition, that in other vocabulary for bribery we<br />
find this same idea of ‘changing’ the status or outcome of something. The verb anapeithein, for instance,<br />
literally means to persuade someone to do ‘the reverse’ of what might be expected or intended: LSJ s.v.<br />
a)na/ F2 with Harvey (1985: 83n.32).<br />
57 Harvey (1985: 86-7), followed by Hashiba (2006: 70n.31), has claimed that the use of diaptheirein at<br />
Hdt. 5.51 implies that the meaning “corrupt by bribes” was current in the mid-fifth century, but I find this<br />
unlikely. The passage could simply intend that Aristagoras would “corrupt” or “change” Cleomenes’ mind<br />
or character; that money was the reason for this change was implicit and need not have been explicit in the<br />
verb diaphtheirein (as we would need for it to signify “corrupt by bribes”). The meaning “corrupt [by<br />
bribery]” is not again attested until the fourth century, and then frequently at that: Lys. 2.29, 28.9; Xen.<br />
Hell. 7.3.8; Isoc. 8.50, 17.12; Pl. Leg. 768b; Theopompus FGrH 115 F81; and twenty times in<br />
Demosthenes and Aeschines. Cf. Lys. 20.38. The absence from Old Comedy is striking, and Harvey<br />
unsatisfactorily suggests that the verb was originally slang of a sort, at first used only in spoken discourse;<br />
yet such an explanation would make its absence from comedy all the more unexpected.<br />
54
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political and social relations. As we will now see, Athenian politics, including actions<br />
framed as bribery, was rooted in the cornerstone of ancient Greek society: reciprocity.<br />
For this reason, a relational model of bribery is a natural choice for Athens.<br />
Reciprocity fundamentally guided how relationships—social, political,<br />
commercial—were forged and negotiated in Athens. 58 The common expression, “Help<br />
friends, harm enemies,” concisely expressed the ethos of reciprocity that underpinned the<br />
exchange of gifts (dōra) between friends (philoi). 59 Gifts could be given for a variety of<br />
reasons between a variety of relations, including friends, family members, and political<br />
allies; in this sense, they were the fundamental currency of social relationships. When<br />
someone gave a gift, it created an obligation, for it was a symbol of the relationship itself:<br />
one had to return gift with counter-gift or else risk marring the dynamics of the<br />
relationship. 60 Dōra were thus calibrated to the dynamics of the relationship or the<br />
circumstances of the exchange. Giving more or more valuable dōra might signify greater<br />
social standing or a greater request (reward, thanks, honor) being made. 61 As in our<br />
58 The scholarship on gift giving and reciprocity in Archaic and Classical Greece is vast. I list here the<br />
works that have had the greatest impact on my thinking: Finley (1977), Humphreys (1978a: 107-74),<br />
Donlan (1981-2; 1989), Herman (1987), Seaford (1994), von Reden (1995a), Millett (1997), Mitchell<br />
(1997), Gill, Postlethwaite, and Seaford (1998), Knippschild (2002), Domingo Gygax (2007, forthcoming).<br />
It should be noted, with Will (1954), that the reciprocal justice forged by gifts was also created by other<br />
monies, including currency.<br />
59 See further Sinclair (1988a: 187), Seaford (1994: 7-10), Domingo Gygax (2007: 113-19). This ethos<br />
readily shaped how political networks were constructed: Lys. 9.13, 14, 21; Pl. Rep 362b, Men. 41e; Xen.<br />
Mem. 2.4.6, 2.6.25, 3.7.9. Connor (1971: 35-47), Dover (1974: 180-1, 304-6), Sinclair (1988a: 187).<br />
60 Hence the frequent injunctions in Greek literature to match gift with gift, to give when one has given to<br />
you: Hom. Od. 24.283-6, Hes. WD 353-5, Epicharmus fr. 273K, Hdt. 1.69-70, Xen. Cyr. 5.3.31, Aristot.<br />
EN 1167a14-16. Cf. Mauss (1990: 47-8), von Reden (1995a: 18-24), Domingo Gygax (2007: 113-19;<br />
forthcoming: 23-5).<br />
61 Cf. Arist. Rhet.1.5.9, Mastrocinque (1996: 9). The exchange of armor between Glaucus and Diomede at<br />
Iliad 6.234-6 has been taken as the locus classicus for discussions of how dōra are calibrated to a<br />
relationship. See further Donlan (1989), Brown (1998), and generally Mauss (1990: 43-6), von Reden<br />
(1995a: 18-31). von Reden (1997) rightly extends this point to say that all money takes its meaning and<br />
value from the (social) context in which it is used.<br />
55
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relational approach to bribery, the logic of the gift accorded with the logic of the<br />
relationship in which it was given.<br />
Take the case of Themistocles and the thirty talents. Recall how, under the<br />
standard view, the payments in Herodotus’ depiction of the Greek fleet’s deliberations at<br />
Artemisium seemed baffling; on a relational view, by contrast, these dōra are perfectly<br />
‘rational’. As Herodotus writes, Themistocles successfully persuades Eurybiades, but<br />
only by giving money as if “in fact” it were coming from himself (w(j par) e(wutou=<br />
dh=qen dh=qen didou/j, Hdt. 8.5). In other words, Themistocles lies about the source of the money<br />
in order to leverage his own friendship with Eurybiades. After all, we can imagine how<br />
Eurybiades might readily accept money from Themistocles—who personally yielded his<br />
command to the Spartan (Plut. Them. 7.3)—but might balk at the idea of taking money<br />
from (or simply being persuaded by the entreaties of) the Euboeans, whose shores<br />
Eurybiades in particular wanted to abandon (Plut. Them. 7.4). 62<br />
Similarly, Themistocles and Adimantus were not on the best of terms—note their<br />
bickering before the Battle of Salamis (Hdt. 8.59-62)—and the dōra given and received<br />
reflect this enmity. Themistocles couches his offer of dōra within a thinly veiled threat:<br />
he flat-out commands Adimantus that the Corinthians not abandon the Greek fleet; and<br />
he ominously refers to bribery by the Persian King, in effect suggesting that, unless<br />
Adimantus were to comply, he would be accused of taking bribes from Xerxes. In an<br />
alternate version, in fact, Themistocles makes precisely this threat to one of his own men<br />
(cf. Plut. Them. 7.4.6). The dōra were calibrated to the dynamics of a specific<br />
relationship in each case.<br />
62 Even if we assume that Eurybiades simply wanted to move the Greek fleet elsewhere to give the Spartans<br />
at Thermoplyae a better chance—so Frost (1980: 106 ad 7.6)—it is crucial that he could not have been<br />
paid by just anyone to do so. Themistocles still had to leverage his own relationship with the Spartan.<br />
56
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Because dōra were used to negotiate the relationship itself, the obligation they<br />
incurred need not be repaid immediately. Often, in fact, outside of the ritualized<br />
exchange of dōra on-the-spot, a gift entailed only a general return, that is, a return<br />
unspecified in terms of both quality (what kind of gift, how valuable it was) and time<br />
(when it would be given). 63 In this sense, assuming they were gifts not quid pro quo<br />
compensation, we should not causally link the gifts given to Eurybiades and Adimantus<br />
with their decision to stay and defend Artemisium. Rather, both the talents of silver and<br />
the generals’ subsequent decision to stay could be viewed as independent ‘gifts’—we<br />
might say ‘favors’—that separately negotiated a friendship. Much like we saw with<br />
‘insider’ framing in the previous section, within the framing of the relationship it would<br />
have been difficult to construe the gifts as bribes, for they likely would not have obligated<br />
a specific return.<br />
This reciprocity—gifts obligating non-specific returns—created a continuously<br />
off-set equilibrium by which dōra could symbolize and strengthen relationships. The<br />
Athenians had a preference to give rather than to receive, meaning it was better to<br />
obligate others than to be so obligated. 64 As a result, when someone gave a gift, often the<br />
counter-gift would not simply repay an obligation, but would seek to off-set the<br />
equilibrium of the relationship by further obligating another, as well. 65 The exchange of<br />
gifts was not a series of immediate, equal exchanges, but was a continuous string of<br />
gift/counter-gift/gift (counter-gift)/counter-gift… Although an Athenian often claimed to<br />
give dōra spontaneously and unprompted as a way to initiate a new sequence of<br />
63 Mauss (1990) is seminal on this point. Finley (1957), Seaford (1994: 7-23), von Reden (1995a: 18-<br />
24), Domingo Gygax (2007: 119-20; forthcoming: 29-30) helpfully lay out these concepts out for an<br />
ancient Greek setting.<br />
64 E.g. Aristot. EN 1124b.<br />
65 Millett (1992: 32-3), Domingo Gygax (2007: esp. 120-2).<br />
57
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reciprocal exchanges, more often than not his ‘gift’ was actually both a ‘counter-gift’<br />
repaying a previous obligation and a ‘gift’ incurring a new obligation. In practice,<br />
therefore, the distinction between gift/counter-gift was usually blurred. 66<br />
So gifts and the reciprocity that governed them symbolized a long-term<br />
relationship between two social actors. In this sense, dōra could be used not only to<br />
reinforce existing social ties, but even to forge new ones: by accepting dōra, one was<br />
obligated to repay them, thereby setting off a potentially long-term sequence of gifts and<br />
counter-gifts. To an observer looking in, the acceptance of a single gift might signal a<br />
long-term relationship of reciprocal exchanges. For the Athenians, where there were<br />
dōra, there were friends; and where there were friends, there were dōra. In this respect,<br />
dōra acted as a kind of social glue, a way to bind people together into long-term,<br />
reciprocal relationships.<br />
Certainly these kinds of long-term relationships were the fabric of Athenian<br />
society, but the story of Themistocles highlights how such ‘friendships’ (philia) also<br />
played an important role in the practice of Athenian politics, whether we call these<br />
‘friendships’, ‘political friendships’, or ‘associations’. 67 Indeed, a range of evidence<br />
supports the claim that much of Athenian politics was conducted through the leveraging<br />
of personal relationships. 68 This makes sense at first glance, as the majority of Athenian<br />
66 Duly noted by Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 86-90) in a discussion of the epinikion as both gift and<br />
reward. Cf. Mastrocinque (1996: 12-13) on the difficulty in distinguishing between ‘gift’ and ‘tribute’ in<br />
archaic Greece. We can see this idea in practice in the way that public honors were represented sometimes<br />
as payment for past deeds, sometimes as encouraging (obligating) future benefactions, on which see most<br />
recently Liddel (2007: 160-82).<br />
67 The semantic field of philia and its cognates, especially philos/philoi, was broad. Philoi could range<br />
from family members to friends to fellow citizens, while philia was more restrictively applied only to kin<br />
or lovers: Konstan (1996); cf. Goldhill (1986: 88-106), Blundell (1991: 26-59).<br />
68 Connor (1971), Dow (1976), Whitehead (1986: 301-5), Strauss (1987), Sinclair (1988a), Littman (1990),<br />
Mitchell and Rhodes (1996), Mitchell (1997), Ober (2008). Cf. Calhoun (1913), Hunter (1994), Rubinstein<br />
(2000) for the leveraging of social relations in the courts.<br />
58
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officials were not professionals per se, but were amateurs serving one-year terms; that<br />
they would leverage their own social relations could only help them be more effective. 69<br />
Here I would like to point out three different areas in which specific social configurations<br />
pertained in politics so that we can get a better idea of the kinds of transactions that could<br />
have been used to negotiate those relationships.<br />
Of the relatively few elected officials in Athens, frequently those dealing with<br />
foreign policy—like military generals (stratēgoi) or ambassadors—were selected in part<br />
because their personal relations might provide a strategic advantage for Athens. This<br />
strategic advantage might entail securing resources, funds, or simply more favorable<br />
negotiations. The stratēgos Alcibiades thus used Thracian men in his army—troops<br />
whom he later called his philoi or ‘friends’—in order to besiege Byzantium in 409; and in<br />
413 Nicias hoped to overthrow Syracuse specifically through insiders who knew him. 70<br />
Demosthenes, Aeschines, and Philocrates were elected and re-elected as ambassadors to<br />
the Macedonian King Philip in part because of the relationship they had and continued to<br />
develop with him. 71 Examples can be multiplied. 72 To be sure, the Athenians realized<br />
69 This principle is manifest in the selection of paredroi, two of which assisted each of the eponymous<br />
archon, the archon basileus, and the polemarch: Dow (1976), Whitehead (1986: 301-5), Kapparis (1998).<br />
AP 56.1 records that the three archons selected their paredroi on their own accord, meaning that their philoi<br />
were likely the primary beneficiaries: Whitehead (1986: 304-5) collects the sources on this practice; cf.<br />
Kapparis (1998: 388-9). Even if such an arrangement were simply a holdover from the archaic period—<br />
so Rhodes (1981: 622 ad AP 56.1) and recently Kapparis (1998: 385-6)—it nevertheless made sense in the<br />
democracy if the Athenians actually wanted the archons’ work to proceed smoothly and efficiently (a<br />
necessity given the wide range of their tasks): cf. [Dem.] 59.81. So, for example, several sources attest<br />
that an inexperienced archon should be balanced out by an experienced paredros: schol. ad Dem. 21.178,<br />
schol. ad Aeschin. 1.158; Anecd. Bek. 288.16.<br />
70 Philoi: Diod. 13.105.3, cf. Plut. Alc. 36.6-37.3. Nicias: Thuc. 7.48.2, 7.73.3, cf. Diod. 13.27.3.<br />
71 Cf. Dem. 18.51-2, 18.284, 19.167. Conversely, foreign ambassadors were frequently invited to<br />
institutionalize some kind of tie to the city through xenia: Dem. 19.234-5. On the preference for a<br />
connection between an ambassador and the polis to which he would be sent, see especially Mosley (1973:<br />
43-9, 55-62).<br />
72 E.g. Dem. 19.166-7; cf. Dem. 18.50-2, 18.109, 18.284, 19.138-40 and generally Herman (1987) and<br />
Mitchell (1997), who collect the sources. Note how Pericles confirms his xenia with the Spartan general<br />
Archidamus, but explicitly mentions that this relationship had never brought any ill upon the polis (Thuc.<br />
2.13.1).<br />
59
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the potential danger of these relationships—a point which will prove pivotal in the next<br />
section—but the dēmos was happy to elect magistrates who would use their personal<br />
connections for the public’s interest. 73<br />
A second area in which social relations were regularly leveraged in politics was in<br />
the provision of essentially public services through private initiative. Taxes were farmed<br />
out to enterprising individuals who would collect them on behalf of the polis. 74 Grain,<br />
too, was collected by citizens who bid on public contracts for the responsibility to ensure<br />
that a certain amount of grain made it to the Piraeus port. 75 Elite citizens (and sometimes<br />
resident aliens) spent enormous amounts of money on public liturgies, like hosting and<br />
training a dramatic chorus (chorēgia), fitting out and commanding a naval ship<br />
(triērarchia), or a property tax (eisphora) that was collected, from 378/7 onwards, by<br />
means of share-groups (symmories) of about 15 members who shared the burden of the<br />
tax. 76<br />
73<br />
Badian (1987: 14), Herman (1987: 156-61), Mitchell (1997: 65-71). No Athenian seemed to mind,<br />
for instance, when Pericles gave dōra to the Spartan king Pleistoanax not to invade Attica. On the contrary,<br />
in his description of Pericles’ actions, Plutarch writes that some people, including Theophrastus the<br />
philosopher, thought that this was one among a number of payments that Pericles made to the Spartan<br />
leaders over a ten-year time period (Plut. Per. 23.1). Plutarch’s additional testimony is instructive, for he<br />
says that in this way Pericles ‘paid court to’ the Spartans (qerapeu/wn, Plut. Per. 23.1), meaning the<br />
stratēgos was giving money within the context of an ongoing exchange relationship. When Pericles’<br />
accounts for the year came up for scrutiny at his euthynē, he reportedly said that he ‘lost the ten talents out<br />
of necessity’, and the people did not press the issue further: ei)j to\ de/on a)pw/lesa, as Aristophanes quotes<br />
at Clouds 859 (cf. schol. ad loc.). On Pericles’ dealings with Pleistoanax, see Thuc. 2.21.1, 5.16.3; Eph. 70<br />
FGrH F193; Diod. 13.106.10; Plut. Per. 22-3, Nic. 28; Arist. Nu. 859 with scholia. For further discussion,<br />
see also Rhodes (1981: 313 ad AP 25.i), Dover (1968: 204 ad Nu. 859).<br />
74<br />
Tax farming: de Ste. Croix (1953), Brun (1983), Hansen (1991: 113-14), Liddel (2007: 279-80).<br />
75<br />
Grain provision: See Stroud (1998), Osborne (2000), Moreno (2007), and most recently Ober (2008:<br />
260-3).<br />
76<br />
On the liturgical system: Davies (1981), Sinclair (1988a: 64-5). Chorēgia: Wilson (2000), Liddel<br />
(2007: 264-70). Triērarchia: Sinclair (1998: 61-2), Liddel (2007: 270-4). Eisphora: Sinclair (1988a:<br />
62-3), Liddel (2007: 274-5). In the 340’s the symmory system for the eisphora system was expanded to<br />
create 60 groups of roughly 20 members; at the same time, these groups could also be held collectively<br />
responsible for paying for a trierarchy. On the symmory system, see Ruschenbusch (1978), Rhodes (1984),<br />
Gabrielsen (1985: 36), MacDowell (1986).<br />
60
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For each one of these services, there was a single output—an amount of tax or<br />
grain, a naval ship, or a trained chorus—that was the product of enormous collaboration<br />
among an entire network of people. The richest three members from each eisphora<br />
symmory were responsible for providing the tax owed by the symmory as a whole; how<br />
they collected reimbursement from the other members, however, is something of a<br />
mystery. It is clear that there were considerable disagreements over the most equitable<br />
distribution of contributions: in order to make the actual payment owed by the symmory,<br />
therefore, there was doubtless interpersonal negotiation within the symmory—friends<br />
helping each other out, signaling their own status within the group by the payment they<br />
could contribute, etc. 77<br />
Likewise, tax collectors, grain distributors, and liturgy performers could not have<br />
performed their obligations single-handedly: they would have had to rely on friends to<br />
ensure that all the necessary provisions were in order, that a certain amount of the tax<br />
would be guaranteed to be collected, and so forth. 78 For all public contracts, as well as<br />
for the trierarchy, there would have been the opportunity to recoup some losses and even<br />
profit; in that case, we can readily imagine that the proceeds were redistributed among<br />
friends who had been a part of the collaboration. 79<br />
Each one of these areas of politics thus leveraged a different configuration of<br />
social relationships, ranging from one or two immediate, close friends to more extensive<br />
77 Of course, those in charge of a symmory might consequently force the other, less wealthy members of<br />
the symmory to pay more—e.g. Dem. 18.104, Hyp. fr. 160—and this could cause tremendous problems at<br />
wartime in trying to secure a fleet quickly. Cf. Dem. 4.36. On in-group distribution and remuneration, see<br />
also Dem. 37.37, 50.9.<br />
78 Wankel (1982: 46-7), Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 102-6). That groups of people, not individuals,<br />
might bid on amounts of grain is clear from Agyrrhios’ grain-tax law of 374/3: see SEG XXVI 72.31-3<br />
with Stroud (1998: 65-6 ad 31-6), Osborne (2000: 173). Millett (1992: 69-71) notes that elites would<br />
often borrow money from friends in order to pay a liturgy up-front.<br />
79 For the redistribution of booty as prizes (aristeiae) or misthos, see Pritchett (1972: 1.85-92).<br />
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networks of informal ties and formal associations, as in the case of the symmories.<br />
Accordingly, we can posit that each area, too, would have admitted the giving and<br />
receiving of dōra within its own specific configuration of relations. These dōra could<br />
represent anything from well-defined shares of profit—that is, specific monetary sums—<br />
to general charis (“thanks”) recognizing a contribution to a collaborative effort; or, in the<br />
case where collaboration was itself a favor repaying a previous relational debt,<br />
subsequent dōra may not even have been ‘earmarked’ as thanks for any specific gift.<br />
Even without getting into any specifics, therefore, we can see how wide-ranging the<br />
intent, use, and meaning of these dōra could be.<br />
All of these dōra were essentially informal payments (or gifts) that both initiated<br />
and sustained the collaboration entailed in the above political domains. Yet there were<br />
also formal payments made, and these constitute our third area of politics in which<br />
important social configurations might emerge. In contrast to the above situations in<br />
which a pre-existing social relationship was leveraged in the interests of accomplishing<br />
some political task, where there were regular, formal payments, we need not assume that<br />
the transactors already knew each other. The social relationship negotiated in these cases<br />
usually would have been merely an arms-length tie. Thus, even if a particular general,<br />
say, did not know any of the leaders in a foreign city, he might still receive a payment<br />
from them as compensation for defending the city. 80<br />
This is precisely what seems to have happened with Themistocles and the Greek<br />
fleet at Artemisium. Although Themistocles leveraged his own relationship with<br />
80 Wallace (1974: 25n.8) on these payments; cf. Hdt. 7.158.4. Even if a payment from the Euboeans would<br />
have been irregular, Themistocles’ contemporaries probably would have viewed his payments in light of<br />
money from Athens to finance the expedition: Hdt. 8.5.3, Ephorus FGrH 70 F193. Certainly by the end of<br />
the fifth century, when the Persian King was financing a number of Spartan expeditions, this practice had<br />
become more regular: Lewis (1989).<br />
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Eurybiades and Adimantus by providing them with dōra, the Athenian himself seems to<br />
have been given veritable compensation, a “payment” (cf. misqw| =, e)kexa/risto, Hdt. 8.4-<br />
5) in order to stay at Artemisium. No close relationship need be presumed here, and the<br />
use of misthos might signal both the particular frame of compensation and especially a<br />
formal payment by the Euboeans. On this point Phanias’ alternate version—in which<br />
Themistocles offers a talent of silver to the trierarch Architeles—is explicit, for<br />
Themistocles’ offer could readily be interpreted in light of the regular payment of misthos<br />
made by a general like Themistocles to a trierarch like Architeles (Plut. Them. 7.6). 81 On<br />
one reading of the scene, in fact, the ‘bribes’ given were no more than payments often<br />
given to generals to ensure that their men would be fed. 82<br />
Examples can be multiplied. Trierarchs who did not wish to command their ship<br />
could hire out someone to take their place. 83 Although Athenian ambassadors were given<br />
a per diem for the duration of an embassy, they were often still provided accommodation<br />
by proxenoi living in the city they were visiting. 84 From the mid-fourth century onwards,<br />
magistrates were publicly honored on an increasingly regular basis simply for performing<br />
the duties of their office. 85 In addition to various rates of pay for public officials including<br />
81 On the regular payment of a misthos for military service, see Pritchett (1971: 3-27); for the distribution of<br />
this misthos by the stratēgos, Pritchett (1971: 85-92). Although there are chronological problems with<br />
positing that a stratēgos might provide a monetary wage in the 480’s—so, Pritchett (1971: 11), Frost (1980:<br />
107 ad 7.6-7), Blösel (2001: 182)—it is enough for our purposes that later Athenians hearing of<br />
Themistocles at Artemisium would have understood his payment to Architeles in light of regular payments<br />
in political practice.<br />
82 Cawkwell (1970), Wallace (1974), though cf. Blösel (2001: 135-6). The explicit purpose for which<br />
funds were accepted was often hard to determine, as monies collected for the tribute, say, were nevertheless<br />
used to provide provisions or misthos for soldiers: Pritchett (1974: 40-1).<br />
83 Lys. 21.10, Dem. 21.80, 51.7. Given the purported reputation of the helmsman hired in Lysias 21.10, we<br />
need not presume that the speaker had known him before hiring him.<br />
84 Mitchell (1997: 29).<br />
85 See the examples provided by Whitehead (1983: 73n.32). Note how, by the time of Aristotle’s<br />
Constitution of Athens (late 330’s to early 320’s), the Council regularly received a dōrea of a gold crown<br />
after successfully submitting its accounts: AP 46.1; Aeschin. 1.111-12, Dem. 22.36, 22.38-9; cf. Dem.<br />
22.8-20.<br />
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councilors, judges were provided small court fees by litigants at the preliminary hearing<br />
of suits (Poll. 8.38, Dem. 47.64), while jurors were paid at the end of each day for which<br />
they served on a jury (Ar. Eq. 225, AP 62.2).<br />
These last payments were made by the polis and certainly, to that extent, signaled<br />
a formal political relationship between citizen and polis. It is important to remember,<br />
however, that the polis seems to have had a monopoly over the legitimate provision of<br />
these kinds of pay; these particular transactions were strongly associated with the<br />
specific, fixed transactors of citizen (or official) and polis. If somebody else tried to<br />
provide the same kind of compensation, it was often considered bribery, where the bribe<br />
monies were viewed as a substitute for the pay normally provided public officials. 86 As<br />
suggested by a relational approach to bribery, simply changing one of the transactors—<br />
allowing a regular citizen, say, to give a payment to a public official in return for a<br />
particular service—could shift the normative value of the transaction considerably.<br />
By the same token, it should be noted just how often informal gifts to an official<br />
within the context of a social relationship would have flowed side-by-side with formal<br />
payments from the polis. 87 How the scene was evaluated thus often hinged on whether<br />
one adopted the perspective of an ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’. Again, consider how<br />
Themistocles leveraged reciprocal relationships with both Eurybiades and Adimantus in<br />
86 Public officials were paid certainly in the fifth century and perhaps in the fourth century as well. The<br />
issue of fourth-century pay for public office is a vexed one among Greek historians: for an introduction to<br />
the debate, see Gabrielsen (1981) for and Hansen (1979, 1980) against the idea that fourth-century officials<br />
were regularly paid. I tend to side with Hansen: see Chapter Four below. Note how in the Heliastic oath,<br />
the jurors swore never to take gifts on behalf of their office from anyone in any way whatsoever (Dem.<br />
24.150). Although the pay was modest—intended mainly to pay for meals and as an honorarium, on which<br />
see Markle (1985) and Chapter Two below—we never hear of officials taking bribes expressly because<br />
they were paid too little.<br />
87 We can reframe this idea in terms of the rewards or perquisites of office, treated in detail by Hansen<br />
(1980) and Sinclair (1988a: 179-86) and see also Lys. 19.57, 25.9, 25.19, 30.25; Dem. 3.29, 19.215,<br />
[Dem.] 58.35; Aeschin. 3.173; Din. 1.41, 1.77. Cf. Lys. 28.9, 29.6; Ar. V. 669-77, Pl.377-9, 567-70. The<br />
central issue of perquisites is whether they are legitimate or illegitimate (i.e. bribery, as oft). In this sense,<br />
legitimate rewards might come from either a formal or informal source.<br />
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order to get the leaders to stay and defend Euboea. We can imagine that the dōra he gave<br />
were viewed among ‘insiders’—himself and anyone else part of the same relational<br />
context—as just one installment in a long series of gift/counter-gift reciprocal exchanges.<br />
Similarly, each general contributed his own ‘counter-gift’ to Themistocles: a pledge to<br />
stay and defend Artemisium.<br />
But note how, in that case, the counter-gift itself was a political service that<br />
represented its own set of obligations in a different social context: the ‘outside’<br />
relationship between public official and community, for example. The services provided<br />
by the generals to Themistocles (and, for that matter, those provided by Themistocles in<br />
return for the Euboeans’ payment) performed relational work within the twin contexts of<br />
an inside and outside relationship. In other words, both sets of relationships were<br />
negotiated at the same time; the generals’ ‘counter-gift’ to Themistocles was also a<br />
gift/counter-gift to some third party. By using a political service, normally used to<br />
negotiate the outside relationship, as a token to perform relational work in the inside<br />
relationship, all the generals at Artemisium thus lay themselves open to the claim of<br />
bribery.<br />
The issue faced by Themistocles and his associates was one of dual framing, a<br />
conflict between insider and outsider perspectives discussed in the previous section. The<br />
monies that did relational work in one relational context simultaneously entailed<br />
obligations within another context. Realistically, people encounter these kinds of<br />
scenarios all the time and unproblematically negotiate both relationships simultaneously<br />
through compromise. A problem arises, however, when one relationship is not given its<br />
proper due, that is, when the relative balance between the two relationships too much<br />
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favors one or the other. 88 In that case, it can appear that some inherent obligation has<br />
been broken and, crucially, that this normative violation has resulted from how someone<br />
has tried to negotiate the other relationship. Because such relational work is often<br />
performed through monies—gifts, counter-gifts, cash, favors, entitlements, etc.—the<br />
normative violation is often blamed on the transaction, the very site and means of<br />
relational negotiation. 89<br />
Examining Athens from a relational perspective allows us to push our relational<br />
model yet further. As the case of Themistocles suggests, dōra in political collaboration<br />
can negotiate two relationships simultaneously; when one of those relationships is<br />
thought to outweigh the other unjustly, outsiders readily frame the actions as bribery. 90<br />
We can generalize this claim as follows: wherever there was political collaboration, there<br />
was the possibility that someone might look at the scene and call it bribery. After all,<br />
Athenian politics did not merely leverage these configurations of social relations, but was<br />
in fact constituted by them. Hence, politics at Athens, like politics anywhere, should be<br />
viewed as a specific subset of all the social relations that attain in society. Each political<br />
88 Hence ‘private gain’ at ‘public loss’ shows an undesirable favoring of private over public regard. The<br />
imbalance between a bribe-taker’s profit while the rest of the polis suffered was central to the topos of<br />
“profiting at your [sc. the people’s expense,” treated in Chapters Three and Four below.<br />
89 This is precisely what occurs in Zelizer’s (1994; 2005b) ‘Hostile Worlds’ scenarios, on which see above.<br />
90 Cf. von Reden (1995a: 94). It should be noted that such dual framing always arises in political<br />
situations, but can be found in other social contexts, as well. To return to Timocreon’s abuse of<br />
Themistocles, the Athenian is called a “liar, con, traitor...won over by roguish silver” (yeu&stan a1dikon<br />
prodo&tan…a)rguri/oisi kobalikoi=si peisqei\j, 727 PMG 4-5) for having taken money from Timocreon’s<br />
enemies to keep Timocreon in exile, rather than to restore him as he had pledged to do. Timocreon was<br />
Themistocles’ guest-friend (cf. cei=non, 727 PMG 4), and the entire poem details how, in repeatedly<br />
committing bribery, Themistocles harmed not only Timocreon, but a number of other friends, as well.<br />
There, not restoring Timocreon from exile is a service that negotiates two distinct sets of<br />
relationships—Themistocles and Timocreon, Themistocles and Timocreon’s enemies. Although<br />
Timocreon blames this service on “roguish silver” and thereby assumes Themistocles had been bribed, in<br />
theory Themistocles may have been given this silver as a ‘gift’ with no strings attached and may simply<br />
have been showing more favor to one set of friends (Timocreon’s enemies) than to another (Timocreon).<br />
The poem has been much discussed: see especially AE 415, Fornara (1966: 260), Stehle (1994: 510-11)<br />
on historical issues and Podlecki (1975), Scodel (1983), and Stehle (1994) on the thorny issue of the<br />
poem’s genre.<br />
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system is constituted by a different constellation of social relations, and each has its own<br />
constellation of social obligations that inhere in those relations. As a result, wherever<br />
there is politics, there is the possibility of dually-framed dōra and, consequently, the<br />
possibility of bribery.<br />
In those cases, trying to disentangle which dōra or services negotiated which<br />
relationship is misguided, even impossible, because they can be construed as performing<br />
relational work in both relationships. Themistocles’ actions at Artemisium helpfully<br />
show the problems in trying to fix only one kind of social framing; instead, there as<br />
elsewhere we should ask what is at stake in adopting one social frame, hence one<br />
normative evaluation, over another when both really seem to apply simultaneously. In<br />
terms of politics, certain practices are considered legitimate, others not, but ultimately<br />
this evaluation hinges on how we frame the social relationships involved and on how we<br />
define the social obligations entailed by those relations. So, I underscore, the normative<br />
value of vote-swapping in the legislature, paying a public official to win a public<br />
contract, or accepting money from an ally and redistributing it among friends is not<br />
absolute, but is subject to contestation among competing social frames. This contestation<br />
of frames is a crucial part of politics. In the next section, the last part of the relational<br />
model of Athenian bribery we have been developing, we will examine how these<br />
competing frames tied into broader political narratives within the democracy.<br />
From Definition to Discourse: dōrodokia and the Commerce of Bad Friends<br />
Any relational approach to bribery must begin with identifying configurations of<br />
social relations within a society. From there, by examining the vocabulary of bribery, the<br />
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mechanics for assigning and contesting value, we can begin to uncover the patterns of<br />
normative values generated by those social relations. But what happens when these<br />
values are contested? What happens when the meaning of a relationship is negotiated, or<br />
when competing social frames are brought to bear on the same actions? At that point,<br />
people turn to broader cultural norms to guide how they should assess such competing<br />
political claims—in short, people determine the narrative of a specific sequence of events<br />
by looking to broader cultural narratives about how similar events are typically framed.<br />
In this way, the frame of bribery interlocks with larger narratives about how politics is<br />
conducted, at Athens as in any other polity. Exactly how this interlocking of social<br />
frames and political narratives plays out will be the focus of this section, one that will lay<br />
the groundwork for our relational approach. 91<br />
In this last section, therefore, we must shift our focus from social relations to<br />
political norms, with an eye towards understanding how political norms can change over<br />
time. As we just saw, there were a number of different ways in which social relations<br />
could be leveraged in Athenian politics, but one of the critical problems the Athenian<br />
democracy faced was the inherent danger in allowing certain kinds of social relations to<br />
pertain in politics. A well-connected general or ambassador was certainly in a good<br />
position to obtain a favorable result for the community, but he was just as able to obtain a<br />
less than favorable result, as well. There was, accordingly, a pressing need for the<br />
91 Although bribery functions as a narrative about politics in practice in other cultures, too—see, e.g. Gupta<br />
(1995), Ledeneva (1998), Sedlenieks (2004), cf. Thuc. 2.97.4 about the Odrysians in Thrace—it is<br />
nevertheless remarkable that the Athenians adopted it. After all, the presumption of bribery can be a major<br />
distortion of the causality of events. Even if there had been a long sequence of gift and counter-gift in the<br />
transactors’ eyes, in which case no particular ‘bribe’ could be associated with the specific counter-gift of<br />
the political service provided, within the frame of bribery this long sequence was narrowed down to a<br />
single quid pro quo transaction, the exchange of bribe for service. Likewise, to presume that politics was<br />
conducted through bribes entails a considerable amount of civic distrust: see especially Chapter Four<br />
below.<br />
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Athenians to define when leveraging a social relation was okay, when it was not. As the<br />
Athenian democracy developed, there was also a need to be able to redefine these broad<br />
political norms over time. As we will examine here, bribery qua a social frame was the<br />
political narrative par excellence for conceptualizing what had gone wrong in a particular<br />
case and why this was ‘wrong’ in the first place. To frame something as bribery was a<br />
way to contest its legitimacy; in this way, competing claims over which social frame<br />
should become social fact were competing claims over how best to understand the<br />
democracy.<br />
Bribery was a popular explanation for political injustice at Athens. When a public<br />
official’s obligation to the community was breached, bribery was usually assumed to be<br />
the cause. These assumptions pervade Athenian political history as public officials’<br />
failure to do what was expected of them—their violation of the obligations inherent in<br />
their relationship with the community—were blamed on bribery. 92 Yet in order to<br />
assume that a specific outcome was caused by bribery, an Athenian had to have had the<br />
idea that most bad outcomes were caused by bribery. How a particular outcome was<br />
framed was therefore shaped by prevailing norms and expectations about politics. In<br />
short, each time an Athenian assumed that bribery had occurred, the very choice of social<br />
frames hinged on broader political narratives.<br />
There are two parts to this idea that the social frame of bribery at the individual<br />
level was interlocked with common narratives of polity. First, bribes were associated<br />
with ‘bad friends’; to claim that someone had taken bribes was to identify him with a<br />
specific social type, what I will call the dōrodokos or corrupt man. In this way, the<br />
92 Strauss (1985: 71-2), Todd (1993: 306), Kulesza (1995: 42-4), Taylor (2001: 161). Pritchett (1974:<br />
2.24) on generals’ responsibility for everything, as well as prosecution of generals for major defeats (1974:<br />
2.20); cf. Roberts (1982), Elster (1999).<br />
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framing of a specific outcome as bribery hinged on whether or not that outcome fit with<br />
generally recognized trends in politics: discrete events were framed as bribery (or not)<br />
depending on how well they resembled broader, common conceptions of what bribery<br />
looked like. Once idealized in this way, the stereotype of the dōrodokos could play an<br />
important role in public discourse.<br />
This will be the second argument sketched here. It was through social types like<br />
the dōrodokos that Athenians thought through the democracy itself. Hence, adopting the<br />
narrative frame of bribery implicitly (or explicitly) told a larger narrative about politics<br />
and society, for it assigned a particular role to the dōrodokos within the broader<br />
democracy. By telling a story about one sequence of events, an Athenian was staking a<br />
claim in broader public discussions about how democratic politics should be conducted.<br />
Discourse on dōrodokia was the discourse of democracy; and it was here, through<br />
competing narratives on dōrodokia and democracy, that deliberative politics was<br />
fashioned.<br />
First, the dōrodokos and ‘bad friends’. Dually-framed dōra can simultaneously<br />
make and break friendships, with the normative value of the dōra hinging on how they<br />
are framed. If framed through the lens of a ‘broken’ relationship in which a social<br />
obligation has been violated, bribery emerges. Recall from the Introduction how a<br />
dōrodokos like Timagoras was called a ‘bad friend’. Precisely the kind of person who<br />
had harmed, not helped, his friends—a person who had failed to understand the principle<br />
of reciprocity—was the type who might violate the obligations in one friendship in order<br />
to negotiate those in another. This is precisely the kind of person Timagoras was called<br />
when he was impugned both for taking bribes and for treating his fellow ambassador<br />
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poorly. 93 In subsequent chapters we will encounter a number of other dōrodokoi who<br />
were similarly ‘bad friends’.<br />
What kind of ‘bad friends’ were born of bribery? Although the frame of bribery<br />
could be used if an obligation within any friendship was thought violated, there is good<br />
reason to think that, for the Athenians, there was one relationship in particular—that<br />
between citizen and community—through which bribery was continually framed. 94<br />
Throughout the democracy, there was a strong ethos of civic obligation: citizens qua<br />
members of a political community had an obligation to take a hand in bettering that<br />
community. 95 This obligation was sometimes informally expressed through social norms<br />
on entering political office, serving on a jury, respecting other citizens, or taking part in a<br />
festival. Alternatively, there were formal requirements like property taxes and liturgies<br />
for the elite, laws on military service or on speaking against the people’s interests. Either<br />
way, a citizen’s membership in the polity was defined by the duties he had towards the<br />
community and the rewards he received as a member of the franchise. It was a<br />
relationship founded on reciprocity. 96<br />
93 Similarly, Timocreon lambastes Themistocles for taking bribes and thereby betraying his friend (727<br />
PMG). Demosthenes accuses Aeschines of being a bad friend (Dem. 19.191) and bad guest (Dem. 19.196-<br />
8), both of which signal that Aeschines failed to understand the value of reciprocity.<br />
94 So Leslie Kurke (2002: 94) writes, “gift-giving…becomes negatively inflected as ‘bribery’ (dōrodokia)<br />
when it is felt to interfere with a citizen’s obligations to his civic community.” While Kurke is certainly<br />
right to point to the discursive power at the heart of insinuations of bribery, I would argue that what was<br />
called bribery need not, but often was, framed in relation to a citizen’s obligations to the community. Of<br />
course, a citizen’s violated obligations to his friends—as in Timocreon’s invective against Themistocles<br />
(727 PMG)—could also result in the inflection of gift-giving as bribery.<br />
95 E.g. Thuc. 2.35ff. On the range of these civic obligations, Liddel (2007) is essential. For Aristotle’s<br />
thoughts on civic obligation, see Rosler (2005). So Demosthenes notes that the freedoms of democracy<br />
were guarded by rivalrous competition to participate politically and to win rewards from the dēmos (Dem.<br />
20.107-8). For an idea of the breadth and depth of Athenian civic participation, Sinclair (1988a: esp. 51-<br />
4).<br />
96 Liddel (2007: 139-43). Aristotle commonly writes that the goal of political life was to win honor (timē)<br />
from the community: EN 1159a15-25, 1095b14-31, Pol. 1302a31-b18, 1283a16-22, Rh. 1361a28-b2.<br />
Recent scholars have explored how this timē was frequently expressed as charis or reciprocal “thanks” for<br />
the provision of some good deed to the community: see especially Davies (1981: 92-8), Ober (1989),<br />
Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: passim).<br />
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There were specific reciprocal obligations that defined a public official’s<br />
relationship to the community. Under Solon a century before the democracy, public<br />
office was conceived of as a tax, a contribution to the polity proportional to one’s<br />
income: the more affluent the citizen, the greater his expected contribution and the more<br />
important his role in the polity. 97 In this sense, public office was conceptualized as a<br />
public service, a good work or benefaction, much like liturgies familiar from later in the<br />
democracy. 98 Indeed, all would-be public officials had to undergo a public scrutiny, or<br />
dokimasia, in which their legal qualifications were assessed and, crucially, their past<br />
good works to the city were vetted. 99 The dokimasia ascertained that the reciprocal<br />
relations between citizen and community had been well-established and would<br />
presumably continue during that citizen’s tenure in public office. 100 Although the<br />
Athenians did not conceptualize these reciprocal relations as a ‘friendship’ per se, it is<br />
clear that the relationship between citizen and community was a reciprocal one constantly<br />
negotiated by civic obligations. 101<br />
97 Following Ostwald (1995: 374-6), who understands Solon’s ‘property’ (telē) classes as tax classes.<br />
Finley (1977: 96-7) on the similar reciprocity between kings and communities in Homeric society; this was<br />
part of a broader reliance on elite contributions to the polis in the archaic period, on which see most<br />
recently Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 91-107).<br />
98 Xenophanes (fr. 2 DK) explicitly compares elite political wisdom to the benefaction of an athletic<br />
victory: cf. Pl. Ap. 36d, Rep. 465d and see Doming Gygax (forthcoming: 110-15) for discussion. Not<br />
coincidentally, in the second half of the fourth century, serving in public office was regularly awarded<br />
public honors just as liturgies were: Whitehead (1983: 65) lists the sources. In the fifth century, too,<br />
certain extraordinary successes in public office were rewarded exceptional honors: Themistocles was<br />
awarded a statute in the Temple of Artemis Aristoboulē (Plut. Them. 22.2); commemorative herms were<br />
erected in the agora for Cimon and the other generals at Eion (Aeschin. 3.183, Plut. Cim. 7.4); and Cleon<br />
received proedria and sitēsis after Pylos (Ar. Eq. 573-80). It is more striking, however, how the<br />
achievements of prominent leaders of the fifth century are characterized as elite benefactions: Sinclair<br />
(1988a: 34-6), Schmitt-Pantel (1992: 179-208) are fundamental on this point.<br />
99 MacDowell (1978: 168), Ostwald (1995: 325-6). Specifically, a candidate was asked whether he treated<br />
his parents well, paid his taxes, and had fulfilled his military obligations (AP 55.3). Broader considerations<br />
of goodwill towards the community could be brought up by accusers: see esp. Lysias 16, 25, 26, 31, all<br />
presented at dokimasiai.<br />
100 Adeleye (1983: esp. 30), Hansen (1991: 218-20); cf. Todd (1993: 285-9).<br />
101 Plato’s Crito is fundamental on this point. Aristotle EN viii-ix, esp. viii.10-11 posits that the reciprocal<br />
exchange relationship at the heart of political friendship—though not strictly philia—nevertheless exhibits<br />
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The dōrodokos, then, was a ‘bad friend’ to the community: not a specific bad<br />
friend, but an example of a generic category of individuals in the democracy. Whether<br />
we encounter him in comedy or forensic oratory, he is a kind of idealized figure—in a<br />
word, a stereotype. 102 Again, a relational view helps illuminate why this could have been<br />
the case. Whenever we negotiate any social relationship—a friendship, say—we have in<br />
mind certain social benchmarks by which we define and redefine its terms. “Friends are<br />
supposed to do X or Y,” we think, and this generic expectation consequently structures<br />
our interactions with specific friends by helping shape the norms of the relationship.<br />
Behavior and expectations are shaped according to some ideal about what a relationship<br />
is or is not, what it should and should not be.<br />
Because of his dual framing as insider and outsider, the dōrodokos was potentially<br />
identified with two relational roles, two ideal types, at once. Within the relationship<br />
negotiated by the bribe, the dōrodokos was aligned with one relational role, whether<br />
friend, neighbor, father, associate, etc., and his behavior was measured according to the<br />
yardstick of the ideal friend, neighbor, etc. From the community’s perspective and within<br />
the context of his relationship with the community, however, he was aligned with the role<br />
of ‘bad friend’. By failing to provide an expected, obligatory return in his ‘friendship’<br />
with the community, the dōrodokos had intentionally or unintentionally identified himself<br />
with the community’s other ‘bad friends’.<br />
the same reciprocity inherent in philia: Hutter (1978), Schofield (1998). While I would venture that every<br />
society establishes a similar kind of reciprocal relationship between citizen and community, it should be<br />
noted that both the nature and the content of this obligation can vary tremendously. In Athens this<br />
obligation was defined primarily by informal, not formal norms: relatively few legal regulations restricted<br />
official conduct, while the social standard of reciprocity—help the community, don’t harm it—prevailed.<br />
102 Wankel (1982: 33), Kulesza (1995: 45-83, esp. 81-2).<br />
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Remarkably, what is distinct about the dōrodokos as a social type is that there<br />
were never any generic features that uniquely identified him. 103 Theophrastus’<br />
Characters provides short character sketches of 30 different social types that could be<br />
found in Athens just after the democracy: the flatterer, the garrulous man, the oligarch,<br />
the miser, the greedy man, the coward, the busy-body—all of these types had defining<br />
features by which each character could be picked out in a crowd. The dōrodokos is<br />
nowhere to be found. 104 Aside from perhaps being a ‘bad friend’, the dōrodokos was<br />
essentially an empty set, an open sign that could be filled in as needed. Sometimes he<br />
was assumed to be poor, other times rich. 105 Sometimes he was assumed to have a bad<br />
character through and through; other times his transgression was considered an isolated<br />
affair. 106 He could be working alone or part of a vast network of dōrodokoi. 107 When I<br />
speak of the dōrodokos, then, I intend it as a heuristic that signals the ideal type with<br />
which a bribe-giver or bribe-taker was identified. When someone was suspected of<br />
dōrodokia, he was identified with a social type—a kind of person in the democracy—but<br />
the exact contents of this type shifted over time.<br />
103<br />
Ober (1989: 237) notes in passing the reverse of this claim, that the Athenians never had a topos of the<br />
adōrodokētos or unbribable man. Wankel (1982) and Kulesza (1995: 48-83) examine the generic<br />
construction of bribery accusations, but are unable to identify any unique characteristics beyond lack of<br />
loyalty to the polis. Again, we might call the dōrodokos, simply, a ‘bad friend’. Cf. Kulesza (1995: 81).<br />
Accordingly, the dōrodokos, though idealized, never claimed the status of a range of other ‘bad citizen’<br />
anti-types in the democracy, like the military shirker or avoider of liturgies—on which see Christ (2006,<br />
2008)—or the whore, the flatterer, and the sykophant, helpfully discussed by Fisher (2008). For the<br />
affinities between bribery and prostitution, again in terms of character types, see von Reden (1995a: 117-<br />
20).<br />
104<br />
Bribery appears but once in the Oligarch’s complaint about how the courts are corrupt: Theoph. Char.<br />
26.5.<br />
105<br />
Poor: Xen. Hell. 2.3.48, Aeschin. 1.88, Dem. 18.131, Arist. Pol. 1270b6-13, Din. 3.18. Rich: Aeschin.<br />
3.94, Hyp. 3.35, Din. 1.40, Dem. 21.112, 23.201.<br />
106<br />
Character: Ar. Pl. 569-70, Lys. 28.10-11, Dem. 23.146 and see Chapter Three. Isolated incident:<br />
Aristides, nicknamed ‘the just’ for his apparent refusal to seek personal gain in his public service, was<br />
reportedly convicted of dōrodokia for once taking money from the Ionians when assessing their tribute<br />
(Plut. Arist. 26.2-5=Craterus FGrH 324 F12).<br />
107<br />
Working alone: Timagoras (Plut. Pelop. 30.6-7) and Arthmius (e.g. Din. 2.24) were isolated incidents<br />
of bribery. Network: Euxenippus (Hyp. 4.39), those involved in the Harpalus Affair (Ath. 8.341f-342),<br />
Ant. 6.49-50, and see generally Chapter Four below.<br />
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As the next three chapters will detail, during each of three different periods in the<br />
democracy a different conception of the dōrodokos prevailed: the disobedient citizen, the<br />
thief, and the traitor. Each one of these latter types, and the dōrodokos by extension, had<br />
its own distinct characteristics, but we will find that the choice of which type or which<br />
characteristics to assign to the dōrodokos was determined in large part by how dōrodokia<br />
was conceptualized. At the end of the dissertation, we will return to the question of why<br />
the Athenians treated the dōrodokos uniquely as an ideal type yet one which never had<br />
any distinct features of its own. For now it is enough to note that the dōrodokos played<br />
this role in the democracy and that the next chapters examine in greater detail how this<br />
process actually worked.<br />
So calling someone a dōrodokos identified him with a social type within the<br />
democracy, although this type shifted over time along with changing conceptions of<br />
dōrodokia. This brings us to the second point I would like to highlight about the<br />
normative construction of narratives of bribery in the Athenian democracy. In public<br />
discourse, the stereotype of the dōrodokos was used to tell a larger story about politics<br />
and society at Athens. This idea will play a prominent role in the second half of the<br />
dissertation, where we will see how distinct narratives of dōrodokia became legitimated<br />
in public discourse through legal institutions. It is worth outlining the contours of this<br />
claim here, however, so that in the chapters to follow the reader can glean hints of the<br />
broader role played by narratives of dōrodokia.<br />
We have been focusing on competing social frames, on the difference between an<br />
insider’s and outsider’s potential framing of a sequence of events. To an outsider, the<br />
monies used to negotiate a relationship of political collaboration could quickly blend into<br />
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bribes; an insider, however, could contest this framing of events in two distinct ways.<br />
First, a different relational frame with a different transaction context could be adopted.<br />
By claiming that the monies were not compensation, but were gifts that required no<br />
specific return, an insider could contest the twin ideas that there had been an exchange<br />
and that this exchange had caused some normative violation. Moreover, and this way is<br />
most important for our purposes, the frame of bribery could be contested by claiming that<br />
there had been no violation of obligations in the first place. This last view posited that<br />
the norms of the outside relationship should be defined along different lines from those<br />
adopted by the outsider: new practices, like the insiders’ quid pro quo exchange, should<br />
be allowed, or old practices should take on new meaning.<br />
Again, this makes sense from a relational perspective. When we try to negotiate<br />
the terms of a relationship—as we switch the ideal types that define it, changing from<br />
friend to lover, say—we restructure the norms governing that relationship. By changing<br />
how we understand the ideal form of the relationship, we let new practices become<br />
accepted, or old practices become imbued with new meaning. After a certain point, it no<br />
longer makes sense to think of the relationship through the previous ideal (friends), and a<br />
new ideal (lovers) must be adopted; the relationship is then likened to a new, idealized<br />
social type. Crucially, this new type is structured according to a new set of norms. 108<br />
108 In the same vein, Rose (2003: 232) suggests that moral discourses are ultimately statements of imagined<br />
unities: the kinds of things ‘we’ do or do not do. Changing the contents of these discourses thus signals a<br />
new conception of who ‘we’ are—a redefinition of the boundaries of community. I view such a process,<br />
whereby accretions of meaning slowly change a core concept until it must be reinvented or redefined, as<br />
analogous to the accretion of meanings and practices attached to rituals: cf. Beard (1987) and Feeney<br />
(1998: 129-31) for a relevant discussion of how literary texts represent the multiplicity of meanings in<br />
ritual processes. In this light, it is perhaps unsurprising to find contemporary sociologists like Miller (1998:<br />
73-110) and Wuthnow (1996: 183-97) speaking of rituals within and concerning practices of consumption.<br />
For these scholars, it is precisely through ritual that consumers align purchases (consumption) with broader<br />
cultural values and thereby negotiate social relationships. I would argue that the same could be said about<br />
engaging in bribery, as well.<br />
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Now we can begin to see what was considered so bad about dōrodokia and why<br />
adopting the frame of bribery (or not) was an inherently political act. By taking what his<br />
opponent called ‘bribes’, the dōrodokos effectively represented a change to the logic of<br />
an existing relationship. At best he was re-negotiating, at worst rejecting, the norms<br />
governing the relationship between public official and the people, citizen and community.<br />
Potentially each side viewed the other as trying to establish a new ideal, a new standard<br />
by which political friendships with the community were to be negotiated. For this reason,<br />
dōrodokoi are often portrayed as weighing the currency of one relationship against<br />
another, esteeming the bribes as more valuable than any rewards inherent in benefiting<br />
the community. 109 This process of weighing was both literal and symbolic: the<br />
dōrodokos had to determine not only which social frame would be given greater weight<br />
in his simultaneous negotiation of two relationships, but especially which normative<br />
context, which set of ideal types, was more important to him.<br />
Such weighing of currencies often resulted in the alignment of bribe monies with<br />
cash, that is, the currency of the marketplace. No doubt some of the time the form of the<br />
bribe was in actual Athenian drachmas; to this extent, calling the bribe monies ‘cash’<br />
could form a purely descriptive role. But often, too, referring to the bribe monies as<br />
‘money’ played a crucial discursive role: it was a way to signal that the relations,<br />
practices, or outcomes associated with the bribe were illegitimate. In this light, bribe<br />
monies functioned as an ‘anti-currency’ to the legitimate monies of democracy; the<br />
former derived their full social meaning as conceptual opposites to the latter. In both<br />
cases, then, the monies used to negotiate political relationships, whether legitimate or<br />
109 E.g. Lysias 21 (philotimia weighed against bribery), Dem. 19.142 with Dem. 19.223, Din. 1.21.<br />
Subsequent chapters will illustrate this point in more depth.<br />
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illegitimate, acted as a conceptual frame for thinking about politics. Encoded within each<br />
was a lens for understanding how politics should or should not be conducted.<br />
Herein lay the importance of bribery as a political narrative. In claiming that an<br />
insider had committed bribery, or in defending oneself against an outsider’s accusation of<br />
bribery, an Athenian implicitly (or explicitly) tried to legitimate one set of political<br />
norms—one way of understanding the dōrodokos or the ideal public official—while<br />
delegitimizing another. As was suggested in the first section of this chapter, he was<br />
aligning himself with a particular narrative about how politics should be conducted. This<br />
narrative both framed what the norms governing the moral community of the people<br />
should be and cast an opponent—whether the dōrodokos himself or his accuser—outside<br />
that moral community. Within the practice of politics, accusations of dōrodokia could<br />
thus be used to (de-)legitimate new ways of conducting politics. As new social<br />
relationships were leveraged in new ways in the democracy, whether they had been<br />
leveraged in a good or a bad way was framed through the idea of bribery. As will be<br />
crucial in the story we will trace, acceptable outcomes were defined as ‘democracy’,<br />
unacceptable as ‘bribery’. Crucially, these attempts at legitimization or delegitimization<br />
focused on the currency of political relationships: the monies of one were counterpoised<br />
against the monies of the other. Tracing these monies will tell us much not only about<br />
dōrodokia, but especially about dēmokratia.<br />
Looking Ahead:<br />
The above framework for understanding bribery will form the basis of the next<br />
three chapters, which will take a diachronic look at the figure of the dōrodokos in the<br />
Athenian democracy. As we will see, the dōrodokos was the bogeyman of the<br />
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democracy, a figure aligned with a number of distinct social types at specific periods<br />
within Athens’ history. Through most of the fifth century, the dōrodokos was like a<br />
disobedient citizen (Chapter Two). A different type emerged in the last quarter of the<br />
fifth century and especially in the decades after the rule of the Thirty Tyrants, as the<br />
dōrodokos became a thief of sorts, someone who was plundering the polity for his own<br />
gain (Chapter Three). And finally, in the middle half of the fourth century, amid the<br />
constant threat of civil conflict throughout the Greek world, the dōrodokos was a traitor<br />
(Chapter Four).<br />
On a relational view of bribery, there are a number of factors that contributed to<br />
the dōrodokos’ transformation from a disobedient citizen to a thief and traitor, and our<br />
focus in these chapters will be on understanding precisely why this diachronic<br />
development occurred. Changing social configurations, both inside and outside politics,<br />
created different patterns in which the frame of bribery might arise. This, in turn, created<br />
changing patterns of how social relations were leveraged within politics—for what kinds<br />
of duties, how often or how thoroughly they were leveraged—and, consequently, shifted<br />
the frames through which Athenians conceptualized the civic obligations of public<br />
official and citizen, alike.<br />
Of course, these factors shifted the ways in which the regular, legitimate monies<br />
used to negotiate social relationships in politics were conceptualized, as well. One of the<br />
most striking stories we will trace, then, is how the monies of dōrodokia were constantly<br />
counterpoised with the monies of democracy. There are two components to this<br />
argument, each of which will be fleshed out in the chapters to come. First, the dōrodokos<br />
was consistently thought to weigh illegitimate bribe monies against legitimate political<br />
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payments (honors, gifts, tribute, etc.). What is more, each set of monies, whether<br />
legitimate or not, was used as a conceptual metaphor for the relationship between official<br />
(and often citizen) and community. The monies of dōrodokia and democracy, alike, were<br />
thus used as conceptual proxies for the relationships they signified. By tracing the<br />
changing ways in which dōrodokia was configured, we will thus throw into relief how<br />
the Athenians used political monies—and above all their dark twin, dōra—to think<br />
through relationships within their polity.<br />
For each period of the democracy we will ask who the dōrodokos was and what<br />
role he was thought to play amid these shifting social, political, and economic<br />
circumstances. By no means was ‘the’ Athenian perspective on the dōrodokos<br />
monolithic; again, for each distinct notion of polity, there was a distinct view of bribery,<br />
as well. However, within each period the views of a range of Athenians tended to<br />
converge on who the dōrodokos was; in turn, these narratives were used to think through<br />
broader political commitments about what the democracy should be. Accordingly, in<br />
Chapters Five, Six, and Seven we will examine how such narratives factored into public<br />
policy, helped shape public discourse, and thereby constituted a vital part of politics in<br />
practice.<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Two<br />
Dōrodokia, Elites, and the People’s Authority<br />
508/7-404 BCE<br />
In 463/2 the Athenian stratēgos Cimon returned to Athens after a successful<br />
campaign fighting the Persians in the Chersonese and subduing a revolt by the Thasians.<br />
Apparently not everything had gone according to plan. Upon his return, the people<br />
elected special prosecutors to bring a charge of dōrodokia against the general. As<br />
Plutarch records, Cimon apparently had had it “within his grasp” (parasxo/n) to “easily”<br />
(r(a|di/wj) mount an attack against Macedon (Plut. Cim. 14.3). He withdrew, instead, and<br />
the Athenians assumed that he must have received dōra from the Macedonian king (Plut.<br />
Cim. 14.2-3). Though convicted by the Assembly, he was subsequently acquitted by the<br />
Areopagus Court and soon elected to a new command as general. 1<br />
Despite its oddities, the trial itself is remembered perhaps more for its aftermath<br />
than as a significant historical moment in its own right. As Aristotle’s Constitution of<br />
Athens explains, when Cimon was acquitted, there was considerable public outcry at<br />
Athens (AP 25, 27.1). In particular, one Ephialtes led the charge, first publicly accusing<br />
members of the Areopagus court of corruption because they had acquitted Cimon and<br />
then moving to pass legislation that stripped the Areopagus of certain powers, including<br />
the oversight of officials. Read this way, with the benefit of hindsight Cimon’s trial<br />
becomes a critical catalyst in the development of the democracy: not so much an<br />
important or unusual event in itself, but a legal means to a political end. As the story has<br />
1 Plut. Cim. 14.1-4; Plut. Per. 10.6; cf. AP 27.1. For scholarly accounts of Cimon’s trial, see Roberts<br />
(1982: 55-6), Ostwald (1986: 41-2), Carawan (1987: 202-5), Raaflaub (2007: 113, 137-8). I follow<br />
Carawan’s reconstruction of the procedure of the trial; see further Chapter Seven below.<br />
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gone since at least Aristotle, that political end was the assertion of the dēmos’ authority<br />
within the courts. In other words, Cimon’s trial is best remembered for ushering in the<br />
democratic hallmark of public accountability. 2<br />
The issue of the people’s authority was an important theme in the democracy<br />
from its inception under the leadership of Cleisthenes in 508/7. In Herodotus’<br />
Constitutional Debate, mass rule (plh=qoj a1rxon) is distinguished by public<br />
accountability, use of the lot in selecting public officials, and policymaking by the people<br />
themselves (Hdt. 3.80.6). Within 50 years of Cleisthenes’ reforms, all three marks of the<br />
people’s authority were present in the Athenian democracy. As suggested by Cimon’s<br />
trial and the public accountability it fostered, the story of dōrodokia in the fifth century is<br />
closely tied to the growing institutionalization of rule of the people at Athens.<br />
Accordingly, this chapter has twin aims: both to read dōrodokia in light of the<br />
development of the dēmos’ political authority and to re-read the democracy in light of<br />
issues raised by examining dōrodokia. As we will see, inasmuch as the story of<br />
dōrodokia and bribe monies shadows important trends in the democracy, examining what<br />
kinds of monies were used to negotiate legitimate political relationships can help us see<br />
how the nature of political power changed over time. Cimon’s trial will act as a<br />
touchstone throughout our investigation: first, for establishing two thematic trends in the<br />
fifth-century democracy that underpinned how the dōrodokos was conceptualized;<br />
second, as a counterpoint to how these interrelated trends subsequently shaped the<br />
development of the democracy. The image of the dōrodokos that emerges from Cimon’s<br />
trial is one that is reflected and refracted throughout the fifth century, as we will<br />
2 Ostwald, Raaflaub, Bauman (1990: 28-31), and Carena, Manfredini, and Piccirilli (1990: 250 ad Plut.<br />
Cim. 14,12) underscore the political utility of Cimon’s trial, but see further Chapter Seven.<br />
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investigate in Sophocles’ Antigone and Aristophanic comedy. Tracing these changes<br />
through a character as ubiquitous, if marginal, as the dōrodokos will provide, it is hoped,<br />
greater historical insight into why the democracy developed as it did.<br />
Cimon and the Politics of Power:<br />
Despite its idiosyncrasies, Cimon’s trial is representative of the handful of fifth-<br />
century dōrodokia trials that survive in the historical record. The great majority of these<br />
trials were of Athenian stratēgoi like Cimon: military generals elected ten per year to<br />
command the polis’ navy and hoplite soldiers. 3 In part this preponderance reflects the<br />
bias of our sources, which tend to focus on the most important political actors and<br />
therefore are less inclined to report dōrodokia among minor public officials. Yet such<br />
bias is nevertheless indicative of the crucial role played by stratēgoi in the fifth-century<br />
democracy. Indeed, throughout the century Athens’ military leaders were also her policy<br />
leaders, the very men who would persuade the Assembly of the best course of action. 4<br />
Men like Cimon were the lynchpins of the democracy, and some of the more monumental<br />
political changes in the fifth century thus focused on the delicate relationship they<br />
maintained with the dēmos.<br />
3 In addition to Cimon’s trial we hear of dōrodokia prosecutions of the stratēgoi Laches (Ar. V. 240-2, 894-<br />
7, 960-1); Sophocles, Pythodorus, and Eurymedon (Thuc. 4.65.3-4, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 127); Pericles<br />
(Per. 32.2); and Cleon (Ar. Ach. 5-8 with schol.). Dōrodokia trials are also attested, less securely, for the<br />
stratēgoi Miltiades (Nep. Milt. 7.5); Phormio (Ar. Pax 347-8, Androtion FGrH 324 F 8); Themistocles (DS<br />
11.27.3); Aristides (Plut. Arist. 26.2-5, Craterus FGrH 342 F 12); and Alcibiades (Nep. Alcib. 7). Nonstratēgoi<br />
prosecuted for dōrodokia include the Hellēnotamiai (Ant. 5. 69-71), the unnamed magistrate of<br />
Lysias 21, various minor officials in Ant. 6.49-50, and the ambassador Callias (Dem. 19.273) if the Peace<br />
of Callias is not spurious.<br />
4 It was only in the fourth century that we begin to see any significant separation of policy formation by<br />
public speakers (rhētores) from policy execution by military generals (stratēgoi): Davies (1981: 124-31),<br />
Hansen (1983). Still, as the career of the fourth-century politician Phocion witnesses, this trend was not a<br />
hard-and-fast rule.<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Two<br />
Cimon’s trial was no exception. Though we have but few sources on the trial, it<br />
seems clear that it was in some sense ‘about’ his relationship to the community. After all,<br />
the dēmos had initiated the suit by appointing ten public prosecutors—a rarity in<br />
Athens—and at least part of the trial was held before the Assembly (Plut. Per. 10.5-6,<br />
Cim. 14.5). More telling is Cimon’s defense, a brief portion of which Plutarch records, in<br />
which the stratēgos defended his relationship to the community. The excerpt is worth<br />
quoting in full here, for it raises a couple of points to which we will return frequently:<br />
[Cimon] said that he was the representative (procenei=n) not of wealthy Ionians<br />
and Thessalians, unlike others who were their representative in order to be<br />
fawned over and to receive [dōra] (i3na qerapeu/wntai kai\ lamba/nwsin), but<br />
of Spartans, whose thrift and moderation (eu)te/leian kai\ swfrosu/nhn) he loved<br />
and imitated. These were more valuable to him than any amount of wealth (h{j<br />
ou)de/na protima=n plou=ton). Instead, he delighted in enriching the polis from<br />
her enemies (plouti/zwn a)po\ tw=n polemi/wn th\n po/lin). Plutarch, Life of<br />
Cimon 14.4<br />
Cimon does not directly address the charge of dōrodokia here, and it is impossible to<br />
assess how, if at all, he did so elsewhere in his defense speech. Nevertheless, we are<br />
fortunate to possess this one record of the trial, for it juxtaposes Cimon’s actions against<br />
those of other purported dōrodokoi, namely proxenoi of Ionia and Thessaly. In that light,<br />
it helps orient us around what Cimon, at least, thought was problematic about dōrodokia<br />
and, by contrast, how he thought an upstanding citizen should act. 5<br />
Cimon frames the dōrodokos both positively and negatively. On the one hand, he<br />
suggests that proxenoi of Ionia and Thessaly were themselves dōrodokoi precisely<br />
5 Given Plutarch’s use of Ion elsewhere in the Life of Cimon (e.g. Plut. Cim. 5.3, 9.1, 16.10), Cimon’s<br />
speech probably comes from Ion, who admired Cimon and disliked Pericles (cf. Plut. Per. 5.3, 28.7) and<br />
was likely in Athens at the time of the trial: Blamire (1989: 15). Theopompus may also have been a<br />
source for the trial, but it is unlikely that he would have reported the details of Cimon’s defense: cf. Sandys<br />
(1912: 113 ad AP 27.1).<br />
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because they had assumed their political role as proxenoi in order to receive dōra. 6 The<br />
i3na clause of purpose contrasts with the general’s own stated reason for engaging in<br />
politics: he derives his glory from enriching the polis. 7 On the other hand, therefore, the<br />
dōrodokos is negatively depicted as enriching himself instead of the polis. Note how, in<br />
Cimon’s eyes, the difference between himself and the dōrodokos hinges not on whether<br />
or not money was received, but on where that ploutos, once received, was then directed.<br />
In effect, he evaluates the dōrodokos according to the path that the ploutos took; it is<br />
ultimately the dora’s meaning within the domestic sphere of the polis that fixes the<br />
assignation of dōrodokos or praiseworthy politician.<br />
In tracing the path of the dōra, rather than their mere presence or absence in<br />
politics, Cimon subtly points to two different political spaces they come to occupy. First,<br />
the currency of proxeny relations, be that with Ionia, Thessaly, or Sparta, helps negotiate<br />
Athens’ relation to other poleis. This is the realm of foreign politics, one marked in the<br />
first half of the century by Athens’ rise as an imperial power under the auspices of the<br />
Delian League. The second space is the realm of domestic politics, specifically the<br />
relationship between individual officials like Cimon and the rest of the community.<br />
Here, the particular ways in which Cimon acts as the polis’ patron by enriching it help<br />
shape the meaning of the ploutos he acquires.<br />
In other words, Cimon suggests, if we peel away the Athenians’ contemporary<br />
concerns with the people’s political authority, we find that such authority was actually<br />
6 Cimon’s choice of Ionia and Thessaly appears to be random, but it should be noted that Thessaly was<br />
known for its wealth and merchants, and Ionia already had a reputation for bribery, if Craterus’ record of<br />
the bribing of Aristides is to be believed (Plut. Arist. 26.1-2). Both regions, therefore, could have been<br />
thought prone to bribery, as Cimon suggests. Of course, the authority of Plutarch and his source should be<br />
taken with a grain of salt: within ten years, Cimon himself became a proxenos of Thessaly (and named his<br />
third son Thettalos!). Plut. Cim. 16.1, Aristid. 3.515. Dindorff with Connor (1967).<br />
7 Cimon was commonly linked to Athens’ wealth in this way: cf. Plut. Cim. 9, Them. 2.3.<br />
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intertwined with two other developments in the fifth-century democracy: Athenian<br />
imperialism and the politics of patronage. As Cimon suggests, the relation between the<br />
two intimately shaped the figure of the dōrodokos. Let us take a brief step back, then,<br />
and trace the narrative arcs of these two developments before returning to how they were<br />
combined in the figure of the dōrodokos.<br />
Cimon’s fateful campaign was conducted under the auspices of the Delian<br />
League, an offensive and defensive alliance formed among Athens and a large number of<br />
Greek poleis in the years after the Persian Wars. 8 While Thucydides records that the<br />
pretext for the League’s formation was to gain revenge on Persia by ravaging the Great<br />
King’s territory (Thuc. 1.96), in fact almost from the League’s formation Athens appears<br />
to have used the League to pursue its own agenda of controlling Aegean trade routes to<br />
the Hellespont. 9 Indeed, the League had a peculiarly Athenian flavor to it. Allies<br />
contributed either money or military forces—men and ships—to the League’s campaigns,<br />
but the size of a polis’ contribution was assessed and then collected by Athenians. 10 As<br />
the demands of the League heaped up, more and more of the allies chose to pay money<br />
8<br />
AP 23.5 calls it an offensive/defensive alliance. Background to and formation of the Delian League:<br />
Thuc. 1.94-97.1.<br />
9<br />
Certainly, the Spartan-run Hellenic League that preceded the Delian League appears to have focused on<br />
driving the Persians out of the Aegean and the coast of Asia Minor: note in particular the expeditions<br />
against Cyprus and Byzantium (Thuc. 1.94.2), continued under Cimon (Plut. Cim. 12.1, DS 11.60-2). Yet<br />
under the Delian League, even attacks against a Persian outpost like Eion (476/5?) seemed less about<br />
ravaging the King’s land and more about gaining financial footholds in the region. Within a decade, Athens<br />
had founded a colony at Amphipolis a bit further up the Strymon river from Eion, and even the siege at<br />
Skyros may have been over disgruntled trade relations (cf. Plut. Cim. 8.4). While doubtless a number of<br />
anti-Persian campaigns were launched by the League—as in the Chersonese (Plut. Cim. 14.1)—it is crucial<br />
how the non-Persian campaigns changed the character of Athens’ relations to her allies, and from the first<br />
years of the League, at that. On the meaning of ‘pretext’ (pro/sxhma, Thuc. 1.96) here, I follow Rawlings<br />
(1977) in positing that Thucydides offers the (false) reason for the formation of the Delian League; my<br />
argument is not affected if we follow Kallet-Marx’ (1993: 44-5) interpretation of the passage as<br />
understanding the reason for collecting tribute.<br />
10<br />
The Athenian leader Aristides first assessed the tribute, or phoros (AP 23.5, Plut. Arist. 24). The<br />
Hellēnotamiai who ministered the phoros were elected by and from the Athenians: Thuc.1.96.2.<br />
Additionally, Athenian leaders were the commanders of League expeditions.<br />
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instead of send men and ships on the League’s expeditions (Thuc. 1.99.3; Plut. Cim.<br />
11.1), with the result that Athens assumed an increasingly disproportionate role in<br />
providing the men and ships needed for the League’s expeditions.<br />
While she assumed a greater role in the League’s military operations, Athens also<br />
assumed a more authoritative position within the League itself. Already in the 470’s<br />
Athens was sending settlers to conquered territories in the Aegean, and by the 460’s she<br />
was using force to maintain control over League members. 11 The ‘enslavement’<br />
(e)doulw/qh) of Naxos is taken by Thucydides as a precedent for Athens’ subsequent<br />
hegemonic actions with other League members, but treating League members in this way<br />
actually seems to have been an extension of Athens’ earlier, real enslavement of non-<br />
league members like Skyros and Karystos (cf. h)ndrapo/disan, Thuc. 1.98.2-3). In<br />
454/3, the League’s treasury where tribute monies were deposited was moved from Delos<br />
to Athens. By this point, Athens had already begun to take a hand in the judicial affairs<br />
of certain allies; by the end of the 450’s, she began to assume a pivotal role in setting up<br />
democracies throughout the League, as well. 12<br />
According to Thucydides, Cimon’s siege of Thasos in 465/4-463/2—the very<br />
expedition after which he would be charged for dōrodokia—marked the precise moment<br />
when the League transformed from an alliance into an Athenian-controlled “hegemony”<br />
(Thuc. 1.101). While it is perhaps fruitless to seek just such a turning point, the<br />
11 Notably, colonies were set up at Eion (Plut. Cim. 8.2), Skyros (Thuc. 1.98.2, Plut. Cim. 8.3), and<br />
Amphipolis (Plut. Cim. 8.2). Additionally, it appeasr that Athenians were trying to set up a colony at<br />
Ennea Hodoi just upriver from Eion when they were defeated: cf. schol. ad Aeschin. 2.31.<br />
12 Thuc. 1.77.1-4, Antiph. 5.47, and, on the financial revenue from holding the trials of allies at Athens,<br />
[Xen.] Ath. Pol 1.16-18; AE 205-19 provides a good discussion. Redefining the juridical relations between<br />
Phaselis and Athens, the Phaselis decree (IG i 3 10=ML 3; perhaps late 460’s or early 450’s) grants the<br />
Phaselites the privilege of trial before the polemarch whenever a cause for a suit arose at Athens, a<br />
privilege that had already been granted to the Chians. See also the Calchis decree (IG i 3 40=ML 52; either<br />
440’s or 420’s); IG i 3 21 on judicial affairs in Miletus, dated probably to 450/49 BCE. Democracies were<br />
set up in Erithryae (IG i 3 14=ML 40; 460’s or 450’s) and Samos (Thuc. 1.115.3; 440 BCE).<br />
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historian’s focus on Thasos does underscore a crucial aspect of Athenian foreign policy<br />
throughout this period, one that Cimon brings out in proudly reporting that he enriched<br />
Athens from her enemies (plouti/zwn a)po\ tw=n polemi/wn th\n po/lin, Plut. Cim. 14.4).<br />
Athens’ archē, her power over her allies, was thus intimately bound up with the<br />
economic rewards of exerting that power. Yet so long as other allies were contributing<br />
men and ships to the cause, they, too, might expect economic rewards from the League. 13<br />
Once those allies began providing monetary payments, though, the nature of the<br />
payments effectively changed into a contract for protection by Athenian forces. 14<br />
Precisely because Athens continued to provide an increasingly greater share of the<br />
League’s navy, she deserved a greater share of the rewards from the League’s<br />
expeditions. This explains in part why Athenians assessed, collected, and administered<br />
the tribute; Athenian citizens colonized conquered territories; and Athens so frequently<br />
assumed control over local resources in subjecting a particular ally. 15 As Thucydides’<br />
account of the 50 years after the Persian Wars suggests, money equaled power and<br />
Athens’ power directly translated into more money.<br />
Lisa Kallet has persuasively illuminated the striking extent to which this equation<br />
of money and power infused Athenian political debates and policies throughout the fifth<br />
century; with more power, Athenian stratēgoi like Cimon could directly and indirectly<br />
13 At the League’s inception, the allies, too, would have anticipated tangible rewards from ravaging Persian<br />
territory. It was only after they stopped providing men and ships that the nature of the alliance shifted.<br />
Sealey (1966: 233-55). Cf. Kallet-Marx (1993: 53-4).<br />
14 Cf. Thuc. 1.99. Kallet-Marx (1993: 65-7) is essential on this point, but it should be noted that cause and<br />
effect here are still somewhat murky. Doubtless some of the allies, disillusioned by the League’s<br />
expeditions—which, in benefiting Athens predominantly, already reflected her near hegemonic position—<br />
shifted to monetary payments as a pragmatic matter. In a sense, therefore, the switch to monetary<br />
payments could have both anticipated and responded to Athens’ changing relationship to the League.<br />
15 Like Thasos, Aegina was also forced to surrender her warships and mainland possessions in 458 (Thuc.<br />
1.108.4).<br />
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bring more money into the polis. 16 She rightly points to 483/2 as the pivotal year in this<br />
discursive archaeology at Athens, for it was in that year that, with a sudden boon from the<br />
local silver mines at Laureion, the Athenians chose to invest that silver in their navy<br />
rather than to receive distributions for themselves. 17 This decision marked the navy as<br />
explicitly publicly-owned (dēmosia) inasmuch as it served as a substitute for the handouts<br />
that would have otherwise fallen to the Athenians. 18 As Aristotle notes in his Consitution<br />
of Athens, the decision to build a fleet and thereby to pursue hegemony over the other<br />
Greeks increased the livelihood of all Athenians (AP 24.1), and arguably the Athenians in<br />
Themistocles’ day debated the issue on these very terms. Underpinning the formula<br />
money=power, therefore, was a conceptual link between possessions and archē. Within<br />
the context of the League, ‘power to’ slowly came to mean ‘power over’, as the allies<br />
themselves became ‘property’ or ‘subjects’ of Athens. 19<br />
16 See Kallet-Marx (1993, 1994), Kallet (2001); cf. Kurke (1999, 2002).<br />
17 Financing the navy: Hdt. 7.144; Thuc. 1.14; AP 22.7; Plut. Them. 4.1-3, Arist. 46 with Gabrielsen<br />
(1985), Kallet-Marx (1994: 244-5), Kurke (2002: 95-6).<br />
18 Kallet-Marx (1994: 244) points to similar distributions after a surplus in Siphnos (Hdt. 3.57.2) and<br />
perhaps Thasos (Hdt. 6.46). Even if such distributions were not the norm, it is nevertheless emblematic of<br />
their public nature that the dēmos as a whole would vote on how to manage them. As we will see, this<br />
scene of employing political authority to control the flow of financial resources encapsulates fifth-century<br />
attitudes towards the monies that were used to negotiate politics.<br />
In a similar story—probably apocryphal, as Hamel (1998: 47n.20) rightly argues—after the<br />
campaigns at Sestos and Byzantion, Cimon rounded up the Persian prisoners and asked the allies whether<br />
they wanted to take the men or their belongings; the allies chose the belongings, so Cimon took the men as<br />
slaves and sold them, profiting enough to supply his ships for four months and give some leftover gold to<br />
the city (Plut. Cim. 9.3-6). Again, note how the mode of conquest—an Athenian divvies up the rewards of<br />
conquest and ultimately takes that which is most profitable—tellingly signifies the absolute authority of<br />
Athens’ position qua manager of resources and master of slaves.<br />
19 Cf. Thuc. 1.99.1, which attributes Athens’ growing despotism to a need to police allied contributions to<br />
the League. Allies as ‘property’: Thuc. 2.63.2, 3.37.2; IG i 3 156.2, 15. Allies as ‘subjects’: e.g. Thuc.<br />
1.121.5, 1.22.2, 4.87.3; cf. Thuc. 1.8.3, 2.6.3. By mid-century, inscriptions could refer to the allies as<br />
“cities which Athens [controls]”: IG i 3 19.8-9, 27.14-15. The equation of ‘power to’ (authority to distribute)<br />
and ‘power over’ (oppressive control over) is clearest in the Athenian siege of Thasos, one reason why<br />
Thucydides might have picked that siege as the decisive turning point in the League’s history (cf. DS<br />
11.70.3-4). As Thucydides relates, the rebellion was caused by a dispute with the Athenians about the<br />
Thasian mines and a trading post on the shore opposite Thasos (Thuc. 1.100.2); transparently, when the<br />
Thasians lost, they were required to give up both the mainland and their mine (Thuc. 1.101.3, Plut. Cim.<br />
14.2).<br />
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The equation of money and empire should by now be clear—indeed, for Athens’<br />
imperial heyday in the second half of the century, it has long been obvious—but one oft<br />
neglected component of this pairing is the money of empire, or, to be more precise, the<br />
monies of empire. Whenever our sources juxtapose Athenian hegemony with its<br />
consequences, especially its baldly economic returns, we find the monies of empire.<br />
Tribute, 20 cleruchies, 21 naval pay, 22 cows and panoplies 23 —all functioned as monies of<br />
empire, media that were transacted and used to negotiate Athens’ relationship with her<br />
allies. Crucially, all of them symbolized Athenian hegemony: it is in that sense that I call<br />
them monies of empire, even though some of them were transacted from the earliest<br />
years of the Delian League. 24 Ultimately the monies used to negotiate foreign political<br />
relations signified the imperial power of Athens, the power her people had over the<br />
resources of empire.<br />
20 phoros: Plut. Cim. 11.3. Kallet-Marx (1993: 44-9) underscores the novelty of a long-standing phoros<br />
and rightly connects it to the Persian system of taxation and compulsory gifts. As Brasidas remarks in<br />
Thrace, the allied tribute was a mark of friendship and slavery (cf. doulei/aj, Thuc. 4.87.3).<br />
21 Cleruchies: Plut. Per. 11.5-6; cf. DS 11.88.3, Paus. 1.27.5 all connect the establishment of cleruchies<br />
with the need to control disloyal allies. IG i 3 37=ML 47 (Colophon, 440’s or 420’s), IG i 3 46.43-6=ML 49<br />
(Brea, 440’s-420’s). Cleruchies, in particular, connoted imperialism; when the Second Athenian League<br />
was formed in the fourth century, the charter contained a clause explicitly banning the establishment of<br />
cleruchies and Athenian private ownership of land in allied cities: IG ii 2 43.35-41; cf. Cargill (1981: 60,<br />
148-50). Although land owned by individual Athenians is not well attested for the empire, Oionias’<br />
considerable property holdings abroad—over 81 talents’ worth according to IG i 3 422.311-14—suggest that<br />
it was extensive. Cf. IG i 3 426.45-6.<br />
22 Naval pay: AP 24.2-3. This came directly from tribute monies and was one of the ways in which empire<br />
was thought to have supported the democracy: AP 24.3.<br />
23 From perhaps the 440’s, Athens required allies to send “a cow and a panoply” to Athens, to be escorted<br />
in the procession of the Greater Panathenaea festival as if they were colonists: IG i 3 34.41-3=ML 46<br />
(447/6?) appears to be the earliest inscription; see also IG i 3 71.56-8=ML 69, IG i 3 46.15-17=ML 49.11-13.<br />
For discussion, Meritt and Wade-Gery (1962: 69-71), AE 292-4; Smarczyk (1990: 549-69) is particularly<br />
helpful on the Panathenaea as a symbol of Athenian military power. Along the same lines, the requirement<br />
that subject cities send the aparchai or ‘first fruits’ of corn and barley to Eleusis—cf. IG i 3 78=ML 73—<br />
also reified an image of Athens as patron over her empire: Isoc. 4.28-31 with Smarczyk (1990: 224-52).<br />
24 This claim should be uncontroversial for Athens’ imperial heyday in the second half of the century.<br />
What I would like to argue here is that such social meaning was invested in political monies even in the<br />
earliest years of the Delian League.<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Two<br />
If I am right about the social meaning of the monies used to negotiate foreign<br />
politics at this time, then we are halfway towards understanding Cimon’s presentation of<br />
the dōrodokos at his trial. Recall that Cimon contrasts himself with the dōrodokos<br />
according to the path that the dōra took: while his own wealth is directed towards<br />
enriching the city, the dōrodokos’ is not. Yet because for both Cimon and the dōrodokos<br />
the source of that wealth derives from Athens’ foreign relations, we should expect that<br />
the proper use of that wealth would reify its social meaning as a money signaling Athens’<br />
power. This is precisely what Cimon’s enriching of the city ‘from her enemies’ (a)po\<br />
tw=n polemi/wn) signifies, as it assigns to Athens possession over and ultimately benefit<br />
from those monies. By contrast, rather than channeling his monies into services that<br />
benefit the city, the dōrodokos keeps them for himself and thereby manifestly assigns<br />
them a different meaning. For the dōrodokos, the monies used to negotiate politic<br />
relationships end up asserting the authority of himself—or, worse, his foreign friends—to<br />
distribute the rewards of empire.<br />
What I would like to suggest, in short, is that by differentiating the path of the<br />
dōra, Cimon also differentiates their meaning. The stratēgos points to one critical way<br />
the Athenians signaled their control over the rewards of empire: public works at Athens,<br />
or ‘enriching the polis’, as Cimon calls it. Indeed, we find a series of public buildings<br />
with clear links to Athens’ hegemony and the wealth it brought in: the Temple of<br />
Artemis Aristoboule, the Stoa Poikile, the Piraeus and Long Walls, and the Theseion all<br />
date to the first few decades of the League. In the same vein, we might add the later<br />
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Periclean building programme on the Acropolis. 25 Contemporary sources consistently<br />
link these public works to Athens’ military success; again, Athens’ control over the<br />
monies of empire was reified by financial outlays on public works that signaled her<br />
powerful position. 26 Even if the actual monies used to construct these buildings came<br />
from separate financial accounts—more on this in a moment—the Athenians nevertheless<br />
posited an economy in which the monies of empire, i.e. monies symbolizing empire, were<br />
converted into public buildings redolent of Athenian archē. 27<br />
As Cimon’s reference to the proxenoi of Thessaly and Ionia suggests, the<br />
dōrodokos short-circuited this economy. By pocketing the monies of empire, the<br />
dōrodokos removed them from circulation and hence prevented Athens from asserting<br />
control over their distribution. In this way, the dōrodokos posed a significant threat not<br />
just to Athens’ acquisition of imperial monies, but especially to the processes by which<br />
those monies were re-invested with meaning as tokens of Athenian power. 28<br />
25 On the Periclean building programme, see Plut. Per. 12-13, IG i 3 436-51 (Parthenon), 453-60 (gold and<br />
ivory statue of Athena), 462-6 (Propylaea), completed in 434/3 BCE according to the decree of Callias (IG<br />
i 3 52=ML 58). Stadter (1989: 157-63 ad Per. 12.6), Kallet (1998: 49-52).<br />
26 See generally Plut. Cim. 13.6-7. Temple of Artemis Aristoboule: Plut. Them. 22.1-2. Piraeus: explicitly<br />
connected with Athens’ naval empire at Plut. Them. 19.2. Plutarch also records how part of the wall of the<br />
Acropolis was constructed from war booty (Cim. 13.6), and the Marathon Base and statues of Athena,<br />
Apollo, and Miltiades set up at Delphi were paid for from a tithe of spoils from Marathon (Paus. 10.10.1).<br />
27 On this point, see generally Kallet (1998).<br />
28 Plutarch records an anecdote about Cimon that affirms the lines of this argument (Plut. Cim. 10.9). A<br />
Persian defector named Rhoisakes came to Cimon’s home, seeking exile. He placed two bowls of gold and<br />
silver at Cimon’s door, to which Cimon asked whether Rhoisakes wanted Cimon as a friend or as a<br />
hireling (misqwto\n h2 fi/lon). When Rhoisakes said a friend, Cimon gave him back the money, telling him<br />
that, as his friend, he would be able to use it whenever he needed it. Apart from Plutarch’s dubious framing<br />
of the story—in contrast to the named sources he provides elsewhere in the same paragraph, the biographer<br />
writes simply that ‘it is said’ (le/getai)—Rhoisakes is otherwise unattested, and we know of only one other<br />
Persian defector from this time period: cf. Hdt. 3.160.2; Ctes. Pers. 43. It is, then, at least possible that the<br />
story is apocryphal.<br />
Reading the tale along those lines, it is striking how Cimon’s dealings with a Persian defector (i.e.<br />
a Greek polis that had been under Persian control during the Persian Wars) are framed as a choice between<br />
being a philos and being a bribe-taker, as misthōtos regularly connotes: see Chapter One above. These are<br />
precisely the two possibilities Cimon presents in his trial when he contrasts his own civic services with<br />
those who took bribes from Thessalians and Ionians (both Persian defectors, incidentally). In the story of<br />
Rhoisakes, Cimon’s choice is split not between taking the money or rejecting it—in both cases he makes<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Two<br />
Yet if the dōrodokos played such a pivotal role in this economy of imperial<br />
monies, so too did an elite figure like Cimon. The stratēgos is unabashed about his<br />
central position within this economy of money and power: he himself “derives honor” by<br />
enriching the city (a)ga/llesqai, Plut. Cim. 14.4). Indeed, he confesses, the pursuit of<br />
such honor is more important to him than the riches themselves. Cimon’s claim points to<br />
a second space occupied by the dōra—the realm of domestic politics—and hence to a<br />
second relationship negotiated by those monies: that between elite citizen and<br />
community.<br />
Strikingly, the dōra in this second space took on the same valence of political<br />
authority as the monies of empire. So, for example, Plutarch draws an analogy between<br />
Athens’ relation to the rest of Greece and Cimon’s famed generosity toward the<br />
Athenians (Plut. Cim. 10.6). 29 Such generosity was considerable, as he spent vast<br />
unprecedented resources on public works and feeding his fellow citizens. In addition to<br />
constructing the Theseion and helping finance the Long Walls, he planted trees in the<br />
Agora and gardens in the Academy (Plut. Cim. 13.8); opened his fields to all (Plut. Cim.<br />
10.1); gave money to the poor (Plut. Cim. 10.3); and provided dinner every night, it is<br />
reported, for either his demesmen (AP 27.3) or any Athenian (Plut. Cim. 10.1-2). 30<br />
use of it—but in being able to control when and how that money is used. Like Athens’ use of the monies<br />
of empire, Cimon accepts Rhoisakes’ friendship so that he can control how the gold and silver is<br />
distributed.<br />
29 Plutarch compares the golden age under Cimon with the civilizing effect other Athenians—and, by<br />
extension, Athens herself—had on the rest of the Greeks. Such Athenian mythologizing—emphasizing the<br />
autochthony of the Athenians, the civilizing conquests of her first king Theseus, or her patron-like role over<br />
the rest of Hellas—was a potent political metaphor for empire: see variously Herter (1939), Barron (1964),<br />
Loraux (1981b), Walker (1995), Miller (1997: esp. 1-86). Important here is the way that elite citizens<br />
inserted themselves into the iconography of empire: Miltiades was given a statue alongside Apollo and<br />
Athena at Delphi (Paus. 10.10.1); under his son Cimon’s influence, he was featured in a painting of the<br />
Stoa Poikile next to Theseus’ defeat of the Amazons (Paus. 1.15.1-4); likewise, a statue of Themistocles<br />
stood in the Temple of Artemis Aristoboule (Plut. Them. 22.1-2).<br />
30 On Cimon’s civic works, see further Schmitt-Pantel (1992: 180-6), Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 197-<br />
202).<br />
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This was patronage politics, and Cimon was commonly held to be its most<br />
illustrious practitioner (e.g. Plut. Cim. 10.4-6). While such bald patronage was a holdover<br />
from the archaic polis—in particular, the tyrant Pisistratus was said to have earned the<br />
support of the masses through private benefactions 31 —it nevertheless was the primary<br />
mode of politics throughout Cimon’s lifetime. Other notable political figures likewise<br />
used their own money to fund public works and feed fellow citizens. 32 In effect,<br />
patronage in local communities, as when Cimon fed his demesmen, established<br />
concentrated networks of political supporters or ‘friends’ (philoi); together with family<br />
connections, these networks were leveraged to win political honors and authority at the<br />
city-level. 33 As Gorgias writes of Cimon, he made money to spend it and spent it to win<br />
political honor (Plut. Cim. 10.5).<br />
It is significant that Cimon’s patronage was always framed in light of his<br />
considerable military successes, for in this way the monies of patronage were linked to<br />
the monies of empire, just as his depiction of the dōrodokos suggests. 34 Consider, for<br />
instance, Cimon’s campaign in Skyros and his retrieval of the bones of Theseus. 35 On<br />
the one hand, Skyros was a strategic acquisition for Athens, for it lay on the route to the<br />
31<br />
So AP 16.2, 16.9. For discussion, Millett (1989: 2 2-3), Kurke (2002), Kallet (2003: 124-6), Domingo<br />
Gygax (forthcoming: 201).<br />
32<br />
Schmitt-Pantel (1992: 179-208) is essential here. See further Millett (1989: 21-5), Domingo Gygax<br />
(forthcoming: 197-206). Themistocles rebuilt a temple for his genos (Plut. Them. 2.1) and was known for<br />
entertaining others and paying for sacrifices (Plut. Them. 5.1, cf. 22.1); his iconic works were commonly<br />
thought of as patronage of a sort—providing cakes and fish for the people, as Aristophanes suggests (Eq.<br />
813-19): see especially Kurke (2002: 105-8) on this point. Such patronage was exemplified by (later)<br />
associations of various Athenian elites with the age of Cronus, known for its agricultural plenty: Pisistratus<br />
(AP 16.7), Hippias (Pl. Hipparch. 229b), Aristides (Plut. Arist. 24.3), Cimon (Plut. Cim. 10.7),<br />
Themistocles (Teleclides Prytaneis fr. 5).<br />
33<br />
Connor (1973: 53-64), Finley (1983: 24-49), Mitchell (1997: 42-6). Elite families: cf. Davies (1971),<br />
Littman (1990). On the clubs, or hetaireiai, see especially Calhoun (1913), Hutter (1978: 26-9).<br />
34<br />
Clearly stated by Plutarch: “Since he already had great wealth (eu)porw=n), Cimon spent monies from his<br />
generalship which, it seemed, he had acquired in fine manner (kalw=j) as booty from the enemy, in an even<br />
finer manner (ka/llion) on the citizens” (Plut. Cim. 10.1).<br />
35<br />
AP fr. 4. Kenyon; Plut. Cim. 8.6-7, Them. 36.1-3; Paus. 1.17.6. For discussion, see Podlecki (1971),<br />
Blamire (1989: 119-22 ad Cim. 8.6-7).<br />
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Hellespont; clearing the area of pirates and establishing an Athenian colony there<br />
manifestly fell in line with Athens’ desire to reap and control the rewards of empire. 36<br />
On the other hand, the expedition is also presented as a ‘personal’ one undertaken by<br />
Cimon to recover the bones of Theseus (esp. Plut. Cim. 8.5-6). When he returned to<br />
Athens, he housed the bones in a Theseion which he (re-)built and which had on its walls<br />
paintings depicting Theseus’ exploits: battles against the Amazons and Centaurs, and a<br />
visit to his father Poseidon under the sea, no doubt a potent metaphor for Athens’<br />
thalassocracy (Paus. 1.17.2-3). 37 Such a gift to the city, funded by Cimon’s conquest,<br />
both signaled Athens’ naval archē generally and glorified Cimon’s excellence in<br />
particular. 38 It thus simultaneously negotiated Athens’ relations to her allies and Cimon’s<br />
relationship to the polis.<br />
The monies of patronage and empire were functionally identical: both circulated<br />
within a kind of economic distribution—whether tribute or handouts, food or military<br />
protection—saturated with the valence of vertical political relations: enslavement to<br />
Athenian hegemony in the case of the tribute, political authority over the dēmos in the<br />
case of elite services to the city. But if these monies functioned as metaphors for a<br />
distinct set of vertical relations, bribe monies short-circuited those relations. Elsewhere<br />
in Plutarch’s Life of Cimon, in fact, Cimon is again praised for being “incorruptible and<br />
untouched by dōrodokia in politics” (a)de/kaston kai\ a1qikton e)n th| = politei/a|<br />
dwrodoki/aj) while nearly all of the other public officials of his day took their fill of<br />
36 Podlecki (1971: 142). Pirates: Plut. Cim. 8.3-5. Colony: Thuc. 1.98.2, DS 11.60.2.<br />
37 On the wall paintings and their political symbolism, see Walker (1995: esp. 58), Mills (1997: 36-8).<br />
38 Pace Walker (1995: 56-61), Podlecki (1971) makes a compelling case for how Cimon’s private<br />
expenditure brought him consider public honor in this case; cf. Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 202). For<br />
other public monuments that glorified individual citizens and were funded through military campaigns, see<br />
also Themistocles’ erection of the Temple of Artemis Aristoboule (Plut. Them. 22.1-2) and Cimon’s<br />
probable role in the construction of the Stoa Poikile, which featured, among other paintings, depictions of<br />
both himself and his father Miltiades (Paus. 1.15.1-3).<br />
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public monies (lhmma/twn de\ dhmosi/wn…a)napimplame/nouj, Plut. Cim. 10.8). 39<br />
Whereas Cimon continually gave to the city and thereby affirmed Athens’ archē over her<br />
allies (and his own archē and informal leadership within Athens), others thus failed to<br />
redistribute the monies of empire. Accordingly, those ‘public’ (dēmosion) monies<br />
stopped signifying the Athenian dēmos’ hegemonic power over the League. It was in this<br />
sense that the dōrodokos became problematic, for he subverted the value assigned to the<br />
monies of empire.<br />
The Disobedient dōrodokos: Pericles, Creon and the Breakdown of Political Patronage<br />
So far we have sketched a picture of the dōrodokos as a figure who, in subverting<br />
the political value attached to the monies of empire, implicitly contested the dēmos’<br />
authority to control them. Rather than position himself as a patron adorning the city with<br />
those monies, he pocketed them for himself, in effect removing them from an economy in<br />
which they signaled Athens’ hegemonic relationship to her allies. By contrast, Cimon<br />
and other political leaders of the first half of the fifth century were presented as<br />
authoritative stewards of those monies: elite citizens whose own archē and informal<br />
political standing were reified by the act of distributing to the polis monies linked to<br />
empire. Of course, after Cimon we have little evidence that there were any similar<br />
‘patrons’ in Athens. 40 How and why, then, did the breakdown of patronage occur? As<br />
39 The phrase lhmma/twn de\ dhmosi/wn could indicate embezzlement or peculation, but bribes qua<br />
lh/mmata are probably intended, as well. Plutarch explicitly singles out Aristides and Ephialtes as the only<br />
other two politicians of Cimon’s day to be incorruptible (Plut. Cim. 10.8)—itself a surprisingly rare epithet<br />
in the democracy: cf. Ober (1989: 237). And both are elsewhere praised for being, specifically, not bribed:<br />
cf. xrhma/twn…a)misqi/ of Aristides (Plut. Arist. 3.3), a)dwrodo/khtoj of Ephialtes (AP 25.1).<br />
40 Millett (1989) is essential here; see also Connor (1971).<br />
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the next two sections will show, the figure of the dōrodokos can indirectly point us to an<br />
answer.<br />
Fundamentally, the story of the breakdown of patronage is about how politics<br />
changed as the result of shifting meaning in the monies used to negotiate political<br />
relations. As we have already seen, Cimon’s picture of two different economies—one<br />
imperial, one patronal—negotiated by distinct monies that nevertheless assumed the same<br />
valence could quickly break down. Indeed, the lines between the monies of empire and<br />
patronage were often blurred. 41 Over the course of the fifth century, the Athenians<br />
certainly created distinct financial accounts for these monies, like the Treasuries of<br />
Athena and other gods, imperial monies, and public (dēmosion) property managed by the<br />
kolakrētai, but in that case it is worth probing what was at stake in keeping such accounts<br />
separate. 42 On what grounds were they distinguished, and why bother keeping the<br />
accounts distinct in the first place? As Zelizer astutely points out, people tend to police<br />
the boundaries between distinct accounts at precisely those moments when allowing the<br />
accounts to blur would disrupt the meaning of the social relations they signify. 43 As<br />
Athens’ relationship to her allies became increasingly hegemonic, then, Cimonian-style<br />
patronage grew out of place in the democracy. This discursive shift was reflected most<br />
vividly in the figure of the dōrodokos.<br />
Nearly two decades after Cimon’s trial, in 446 BCE his accuser Pericles had to<br />
explain at his own public audit what had happened to a considerable sum of public<br />
41 For instance, Samons (2000: 54-70) notes how booty was often spent on public purposes, like soldier pay<br />
(Thuc. 6.31.3) or public works, as when the booty from Eurymedon was used to finance the rebuilding of<br />
the south wall of the Acropolis (Plut. Cim. 13.6), yet these same monies were also linked to Cimon’s<br />
private beneficence, like clearing the Academy and planting gardens (Plut. Cim. 13.7).<br />
42 The Athenians’ practice of maintaining distinct accounts has been vigorously championed by Samons<br />
(2000: esp. 55) and Kallet (1998); we will return to this idea in the next section.<br />
43 Zelizer (1994, 1996) and see above Chapter One.<br />
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money. 44 He replied that he had used it “for what was necessary.” 45 As Plutarch relates,<br />
when Pericles had been faced with a hostile Spartan army at the borders of Attica, “what<br />
was necessary” in fact entailed bribing the Spartan King Plistoanax to retreat from Attic<br />
soil. Upon his return to Sparta, Plistoanax was subsequently fined so heavily that he had<br />
to go into exile (Plut. Per. 22.3). In a related anecdote, Pericles alternately resisted the<br />
Samian oligarchs’ attempts to bribe him—so Plutarch in the Life of Pericles (25.2)—or<br />
actually exacted an indemnity of 80 talents from them (cf. praca/menoj, DS 12.27.2).<br />
These stories are mirror opposites of each other, but both point to the blurred boundaries<br />
between ‘public’ and ‘private’ funds: in one Pericles personally directs the flow of public<br />
funds; in the other, he collects for himself (or not) what normally would have been public<br />
monies. 46<br />
For our purposes it matters little whether or not ‘bribes’ really were given in<br />
either case; what does matter is how the frame of bribery was employed to signal<br />
potentially problematic social relations. So, if we understand that the Samians’<br />
indemnity was ‘really’ a standard fine imposed by Athens, albeit collected by Pericles,<br />
the frame of dōrodokia highlights the potential danger in having an individual control the<br />
process of exaction. 47 Likewise, even though the Plistoanax incident did not seem to<br />
cause any alarm at Athens, there were nevertheless troubling implications for Pericles’<br />
44 Ephorus FGrH 70 F 93, Plut. Per. 22.2-23.1, DS 13.106.10; cf. Thuc. 2.21.2, 5.16.3. The sum has been<br />
variously represented as 10 talents (Plut. Per. 23.1), 20 talents (schol. ad Ar. Nu. 859=Ephorus 70 FGrH<br />
F193), and 50 talents (Suida s.v. de/on).<br />
45 ei)j to\ de/on, Plut. Per. 23.1; cf. Ar. Nu. 859, Suida s.v. de/on. Ephorus 70 FGrH F193 writes to\ e)ndee/j.<br />
46 The middle praca/menoj clearly has this meaning: LSJ s.v. pra/ssw VI; cf. Hdt. 2.126, Thuc. 4.65, Ar.<br />
Ra. 561. At this time Athens, as a polis, was known to take hostages in order to guarantee compliance: e.g.<br />
IG i 3 40.47-50=ML 52 (Chalcis and Eretria; 446/5) and Hesychius s.v. )Eretriko\j kata/logoj. But such<br />
actions clearly operated within the economy of empire; for an individual to exact these monies thus<br />
reflected a blurring of economies. It is most likely in reaction to such blurring, and in defense of Pericles,<br />
that stories of his not being bribed cropped up.<br />
47 In fact, given the widespread rumor that Aspasia had convinced Pericles to take action against Samos<br />
(Plut. Per. 24.2, 25.1), Pericles’ motivations and role in the Samian War were already suspect.<br />
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use of dōrodokia. 48 In the first place, his bribe of Plistoanax does not seem to have been<br />
the only time he sent money to the Spartan leaders. Theophrastus records that every year<br />
Pericles “flattered” (qerapeu/wn) Spartan officials with ten talents in order to buy himself<br />
time (paraskeuasa/menoj, Plut. Per. 23.2), an image that directly recalls Cimon’s<br />
description of bribe-taking proxenoi “flattered” by the Ionians and Thessalians<br />
(qerapeu/wntai, Plut. Cim.14.4). If these payments were, in fact, regular payments<br />
among an inter-city network of elites, then the use of public funds to underwrite this<br />
network would have come into direct conflict with their significance as monies of empire.<br />
Telling in this respect is the precise way in which Thucydides praises Pericles’<br />
incorruptibility. In two different passages, the historian describes Pericles as “stronger<br />
than money” (xrhma/twn krei/sswn, Thuc. 2.60.5) and “manifestly taking absolutely no<br />
gifts of money” (xrhma/twn te diafanw=j a)dwro/tatoj, Thuc. 2.65.8). Both phrases<br />
come from defenses of Pericles’ leadership over the dēmos, as opposed to the dēmos’ rule<br />
over Pericles. As such, both serve as implicit justifications for why Pericles’ own<br />
particular actions were legitimate even though they effectively transformed the<br />
democracy into a mere name covering up the reality of “rule by the first man” (u(po\ tou=<br />
prw/tou a)ndro\j a)rxh/, Thuc. 2.65.9). 49 While claims of dōrodokia problematized the<br />
relationship between individual citizens and public monies, Thucydides’ praise of<br />
Pericles’ incorruptibility serves as a defense of that very relationship. All of these<br />
48 Plut. Per. 23.1. Indeed, a character in Aristophanes later jokes about the scene (Ar. Nu. 858-9), but such<br />
a joke may only have highlighted just how much Pericles had gotten away with.<br />
49 He was followed in this respect by Plutarch’s verbatim praise of Pericles’ incorruptibility: cf.<br />
a)dwrota/tou perifanw=j genome/nou kai\ xrhma/twn krei/ttonoj, Plut. Per. 15.3. Note how this differs<br />
markedly from Plutarch’s passing mention (catalogue?) of Aristides’ and Ephialtes’ incorruptibility: Plut.<br />
Cim. 10.8; similarly, Plut. Arist. 3.3 is not a justification for Aristides’ political role.<br />
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anecdotes thus expose a dōrodokos actively—and problematically—controlling public<br />
monies. 50<br />
We can trace the roots of this problem back to the dēmos’ early efforts to control<br />
the distribution of political rewards. From at least the beginning of the democracy, the<br />
dēmos managed the assignment of public honors in return for services to the community:<br />
witness the misthos provided the generals of Eion in 476 BCE, or the dēmos’ refusal to<br />
honor Miltiades when he asked to be honored for military victory. 51 The rewards of<br />
membership in the polity—specifically, public office and citizen benefits—were also<br />
symbolically controlled by the dēmos. While this idea is manifest in the dēmos’ direct<br />
election of stratēgoi, the use of the lot to select the vast majority of magistrates, itself<br />
heralded as a democratic institution, established the dēmos as apportioner of the honor of<br />
public office. 52 This idea can be extended, too, to the dēmos’ opening up of the<br />
50 Indeed, in Chapter Six we will examine how, when the Athenians developed procedures for holding<br />
officials accountable in the second half of the fifth century, they did so with an eye towards punishing,<br />
specifically, the dōrodokos who had mismanaged public monies.<br />
51 Eion epigrams: Aeschin. 3.183-5, Plut. Cim. 7.4-6. The Herms are collectively called a misthos in the<br />
text cited at Aeschin. 3.183, Plut. Cim. 7.5. For discussion, see Blamire (1989: 112-14 ad Cim. 7.4-6).<br />
Plutarch Cim. 8.1 recounts how Miltiades was refused a crown when he asked for one; in Aeschines,<br />
Miltiades is said to have been refused the honor of having his name inscribed on the painting of the Battle<br />
of Marathon in the Stoa Poikile (Aeschin. 3.186).<br />
52 Lot as a democratic institution: [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.3; Hdt. 3.80.6; Pl. Rep. 557a, 561a-b; Xen. Mem.<br />
1.2.9; Isoc. 7.22-3, 12.153-4; Aristot. Pol. 1294b7, 1317b20, 1320b11. Hignett (1952: 321-6). In 487/6<br />
selection by archons switched from election to selection by lot from a short-list (AP 22.5), on which see<br />
Badian (1971), Ober (1989: 76-7), Hansen (1990c), the latter of which provides extensive bibliography. At<br />
this time, selection by lot was also probably introduced for other magistrates and Councillors: Ober (1989:<br />
76) and Hansen (1990) provide discussion. Ober (1989: 76-7) and recently Taylor (2007) have examined<br />
the sociological effects of the lot, but two aspects of its usage have gone hitherto unnoticed.<br />
First, as a randomized distribution mechanism, the lot was used to distribute egalitarian shares.<br />
Scholars commonly pick up on the ‘egalitarian’ piece of the puzzle—i.e. the lot prevented elites from<br />
monopolizing public office—but the ‘shares’ piece is just as crucial. In effect, honorary shares of the<br />
political pie—timai, on which see Ostwald (1995)—were distributed equally to those who were eligible,<br />
just as shares of sacrificial meat were often apportioned by lot: Detienne (1989:13) and, for the contiguities<br />
between civic equality and the apportionment of meat, Loraux (1981a: 620). Note, too, how the Gods<br />
were said to have divided up the cosmos and the regions of earth into various timai via a lottery: Hom. Il.<br />
15.187-93, Pi. O. 7.54-68. This egalitarian distribution of political power very well may have underpinned<br />
the early democracy’s championing of isonomia: cf. Hdt. 3.80.6 with Vlastos (1953: 356-66) and Schmitt<br />
Pantell (1992: 45-52).<br />
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archonship to the third census class of citizens, the zeugitai, in 457 BCE. 53 Again, with<br />
Pericles’ citizenship law in 451/0 BCE, which restricted citizenship to those Athenians<br />
who had both an Athenian mother and father, the dēmos asserted its manifest authority to<br />
distribute shares of the franchise. 54<br />
By mid-century, then, the dēmos had firmly asserted its political authority to<br />
distribute and control domestic monies, including rewards, political office, and the<br />
privileges of citizenship. Note how none of these monies overlapped with the monies of<br />
patronage, and in fact the dēmos’ authority to distribute these monies was never<br />
contested. Yet in Pericles’ time—in competition with Pericles, as it turns out—the dēmos<br />
did begin to contest the blurred boundaries between the monies of patronage and those of<br />
empire, particularly elite expenditure on public buildings. Beginning with Pericles, in an<br />
effort to ensure that the lines between those two economies would be kept distinct, the<br />
dēmos actively differentiated between tribute monies and private outlays. The so-called<br />
Springhouse Decree, for example, records how Pericles and his sons offered to help<br />
finance expenses concerning the water supply, but were refused by the dēmos; tribute<br />
The second, and crucial, overlooked aspect of the lot was that it established the dēmos as the<br />
authoritative leader distributing shares to citizens, much as a general might distribute booty to his soldiers:<br />
Hamel (1998: 44-8). The very act of awarding timē to another was a source and sign of political authority:<br />
see Hom. Il. 1.123-9, 2.226-8, 9.318-19 with Raaflaub and Wallace (2007: esp. 27-9) on the “people’s<br />
power” in Homeric Greece. While it is manifestly true that, at least after the institution of scrutiny<br />
(dokimasia) at the deme level, the dēmos in a sense ‘controlled’ the selection of magistrates, I wish to<br />
underscore that the allotment process, too, reified the dēmos’ authority to distribute the rewards (timai) of<br />
polity.<br />
53 AP 26.2 with Raaflaub (2007: 115).<br />
54 AP 26.4, Plut. Per. 37.3, Aelian VH 6.10. Patterson (1981: 104-7), Hansen (1991: 188) and Raaflaub<br />
(2007: 115) on the connection between Pericles’ citizenship law and the dēmos’ desire to control the<br />
qualifications for citizenship—and, by extension, the rewards accrued therefrom. For an overview, see<br />
Rhodes (1981: 333-4 ad AP 26.4), Patterson (1981: 97-104), Stadter (1989: 334-5 ad Per. 37.3).<br />
Certainly by the 420’s it was taken for granted that citizens, in particular, had the right to benefit materially<br />
from Athens’ imperial power: Ar. V. 655-64, AP 24.3; Samons (2000: 65).<br />
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monies were used instead. 55 As Plutarch records, rather than allow Pericles to put his<br />
name on the building (in return for funding it), the Athenians competed with him for the<br />
honor and spared no expense in the “liturgy” (xorhgei=n) they collectively performed. 56<br />
Individual expenditure on public works all but vanishes from our record after this time.<br />
In keeping distinct the monies of patronage and empire, the dēmos thereby<br />
underscored how problematic their overlap—represented, above, by the dōrodokos—<br />
could be. What, though, was so problematic about their overlap? We can perhaps find<br />
an answer in reversing the direction of an analogy Plutarch makes between liturgies and<br />
the dēmos’ outlay of imperial monies. If the dēmos’ outlay of imperial monies (public<br />
works symbolic of Athenian archē) was analogous to an elite patron’s benefactions to the<br />
city, then were not a patron’s benefactions steeped in the same symbolism as the monies<br />
of empire? So long as the boundaries between the two economies remained porous, so<br />
long as the same monies could be used to negotiate both economies simultaneously,<br />
Athens’ recent shift to empire could be refracted through the monies used to negotiate the<br />
relationship between an elite citizen and the community. 57 Patrons of the community<br />
could fast become imperial masters of the dēmos.<br />
In fact, this exact discursive shift seems to have occurred, and we can track it,<br />
again, by looking at the dōrodokos. I suggest that, as Athens’ imperial archē became<br />
55 3<br />
IG i 49.13-14 (430’s BCE); cf. Plut. Per. 14.1-2. For background and discussion, see Stadter (1989:<br />
181-2 ad Per. 14.1), Kallet (1998: 48), Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 206-7).<br />
56<br />
Plut. Per. 14.1-2. Plutarch’s use of the language of liturgies—cf. pro\j th\n do/can a)ntifilotimou/menoi<br />
tw=n e1rgwn…xorh/gein—is telling.<br />
57<br />
Chapter Six traces another reason for why the blurring of these two economies could be so problematic:<br />
precisely because the dēmos was increasingly concerned to exact a certain amount of tribute each year,<br />
there were greater fears that individuals involved in tribute collection might somehow tamper with the<br />
funds. See, for example, IG i³ 34=ML 46.35-7, IG i 3 71.36-7. By more clearly separating public monies<br />
from the economy of patronage, the dēmos could more readily regulate them. As a result, in the second<br />
half of the fifth century we first begin to find a greater separation between ‘public’ and ‘private’:<br />
Humphreys (1978b ).<br />
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increasingly marked with the valence of political subordination, the Athenians sought to<br />
control not merely the resources but especially the relations of empire; as a result, the<br />
figure of the dōrodokos crystallized as a disobedient official. Our guide for this emergent<br />
conception of the dōrodokos will be Sophocles’ Antigone, performed some two decades<br />
after Cimon’s trial. In that play, the Theban king Creon paints a detailed picture of the<br />
dōrodokos, one that illuminates our understanding of Periclean politics in important<br />
ways. For Creon, the bribes taken by the dōrodokos were illegitimate precisely because<br />
they signaled a refusal to obey the king’s political authority. Rather than exchange good<br />
works for public honor, the dōrodokos disobeyed the king and pursued a wage of silver, a<br />
bribe, instead. Crucially, therefore, Sophocles’ Antigone reveals how the monies<br />
counterpoised with bribes signaled political obedience; indeed, the monies of dōrodokos<br />
and obedient citizen alike were used to think through the nature of political authority.<br />
Sophocles’ Antigone opens with an edict from Creon, the king of Thebes, who<br />
condemns one nephew, Polynices, while honoring the other, Eteocles, for their respective<br />
roles in the recent siege of Thebes (cf. Soph. An. 191-210). Fundamentally, this<br />
proclamation is underpinned by what amounts to a contested definition of the kinds of<br />
social relations that should be the source of legitimate authority within the polis. Whereas<br />
Creon conceives of philoi in civic terms as those who benefit the city, his niece Antigone,<br />
sister of both Polynices and Eteocles, privileges a definition of philia along familial lines.<br />
The entire play thus hinges on this disagreement, as Antigone ultimately chooses to<br />
privilege unwritten laws over Creon’s edict. 58<br />
58 The conflict between Antigone and Creon has been central to interpretations of the Antigone since Hegel.<br />
The terms of this conflict—individual liberty vs. the state, religious vs. secular order, private vs. public,<br />
human vs. divine, man vs. woman—are by now well-worn in the scholarship and perhaps distort the ways<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Two<br />
For Creon, those like Eteocles who are his—and the city’s—philoi receive honor<br />
(timē) accordingly; by implication, people like Antigone are not well-disposed to the<br />
polis and should never be honored by the polis or its ruler. Timē is awarded to philoi, not<br />
the kakoi who bring harm to the city (Soph. An. 207-10). Crucially, if philoi receive timē,<br />
kakoi are aligned with bribe monies: for Creon, the two sets of monies are thus<br />
counterpoised and used to mark distinct sets of political relations. What we will<br />
investigate here, then, is the valence of those political relations; in essence, we seek to<br />
uncover what is distinctive about the relations negotiated and ultimately signified by timē<br />
and bribe monies.<br />
In his first speech Creon submits his policy for how to make the city great: by<br />
holding no friend dearer than his polis and maintaining a friendship with no enemy of the<br />
city, Creon hopes to ensure smooth sailing for the ship of state (Soph. An. 182-7).<br />
Essentially, the king establishes himself as a philos of the polis, and his philoi are<br />
precisely those people who are the philoi of the polis, as well. 59 It is in this context of<br />
relations among one’s philoi that Creon denounces those responsible for breaking the law<br />
in attempting to bury Polynices’ body:<br />
= =<br />
h2 tou\j kakou\j timw=ntaj ei)sora| =j qeou/j;<br />
ou1k e1stin. a)lla\ tau=ta kai\ pa/lai po/lewj<br />
a1ndrej mo/lij fe/rontej e)rro/qoun e)moi,<br />
krufh| ka/ra sei/ontej, ou)d’ u(po\ zugw|<br />
lo/fon dikai/wj ei]xon, w(j ste/rgein e)me/.<br />
e)k tw=nde tou/touj e)cepi/stamai kalw=j<br />
parhgme/nouj misqoi=sin ei)rga/sqai ta/de.<br />
290<br />
in which an Athenian would have understood the play: Ostwald (1986: 148-61), Sourvinou-Inwood<br />
(1989).<br />
59 Though this definition of philoi is contested by Antigone, who champions a kin-based understanding of<br />
philoi, Creon’s definition seems to have been standard within Athens. Nearly one century later, his words<br />
were still being performed and heralded as a model for good citizenship: cf. Dem. 19.247. That said,<br />
Segal (1964: 52) rightly underscores that Creon’s worldview is wholly civic in nature, as everything is<br />
refracted through a political lens for the king. On philoi and philia in the Antigone, see Goldhill (1986: 88-<br />
106), Blundell (1991: 106-48), Konstan (1996: 82-5, 89-91).<br />
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ou)de\n ga\r a)nqrw/poisin oi[on a1rguroj 295<br />
kako\n no/mism’ e1blaste. tou=to kai\ po/leij<br />
porqei=, to/d’ a1ndraj e)cani/sthsin do/mwn:<br />
to/d’ e)kdida/skei kai\ paralla/ssei fre/naj<br />
xrhsta\j pro\j ai)sxra\ pra/gmat’ i1stasqai brotw=n:<br />
panourgi/aj d’ e1deicen a)nqrw/poij e1xein 300<br />
kai\ panto\j e1rgou dusse/beian ei)de/nai.<br />
o3soi de\ misqarnou=ntej h1nusan ta/de,<br />
xro/nw| pot’ e)ce/pracan w(j dou=nai di/khn.<br />
a)ll’ ei1per i1sxei Zeu\j e1t’ e)c e)mou= se/baj… 304<br />
…ma/qhq’ o3ti 311<br />
ou)k e)c a3pantoj dei= to\ kerdai/nein filei=n.<br />
Do you see the gods honoring evil men?<br />
No. But long since men in the city who find it hard to bear 290<br />
me have been murmuring against me, unwilling to keep<br />
their necks beneath the yoke, as justice demands, so as to<br />
put up with me. I know well that these people have been<br />
bribed by those men to do this thing. There is no institution 295<br />
so ruinous for men as money; money sacks cities,<br />
money drives men from their homes! Money by its teaching<br />
perverts men’s good minds so that they take to evil<br />
actions! Money has shown men how to practice villainy, 300<br />
and taught them impiousness in every action! But those<br />
who to earn their fee have contrived to do this thing have<br />
ensured that in time they will pay the penalty. 304<br />
...learn that 311<br />
you must not grow used to making money<br />
out of everything. (Soph. An. 288-304, 311-12. trans. Lloyd-Jones)<br />
Recalling his earlier pronouncement that philoi, not kakoi, would be honored by the polis,<br />
Creon here asks how the gods could bestow honor upon kakoi like Polynices, who have<br />
done nothing but destroy their temples and break the laws of the land (Soph. An. 284-8).<br />
In this respect, Creon prefaces his rant on dōrodokia by emphasizing how timē marks the<br />
presence of a reciprocal relationship between philoi. If the gods were to have honored<br />
Polynices, the king remarks, they would have been doing so just as if he were a euergetēs<br />
(Soph. An. 284), that is, as someone explicitly rewarded—like Cimon and his ilk—for the<br />
good services (erga) he provided the polis.<br />
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Creon delegitimizes the dōrodokos by problematizing the monies used to<br />
negotiate his relations with others. While timē marks a relationship between philoi, silver<br />
or money marks relations among kakoi like the dōrodokos, at least from Creon’s<br />
perspective. 60 After all, silver money is that “bad institution” (kakon nomisma) that has<br />
arisen among men (Soph. An. 295-6). Creon is certain that a misthos or ‘wage’ of silver<br />
caused someone to bury Polynices (Soph. An. 293-4), but his language is telling, for he<br />
envisions a misthos of silver as the reward for a heinous ergon like Polynices’ burial (cf.<br />
ei)rga/sqai, Soph. An. 294), just as timē had been the reward for the good deeds of a<br />
euergetēs only a few lines prior. In effect, money replaces the timē doled out by king and<br />
polis alike, as Creon sets up two different reciprocal relationships, one negotiated by<br />
good works and civic honor (timē), the other by a misthos and dōrodokia. 61<br />
For Creon, silver money is more than a medium transacted by the dōrodokos; it is<br />
a conceptual frame for understanding their relations. There are, then, major problems<br />
with this substitution of money for timē in exchange relationships. First, as the ‘wrong’<br />
medium, silver itself symbolizes the corruption of proper relations between citizen and<br />
king. The king warns, “money by its teaching perverts men’s good minds so that they<br />
take to evil actions” (Soph. An. 298-9). It is important here that Creon does not presume<br />
that the crime was perpetrated by people who were already kakoi; instead, he infers that<br />
kakoi led astray perfectly good citizens to join their ranks (e)k tw=nde<br />
tou/touj…/parhgme/nouj, Soph. An. 293-4). It is in this sense that the money is thought<br />
60 For a fuller treatment of Creon’s views on money, see Seaford (1998: 131-8). It should be noted,<br />
however, that whereas I assume that Creon’s silver functions as a money, Seaford must argue that it<br />
specifically constitutes general all-purpose money, in the modern use of the term. The difference stems<br />
from my adoption of a relational view of economics, on which see Chapter One above.<br />
61 Creon’s use of misthos here only underscores this point. Insofar as a misthos is a payment—in cash or<br />
kind—from a superior to an inferior, it is directly analogous to the hierarchy posited when king or polis<br />
bestows honors upon a citizen. Recall that the Eion epigrams, in honor of soldiers who died in battle, were<br />
also called a misthos (Plut. Cim. 7.4).<br />
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to have corrupted the relationship. When the newly minted dōrodokos citizen substitutes<br />
silver for timē, then, he privileges an altogether different economy of value—one<br />
symbolized by silver, not timē—and hence a different way of valuing relations in the<br />
polis.<br />
This image of the dōrodokos recalls Cimon’s warnings about short-circuiting the<br />
polis’ economy of empire, and the same picture emerges again about two-thirds of the<br />
way into the tragedy, when Creon accuses the prophet Tiresias of being bribed to side<br />
with Antigone. 62 Again we find the substitution of bribe monies for an economy of<br />
public honor: Tiresias’ own divine wisdom made him a benefactor and leader within the<br />
city, yet his association with bribery quickly turns this economy of honor into one of base<br />
profit. 63 As a result, whereas Tiresias’ good counsel, that “most powerful of possessions”<br />
(kra/tiston kthma/twn, Soph. An. 1050), previously reified the king’s own power, the<br />
seer’s purported bribe-taking inverts the power dynamic of their relationship. Rather<br />
than have control over the possessions symbolic of his archē, the king himself becomes a<br />
possession bought and sold by his enemies (cf. Soph. An. 1036).<br />
In this way, the monies used to negotiate relations among philoi and kakoi are<br />
themselves metaphors for those relations—witness the misthos for Polynices’ burial and<br />
Tiresias’ commercial cargo—yet each moves past symbolizing mere archē. Indeed, in<br />
both cases, the monies signal domination and physical control, as well. 64 Creon’s second<br />
62 See especially Soph. An. 1035-43, 1055, 1061, 1063; cf. 1077.<br />
63 The prophet’s wisdom is said to have made him a hēgemōn within the city (Soph. An. 993-4, 1058), one<br />
who provided a great “benefit” to the community (o)nh/sima, Soph. An. 995). Once Creon thinks that<br />
Tiresias has taken bribes, however, he employs commercial imagery to characterize his relationship with<br />
the seer. He claims to have been “bought and sold for a long time” by prophets like Tiresias (e)chmpo/lhmai<br />
ka)mpefo/rtismai pa/lai, Soph. An. 1036). Cf. the king’s use of kerdos (“gain”): Soph. An. 1047, 1061<br />
and the similar accusation at Soph. OT 124-6.<br />
64 Hence, Creon grounds his debate with Tiresias in terms of which laws, those of the gods or of the polis,<br />
can compel obedience. When he finally does obey (cf. pei/somai, Soph. An. 1099), he submits himself to<br />
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major problem with the dōrodokos’ substitution of misthos for euergetism, then, is that<br />
the dōrodokos works only for his paymaster and no longer provides good work—<br />
obedience—to the city. The king is explicit on this point, describing the bribe-givers as<br />
those “unwilling to keep their necks beneath the yoke, as justice demands” (ou)d’ u(po\<br />
zugw| = lo/fon dikai\wj ei]xon, Soph. An. 291-2). Even if we temper Creon’s vision of the<br />
proper relationship between rulers and citizens, the king’s model of politics as a<br />
reciprocal give-and-take—receiving honor in return for the good works of obedience—<br />
accords well with the idea of civic obligations at Athens developed in the previous<br />
chapter. 65 Those who accept bribes in contravention of the king’s laws cease to submit<br />
themselves to the yoke of the king’s authority. In effect, they fail to provide the<br />
obedience and goodwill required of all citizens.<br />
This is a significant accusation. Throughout the Antigone, Creon focuses on the<br />
reverence owed to his political authority and, consequently, the control he should have<br />
over others. In his opening speech, he turns to the chorus, those stalwart citizens, and<br />
notes their continued reverence, or sebas, for the seat of his political power (tou=to me\n<br />
ta\ Lai+/ou/se/bontaj se/bontaj ei)dw\j eu] qro/nwn a)ei\ kra/th, Soph. An. 166). The moment that<br />
the attempted burial of Polynices is reported, however, Creon expresses alarm at the ill-<br />
reverence, or dusse/beia, now in the polis as a result of the kakon nomisma that is money<br />
the authority not of his own nomoi but to the established laws of the gods (cf. tou\j kaqestw=taj no/mouj,<br />
Soph. An. 1113). As a result, Tiresias’ claim that he will ‘teach’ the king and that the king will ‘obey’<br />
(e)gw\ dida/cw, kai\ su\ tw| = ma/ntei piqou=, Soph. An. 992) should be read as all the more politically<br />
charged: cf. Seaford (1998: 133-4).<br />
65<br />
See Chapter One above.<br />
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(Soph. An. 300-1). From that point on, Creon’s authority risks not being duly respected,<br />
and he accordingly asserts it at every turn. 66<br />
Throughout the tragedy sebas and its cognates are contested terms—should<br />
citizens reverence the authority of the king, or that of the gods?—but it is important for<br />
our purposes that Creon views this sebas through the lens of power and, explicitly,<br />
control. 67 When Creon claims that the money at the heart of a bribe ‘reteaches’ men, the<br />
verb ekdidaskein thus locates bribery at the heart of the tragedy’s fundamental concern<br />
with ‘teaching’ citizen and king alike how to obey. 68 Bribe monies signal not just<br />
disrespect for the king’s archē but especially disobedience. For the corruptive power of<br />
bribe monies to ‘reteach’ citizens is identical to that of anarchia, or lawlessness. Bribe<br />
monies are thought to sack cities and to drive men from their homes (tou=to tou=to tou=to kai\ po/leij<br />
porqei=, to/d to/d’ to/d a1ndraj e)cani/sthsin do/mwn, Soph. An. 296-7), just as anarchia destroys<br />
cities and overturns homes (au3th au3th au3th po/leij o1llusin, h3d h3d’ h3d<br />
a)nasta/touj oi1kouj ti/qhsin,<br />
Soph. An. 673-4). The dōrodokos was a citizen whose disobedience threatened the social<br />
order.<br />
For Creon, the monies taken by the dōrodokos replace euergesia with<br />
disobedience. And so in Sophocles’ play our picture of the dōrodokos takes on new<br />
meaning: concern over controlling the rewards of empire gives way to anxieties over<br />
absolute political power, i.e. the ability to compel action. This shift in the dōrodokos<br />
66 Cf. Soph. An. 165-9, 199-201, 280-314, 508-25, 661-78, 730, 744, 780. Segal (1994: 49-51) is<br />
particularly helpful in illuminating the relationship between sebas and political control in these passages.<br />
67 Note how frequently he frames his struggle with Antigone in gendered terms as his being mastered by a<br />
woman: Soph. An. 484, 525, 678, 746, 756. Segal (1964: 52-4) especially illuminates how Creon’s entire<br />
worldview is shot through with intonations of weaker vs. stronger, domination vs. obedience.<br />
68 So the chorus sums up at the end of the play, “The great words of boasters make atonement with great<br />
blows, and in their old age teach them wisdom,” (Soph. An. 1350-3). The final word of the tragedy is<br />
“teach” (e)di/dacan, Soph. An. 1353), a word that recalls the Ode on Man’s heralding of mankind’s ability to<br />
teach himself (e)dida/cato, Soph. An. 356) how to be master over nature.<br />
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tracks an identical movement towards conceptualizing authority as the legitimate power<br />
to compel action (kratos). This focus on kratos was reflected in Athens’ transition to<br />
empire, examined above, and with Ephialtes’ reforms in 462/1 BCE infused domestic<br />
politics as well. Though much of the substance of these reforms remains murky, it<br />
seems clear that they transferred to the Assembly and Council the ability to hold public<br />
officials accountable at a euthyna and perhaps at an eisangelia, as well. 69 They thereby<br />
reinforced the idea that officials should be obedient to the dēmos—one reason why these<br />
reforms have been convincingly tied to the contemporary emergence of dēmokratia as a<br />
buzzword in political discourse. 70 Tellingly, such focus on the dēmos’ kratos paralleled a<br />
discursive shift in the word nomos, which at this time increasingly connoted a<br />
prescriptive rule or law that compels action. 71 With Ephialtes’ reforms, then, the dēmos<br />
asserted its political authority within the courts, in effect extending its control over more<br />
than just the domestic management of imperial resources. With these reforms, the dēmos<br />
had full control over the very agents who managed imperial monies. 72<br />
And control those political agents it did. In at least two instances during the<br />
Peloponnesian War in the last few decades of the fifth century, stratēgoi were formally<br />
charged, or feared being charged, for dōrodokia, and the dēmos was acutely concerned to<br />
69<br />
Humphreys (1983: 242-7), Ostwald (1986: 70-3), Ober (1989: 77-8), Hansen (1991: 36-7), Raaflaub<br />
(2007). Ephialtes’ reforms are discussed at length in Chapter Seven below.<br />
70<br />
Raaflaub (2007) collects the sources on dēmokratia and argues persuasively for their connection to<br />
Ephialtes’ reforms.<br />
71<br />
For the development of nomos in the fifth century, see Ostwald (1986: 89-136). Ephialtes’ association<br />
with bringing nomos to the people is attested in Anaximenes, who records that the leader moved Solon’s<br />
laws from the Acropolis into the public spaces of the Agora and Boule (72 FGrH F 13). This highly<br />
political act presented the laws themselves as a possession belonging to the people at the precise moment<br />
when the dēmos was using law to claim possession over imperial monies and public officials, alike.<br />
72<br />
The subsequent development of the euthyna process, examined in Chapter Six, strongly suggests that the<br />
Athenians were most concerned about holding accountable, specifically, those magistrates who handled<br />
imperial monies.<br />
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control the disobedient dōrodokoi. 73 First, in 424 BCE the stratēgoi Pythodorus and<br />
Sophocles were sentenced to exile, while their colleague Eurymedon was fined, because<br />
they had all purportedly been bribed to withdraw from Sicily according to the terms of a<br />
pact with the Sicilian king Hermocrates (Thuc. 4.65.2-3; Philochorus FGrH 328 F127).<br />
In his account of these events, Thucydides ascribes the trial to the arrogance of the<br />
dēmos, which he claims expected to succeed militarily even in the most adverse<br />
circumstances (Thuc. 4.65.4). And again, on the disastrous Sicilian expedition in 413<br />
BCE the stratēgos Nicias counseled against withdrawing from Sicily, in part out of the<br />
fear that upon his return to Athens the soldiers would accuse him of withdrawing because<br />
he had taken dōra (Thuc. 7.48.4; cf. Thuc. 3.98.5). As Thucydides suggests, the dēmos<br />
controlled its generals; for them to have acted without explicit approval from the dēmos<br />
would have been an unjust arrogation of authority, a sure sign of disobedience. 74<br />
To recap the argument so far, just as Athens assumed first economic control over<br />
allied possessions and then political and economic control over the allies themselves, the<br />
Athenian dēmos asserted its control over monies within the polis and then over people<br />
within the polis. As a result, political monies that had operated simultaneously within the<br />
economies of empire and patronage gradually took on the valence of political control and<br />
subordination. This new meaning was particularly problematic within the space of<br />
domestic politics because it signaled a subordination of the dēmos to an individual<br />
73 Stratēgoi were responsible for everything, good and bad, that happened on their expedition: Din. 1.74;<br />
Pritchett (1974: 74). Even an autokratōr general like Nicias, one who had been given complete authority<br />
to do as he pleased, could suffer tremendous penalties if he did not do certain things: cf. IG i² 98/99=ML<br />
78.<br />
74 Explicit when the dēmos blames its stratēgoi for the terms reached at the surrender of Potidaea (Thuc.<br />
2.70.4); cf. [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.17. Reading dōrodokia through the lens of obedience in Thucydides follows<br />
straightforwardly from the historians’ trope of the inversion of leaders and led, a motif closely connected<br />
to the insubordination of troops in the field: Rood (1998: 28-31, 142-5). Crucially, for Thucydides the<br />
analogy between a stratēgos’ command of his troops and the dēmos’ control of stratēgoi was clear.<br />
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citizen. While elite citizens might still acquire political authority through their<br />
contributions to the polis, the means by which they acquired this authority needed to be<br />
kept distinct from monies of empire so imbued with the valence of kratos. New modes of<br />
politics arose, as the next section will trace, but the legitimacy of these modes was<br />
constantly contested. In what should be by now a familiar move, the terms of this debate<br />
focused on the dōrodokos, as the Athenians used him to think through what legitimate<br />
politics really looked like.<br />
The New Politicians as dōrodokoi:<br />
In the previous section we saw how, around the time of Pericles, the dēmos began<br />
to compete with elites for the authority to be the patron of the dēmos. This idea was<br />
considered briefly in conjunction with public buildings and the Springhouse Decree, but<br />
it seems to underlie two other shifts that occurred in the second half of the fifth century.<br />
First, there was a proliferation of political monies: cleruchies, colonies, and pay for<br />
various groups of people, including soldiers, jurors, artisans and laborers, public officials<br />
and many, many others. These monies have rightly been understood as ways for the<br />
dēmos to enjoy a share of the empire, and doubtless, too, they at least fostered greater<br />
participation in the democracy, as scholars frequently emphasize. 75 But these monies<br />
also played a crucial role, as we will see, in legitimating the dēmos’ position as patron of<br />
the community. These monies helped forge a ‘new politics’: like patronage, only<br />
redistributing the dēmos’ own money back to itself. 76 As this section will trace, these two<br />
75<br />
Rhodes (1981: 339-40 ad AP27.4), Markle (1985), Ostwald (1986: 182), Ober (1989: 143), Stadter<br />
(1989: 117 ad Per. 9.3).<br />
76<br />
Connor (1971) is essential on this shift. See also Ostwald (1986: 175-91), Whitehead (1986: 305-10),<br />
Schmitt Pantel (1992: 179-208).<br />
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political innovations were interrelated, and the figure of the dōrodokos intimately shaped<br />
their development.<br />
Army pay, naval pay, pay for public magistrates and jurors—all of these misthoi<br />
were ways that Athens’ empire fed her citizens, according to Aristotle (AP 24.1). Indeed,<br />
the provision of both naval and military pay—attested by the start of the Peloponnesian<br />
War—came directly from tribute funds, and providing food (trophē) for the soldiers was<br />
the explicit purpose for those funds. 77 We can also add to this list cleruchies and<br />
colonies, which were likewise possessions of the dēmos, as well as direct and indirect<br />
sources of food. 78 Similarly, to the extent that the Periclean building program on top of<br />
the Acropolis was funded, at least in part, by the Hellēnotamiai, pay for the workers on<br />
those building projects seems to have come directly from the empire. 79<br />
What caused this proliferation of monies? Common to all of them was that they<br />
came from the dēmos’ purse—whether directly from the public treasury or indirectly<br />
through the dēmos’ ‘ownership’ of imperial resources—and that they explicitly ‘fed’ the<br />
dēmos, just as Cimon and others had previously done. 80 In other words, this proliferation<br />
of monies represented the dēmos’ attempt to lay claim to the economy of patronage. As<br />
77 Both existed by the start of Peloponnesian War: AP 27.2, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.13 with Pritchett (1971: 7-<br />
14). Plutarch attributes pay for both the fleet (Plut. Per. 11.4) and the army (Plut. Per. 12.5) to Pericles, but<br />
see AP 24.1. On the use of tribute funds to provide trophē for Athenian troops, see Pritchett (1971: 40-1).<br />
78 See AP 24.3 with AE 255-72. Cleruchies and colonies were commonly populated by poor Athenian<br />
citizens and, in this respect, provided a livelihood for those citizens (cf. Plut. Per. 11.6). Yet cleruchies like<br />
those in the Thracian Chersonese (Plut. Per. 11.5, DS 11.88.3) were often strategic acquisitions that would<br />
then be leveraged to feed the citizens back at Athens: Brunt (1966).<br />
79 Plut. Per. 12.4-5 and IG i 3 439, but see Kallet (1994: 49-50) for doubt on taking our sources at face<br />
value. My argument would actually be stronger if the Periclean building programme was not funded<br />
mainly by imperial monies: that would mean that, for both public works and public pay, the dēmos actively,<br />
though fictively, conceptualized them as if they were monies of patronage.<br />
80 AP calls them, explicitly, trophē (AP 24.1, 24.3), which is precisely what Cimon provided his demesmen<br />
(cf. diatrofh/n, Plut. Cim. 10.1). At AP 24.1-3 the shift to providing trophē for Athens’ citizens is directly<br />
tied to Athens’ ascendancy as hegemon over the League, and it is tempting to follow Aristotle on this<br />
conceptual correlation. As the proliferation of political monies in the 450’s and 440’s suggests, as Athens<br />
grew more imperial, the dēmos also grew more patronal towards itself.<br />
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with the Springhouse Decree, I suggest, we can imagine that the dēmos actively<br />
competed with elites for the authority to control these monies.<br />
We can see this story play out in the development of misthophoria, or pay for<br />
public officials and jurors. Typically, these monies are understood as necessary steps to<br />
enable mass participation in the ‘radical’ democracy following Ephialtes’ reforms: by<br />
paying citizens for serving in public office or on a jury, the dēmos ensured that even the<br />
poorest citizens could participate in politics and, hence, the democracy could truly<br />
achieve ‘rule of the people’. 81 Doubtless this was one potential result of misthophoria—<br />
though it is impossible for us to assess either way whether or not the poorest citizens<br />
actually participated more often as a result—but we should be wary about positing this as<br />
the motivation behind the reforms. After all, it is striking that no source mentions such a<br />
motivation; in fact, all of our sources suggest that misthophoria was established as a way<br />
for the masses to profit from empire. 82 Yet it is surprising to find even this motivation<br />
posited by ancient testimonia, since pay for both public office and jury duty was funded<br />
not by the hellēnotamiai, who were in charge of the tribute, but by the kōlakretai, who<br />
administered Athens’ public treasury (to dēmosion). 83 When the Athenians set up the<br />
funds for misthophoria, in other words, they consciously did not treat those funds as<br />
similar to the monies used to pay the army and the fleet. Why, then, was jury pay ever<br />
associated with empire?<br />
81 See Rhodes (1981: 339-40 ad AP27.4), Markle (1985), Ostwald (1986: 182), Ober (1989: 143), Stadter<br />
(1989: 117 ad Per. 9.3), Hansen (1991: 188). Cf. Sinclair (1988: 71).<br />
82 AP 24.1, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.16. Cf. Ar. V. 655-64. Samons (2000: 65).<br />
83 Samons (2000: 57-9) on the kōlakretai. On the meaningful distinction between imperial and domestic<br />
funds, see Kallet-Marx (1994: 246-7), Kallet (1998: 47), and Samons (2000: esp. 55). Note how, after the<br />
public treasury was combined with the Treasury of Athena in 411, jurors were paid by the Treasurers of<br />
Athena: IG ii 2 1629.213-17.<br />
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I propose that the reason jury pay and pay for public officials were consistently<br />
associated with ‘feeding’ the dēmos from imperial monies was that they represented self-<br />
conscious ways in which the dēmos was replicating—or, to be more precise, competing<br />
against—Cimon-style patronage. Certainly thinking of these monies as providing,<br />
explicitly, food for the dēmos would have resonated strongly with the way Cimon had<br />
invited his demesmen to dinner. So, too, would the source of the funds: the kōlakretai, or<br />
“collectors of limbs” or “hams” (kw=la),” who probably date back to Solon (AP 7.3) and<br />
whose name suggests a connection to the collection of honorary shares of meat at a<br />
sacrifice. 84 Later dispensing public monies for a range of purposes, the kōlakretai<br />
frequently provided monies associated with public honors, just like the kw=la they<br />
presumably once collected. 85 Moreover, that the payment was called a misthos need not<br />
have connoted a commercial “wage,” but readily could have evoked the honorary misthos<br />
awarded the victorious generals at Eion (cf. Aeschin. 3.183): that is, it may have signaled,<br />
especially, a money from a superior (the dēmos) to a citizen, just like Cimon’s handouts<br />
to his demesemen. 86 If we liken misthophoria to the monies of patronage, which<br />
themselves were derived from the monies of empire, it makes sense that even<br />
misthophoria, though paid for from domestic funds, was nevertheless linked to the<br />
monies of empire.<br />
84 As Samons (2000: 55) notes, jury pay and pay for magistrates are absent from the epigraphic record<br />
dealing with reserves from the sacred treasury. By contrast, sources explicitly attest that the kōlakretai<br />
doled out the payments: Ar. V. 695, 724, schol. Ar. Av. 1541, Hesychius s.v. kwlakre/tai. Cf. Kallet<br />
(1998: 47) and Samons (2000: 57). On the connection between the kōlakretai and the collection of<br />
sacrificial meat, see Samons (2000: 57), Harding (2001: 93-4).<br />
85 On the associations of civic honors and kw=la qua honorary portions of meat, see especially Tsoukala<br />
(2009). In the inscriptional record, we find the kōlakretai dispensing funds for the erection of stelai (IG i 3<br />
11.13-14, 71.25-26, 165.10), paying various religious officials (priestess of Athena Nike, IG i 3 36.10; those<br />
making a theōria to Delphi, Androtion FGrH 324 F 36), and providing meals in the prytaneion (Androtion<br />
FGrH 324 F 36).<br />
86 On this definition of misthos, see especially von Reden (1995a: 89-92).<br />
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Instead of asking why the Athenians instituted public pay, therefore, if we ask<br />
why public pay took the specific form that it took, it seems clear that the Athenians were<br />
conceptualizing misthophoria through the lens of patronage politics: the collective<br />
dēmos, not an individual citizen, served as patron to the masses. We find indirect<br />
corroboration for this idea in a second set of descriptions of public pay, which frame it as<br />
a money used to negotiate patronage politics, albeit between an elitie citizen and the<br />
community. Aristotle, followed by Plutarch, is explicit on this point: in providing jury<br />
pay, 87 other kinds of public pay, 88 and theoric pay, 89 Pericles “demagogued” in<br />
opposition to Cimon’s patronage. 90 Alternatively, it is reported that Pericles instituted<br />
these public monies in order to compete against the political authority of Thucydides, son<br />
of Melesias (Plut. Per. 11.4). We do not know Plutarch’s source for that latter political<br />
rivalry; in any case, what is important here is that, when they were not associated with<br />
Athens’ empire, these measures were viewed as tokens in a political competition to<br />
secure support from the dēmos.<br />
Our sources paint a consistent picture of Pericles’ taking the initiative to create a<br />
new mode of politics, one in which he redistributed the dēmos’ own funds to itself, but<br />
87 Jury pay: AP 27.2-5, 62.2; Aristot. Pol. 2.1274a9. Cf. [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.16. We do not know the original<br />
amount of jury pay, but Cleon is said to have increased it from 2 obols to 3 obols per day: schol. ad Ar. V.<br />
88, 300.<br />
88 It is unclear what Plutarch means here by a1llaij misqoforai=j, or “other kinds of provision of misthos”<br />
(Plut. Per. 9.3), but elsewhere pay for the navy (Plut. Per. 11.4), pay for the navy (Plut. Per. 12.5), as well<br />
as pay for artisans and laborers working on the Acropolis building programme (Plut. Per. 12.5-6) are<br />
attributed to Pericles. Potentially pay for public officials is included here too, on which see Ar. Ach. 65-7,<br />
[Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.3, IG i 3 82.17-21. See Stadter (1989: 117-18 ad Per. 9.3) for further discussion.<br />
89 It is difficult to determine what exactly is meant by qewrikoi=j, “theoric” payments (Plut. Per. 9.3).<br />
Probably these payments had nothing to do with the Theoric Fund which Eubulus managed in the midfourth<br />
century: Ruschenbusch (1979). What, then, would they have covered? Stadter (1989: 116 ad Per.<br />
9.3) makes a compelling case that Plutarch is following a tradition found in Ulpian (ad Dem. 1.1=Dindorff<br />
33) that Pericles designated that leftover public funds should be devoted to public festivals (theōroi), as a<br />
way of pleasing the dēmos. Ulpian’s note, however, might simply be a garbled misreading of Pericles’<br />
famed generosity in putting on festivals and theatrical performances: cf. Thuc. 2.38.1, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.9.<br />
90 a)ntidhmagwgw=n pro\j th\n Ki/mwnoj eu)pori/an, AP 27.3; katadhmagwgou=menoj, Plut. Per. 9.3.<br />
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such a narrative was in fact contested in Pericles’ day. 91 Note how, if we follow<br />
Plutarch’s narrative here, Pericles’ innovation is actually shot through with overtones of<br />
political subordination of the dēmos. 92 This would not have sat well with all Athenians.<br />
In fact, some of Pericles’ contemporaries referred to his measures and others’ as bribes.<br />
Plutarch himself says that with public pay Pericles was able to “bribe” the masses<br />
(sundeka/saj to\ plh=qoj, Plut. Per. 9.3; cf. Plut. Per. 34.2), and Aristophanes also<br />
insinuates that public pay was a bribe from politicians to obtain favorable jury treatment<br />
(Aristoph. V. 669-79; Pax 632-3, 644-8; Eq. 801-9; cf. fr. 100). 93 As in the previous<br />
section, where we saw that Pericles’ problematic control over public monies was<br />
reflected in public accusations of dōrodokia, again accusations of dōrodokia crop up as<br />
Athenians tried to police the borders of legitimate politics.<br />
Crucially, the dōrodokos was again configured as a disobedient citizen, someone<br />
who had somehow inverted the vertical relations between community and citizen. In<br />
Aristophanes’ Wasps and Knights, for example, Cleon is lambasted for corrupting the<br />
dēmos by bribing it with jury pay. 94 This is a problem not just because the dēmos is<br />
corrupted—although the Wasps’ satire of jurors who pursue money over just judgment is<br />
91<br />
Administering the dēmos’ own funds: th\n tw=n dhmosi/wn dianomh/n, Plut. Per. 9.3; cf. dido/nai toi=j<br />
polloi=j ta\ au(tw=n, AP 27.4.<br />
92<br />
In currying their favor by instituting misthophoria, he was said to “relax the reins” of his rule somewhat<br />
(ta\j h(ni/aj a)nei/j, Plut. Per. 11.4), a metaphor that parallels both Creon’s own inability to control<br />
Antigone (Soph. An. esp. 473-7) and contemporary discussion about Ephialtes’ problematic role in the<br />
democracy (Plut. Per. 7.6). Similarly, Plutarch frames Pericles’ use of political monies—specifically,<br />
cleruchies and misthoi, or wages—as the means by which he acquired such exceptional authority within the<br />
polis (Plut. Per. 9.1).<br />
93<br />
In this light, note Aristotle’s clunky transitions from Pericles’ provision of public pay to the issue of<br />
judicial bribery (to\ deka/zein), which he claims first arose at this time (AP 27.4-5). Because it was Anytus,<br />
not Pericles, who first made judicial bribery public, this line reads almost like a non sequitur unless we<br />
supply a missing conceptual link between Pericles’ public payments and ‘bribery’ of jurors.<br />
94<br />
Ar. V. 669-79, Eq. 801-9. In both plays, Cleon is frequently accused of both giving and receiving bribes:<br />
Ar. V. 960-1, 669-79; Eq. 402-3, 453-9, 994-6, 1080-3. Cf. Nu. 591 and, for similar accusations, Ar. Eq.<br />
103, 258, 707, 824-7. See also Ar. Ach. 5-8 with scholiast (=Theopompus FGrH 115 F 94) with discussion<br />
in Olson (2004: ad loc) and Carawan (1990).<br />
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troubling even without the overtones of bribery. Cleon’s corruption is particularly<br />
problematic because it enables him to escape accountability. 95 Accordingly, his bribe-<br />
giving enables him to invert his relationship with the dēmos so that he, not the dēmos,<br />
becomes master. 96 Just as Pericles’ control over public monies was called into question<br />
by accusations of dōrodokia, here too it is assumed that public speakers illegitimately<br />
control, and disproportionately benefit from, the allies’ imperial monies (esp. Ar. V. 660-<br />
79). All of the monies found in the ways corrupt politicians negotiate politics are thus<br />
cast as the bribes. Hence, that we find Cleon’s misthophoria recast as bribe monies<br />
strongly suggests that a number of Athenians thought that Cleon’s relationship to the<br />
dēmos, like Pericles’—specifically, his influence on the distribution of public funds—was<br />
inherently problematic.<br />
I am suggesting that, as with the Springhouse Decree and public works, with<br />
misthophoria and other political monies created around mid-century the dēmos self-<br />
consciously strove to be its own patron. It identified a money of Cimonian-style<br />
patronage—feeding the public—and refashioned it in democratic form, in effect blocking<br />
elite citizens from playing that role using the old monies of patronage. Nevertheless,<br />
elites like Pericles and Cleon, who previously would have derived political authority<br />
from the politics of patronage, instead tried to appropriate for themselves the dēmos’ new<br />
monies; in this way, they forged a new kind of politics. 97 Even if the picture I am<br />
95 esp. Ar. Eq. 801-9; cf. V. 669-79, 960-1.<br />
96 This point is explored at length in McGlew (2002: 86-111), which focuses on Aristophanes’ Knights and<br />
Cleon’s desire to control the dēmos. See also Wohl (2002) and Scholtz (2004) on the politics of<br />
domination latent in conceptualizing politicians as erastai.<br />
97 So in Aristophanes we find explicit comparisons between the contributions of new politicians and oldstyle<br />
patrons of the dēmos. In the Knights, for instance, the Sausage-seller uses metaphors of food<br />
consumption to compare his deeds to Themistocles: Ar. Eq. 810-19 with Anderson (1989: 15-16), Marr<br />
(1996). As Davidson (1993: 57-62) explores, the comparison, and implicit contrast, with past public<br />
officials signal how unjust the New Politicians’ patron-like redistributions were thought to be.<br />
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sketching must remain mere suggestion, as the relationship between mass and elite<br />
shifted in the second half of the fifth century, it is clear that the terrain on which they<br />
battled for political authority focused on the proliferation of legitimate political monies—<br />
like misthophoria, army and naval pay, or cleruchies—and on their purported corruption,<br />
as represented by bribe monies. 98 To invoke the dōrodokos, as Pericles’ and Cleon’s<br />
critics certainly did, was to contest the implicit meaning of the relationships structured by<br />
those monies: it was to contest their claim to be patron of the dēmos.<br />
Such contestation of the legitimacy of political payments—or, more properly, the<br />
legitimacy of monies used to negotiate political relations—attended a major shift towards<br />
a new style of politics, as practiced by Cleon and his successors. The old-style,<br />
patronage-like model of politics practiced by Cimon, Themistocles or Aristides was<br />
replaced by redistribution of the dēmos’ own money, and we have already examined in<br />
this context how misthophoria was re-read as bribe monies. Yet the New Politicians<br />
were considered dōrodokoi also for the way they purportedly took bribes to speak in<br />
public. 99 As we will see, this last image of the dōrodokos, too, was used to contest the<br />
legitimacy of the New Politics.<br />
The New Politicians represented both a significant improvement for, and a new<br />
potential danger to, the democracy. On the one hand, their use of rhetoric explicitly to<br />
98 In addition to employing the dōrodokos discursively to delegitimize some monies, the dēmos may have<br />
used the law to legitimate other monies. Probably between the 450’s and 430’s, the Athenians imposed<br />
limits on escaping liturgical service and created the antidosis procedure, which helped prevent elites from<br />
shirking their liturgical duties: Gabrielsen (1986), Christ (1990) on antidosis and, on liturgies more<br />
generally, Davies (1981: 98-9), Sinclair (1988: 188-90), Christ (2006: 143-204), Domingo Gygax<br />
(forthcoming: passim). These legal changes have rightly been connected to the rise of the people’s<br />
power—so Christ (2006: 158-61)—but another motivation for their enactment could have been to signal<br />
and enforce through law which kinds of elite contributions to the community were legitimate. Indeed,<br />
codifying legitimate political monies in law could have simultaneously broadcast an authoritative list of<br />
legitimate contributions to the polis and, importantly, signaled the dēmos’ control over determining that list<br />
in the first place.<br />
99 See, for example, Ar. Eq. 930-4, 1196-8; V. 100-2, 240-1, 906-8; Th. 936-7.<br />
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win over the masses fostered more ‘democratic’ politics: attention to and inclusion of the<br />
interests of more citizens, and consequently policies aimed at the benefit of the masses as<br />
a whole, instead of a smaller subsection of it. In effect, this meant that any citizen who<br />
had an idea would have a greater chance of having it proposed by a politician (and<br />
thereby hopefully approved) than he would have earlier in the democracy. On the other<br />
hand, this meant that any citizen who had an idea would have a greater chance of having<br />
it proposed by a politician. When all it takes is a persuasive public speaker to have a<br />
motion approved, there is potentially less quality control on the kinds of issues brought<br />
up for public discussion or, worse, the kinds of proposals successfully voted on. Perhaps<br />
unsurprisingly, therefore, this new, potentially more democratic political technology<br />
brought with it concomitant concerns that the democracy had become an ochlocracy or a<br />
polity ruled by the fickle masses. 100<br />
This outline should be familiar, but what I would like to pose here is the question<br />
of how this shift actually came about. How exactly did Cleon and others manage to forge<br />
this new style of politics? Cleon’s most distinctive difference from his predecessors was<br />
that he repudiated his circle of friends and proclaimed himself to be friend—‘lover’ as<br />
Aristophanes would call it—of the dēmos as a whole. 101 While no subsequent politician<br />
would follow suit in rejecting his own philoi, after Cleon most of them did try to court the<br />
people’s favor, as Aristophanes famously parodies in the Knights. Like Cleon, however,<br />
these politicians were consistently open to the accusation that they were peddling their<br />
100<br />
Ober (1998: 72-121) thoroughly discusses the criticisms that emerged in the late-fifth and early-fourth<br />
centuries.<br />
101<br />
Ar. Eq. 732-4, 1340-4 with Connor (1971: 96-104). See also Thuc. 3.36.6, 4.27.5-28.5, 4.21.3; AP<br />
28.3; Plut. Nicias 8.3; Theopompus FGrH 115 F 92. As Creon’s own civic-oriented conception of philia<br />
might suggest, the conceit that a politician was a ‘polis-lover’ was common in this period—e.g. Thuc.<br />
2.60.5 (Pericles); Thuc. 6.92.2, 4 (Alcibiades); cf. Thuc. 2.43.1, Ar. Lys. 541-8—and was symptomatic of<br />
this broader realignment of civic values: Connor (1971: 103-5), Raaflaub (1994: 129-30). For Cleon’s<br />
relationship with his friends, see especially Connor (1971: 91-4).<br />
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political services—in short, trafficking in decrees, laws, honors, and policies. 102 Cause<br />
and effect are somewhat muddled here—did Cleon first befriend the dēmos and then<br />
begin to profit from it, or was it the other way around?—but the difference is crucial. In<br />
the first instance, we are led to believe that Cleon was corrupted by power gained from<br />
his newly acquired mass support; in the second, Cleon’s corrupt activity was constituted<br />
by his courting of the masses.<br />
There are good reasons for thinking that the latter occurred, that is, that Cleon’s<br />
new practice of politics was inherently considered corrupt and that, in fact, it was plied<br />
through money. 103 First, we should note that political alliances do not spring up ex<br />
nihilo; some kind of reciprocal relation is needed in order to leverage political support.<br />
For the old-school public speakers, this relation readily appeared in the form of philia; for<br />
Cleon, who had renounced his friendships, at first there would have been no such basis<br />
for establishing and organizing mass support. Cleon required an ersatz philia, some kind<br />
of relational glue to enable him to open up political access to a broader swath of the<br />
public. I suggest that this glue entailed what his opponents called dōrodokia; because<br />
Cleon’s politicking forged new patterns of social ties within the practice of politics, the<br />
monies used to negotiate those ties were deemed illegitimate by opponents. Accordingly,<br />
Cleon was called a dōrodokos.<br />
102 Note how insults of the New Politicians typically came in the form of epithets signaling the politician’s<br />
associations with trade, i.e. that he was profiting from his politicking. Cf. Cleon the tanner (e.g. Eq. 44, Nu.<br />
581), Hyperbolus the lamp-maker (Eq. 1316, Nu. 1065, Pax 690), Cephalus the potter (Ec. 248-53),<br />
Aristoxenus the needle-seller (Pl. 175 with scholiast), and the catalogue of politicians at Knights 129-45<br />
with Sommerstein (1981: 150-1 ad loc.). This became a common motif in Comedy: Jackson (1919)<br />
collects the evidence, while Connor (1971: 152-8) helpfully points out the potential class tensions inherent<br />
in calling someone a ‘peddler’ or ‘manufacturer’.<br />
103 That rhētores received a misthos was later taken for granted: Ar. Plut. 377-9, 567-70; Pl. Phdr. 257c-d;<br />
Aeschin. 2.180, 3.173; Dem. 19.246; Hyp. 3.3, 4.28. Cf. APF 518-19.<br />
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Let us reframe the issue of access from the perspective of a relatively poor<br />
Athenian who, in the Cimonian system of patronage, would have lacked the philoi<br />
needed to pass a proposal on his own in the Assembly. One way to overcome such social<br />
distance would have been to create and leverage a similar relational tie through money:<br />
by simply paying a public speaker to make a proposal, a citizen could potentially tap into<br />
that speaker’s network of philoi or, better yet, his clout with the Assembly. Whereas this<br />
kind of practice would have been antithetical to the aims of the old style of politics—<br />
because it gave political authority to someone other than a local patron—and<br />
understandably would have been viewed as the corruption of the friendships that were the<br />
foundation of that system, for Cleon and the New Politicians money for political services<br />
would have been less problematic. Indeed, it naturally would have bonded politician and<br />
citizen into the desired kind of reciprocal relationship, albeit one between two otherwise<br />
complete strangers.<br />
Note how the accusation of dōrodokia here does double-duty both as a descriptive<br />
claim, as we have traced, and as a conceptual lens for understanding Cleon’s actions.<br />
Precisely because Cleon’s political support came from the masses, not his philoi, the<br />
content of his ties to his supporters would have been arms-length: the same kind of tie<br />
frequently found in commercial markets. In this sense, that a commercial misthos was<br />
used to characterize how Cleon’s relationship was negotiated only signaled how, from the<br />
perspective of old-style politicians, Cleon’s political friends were closer to commercial<br />
transactors than actual social relations like philoi. Yet the illegitimacy of these relations<br />
was also signaled by the accusation of dōrodokia itself; it was precisely by delegitimizing<br />
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the currency of the relationship (the bribe monies) that critics of the New Politicians<br />
leveled their attacks.<br />
On this view, we should perhaps flip our picture of the New Politicians on its<br />
head and assign the real innovation not to Cleon but to the political entrepreneurs who<br />
tried to overcome the inaccessibility of the old system of politics by paying public<br />
speakers to make a motion on their behalf—that is, to the masses who stopped<br />
subordinating themselves to patrons and began subordinating patrons to themselves by<br />
giving them a misthos. I suggest that Cleon was simply the first-mover, the first public<br />
speaker to accept the bribes of non-philoi and thereby allow them a kind of political<br />
access usually granted to one’s philoi. For this reason, he was thought to have renounced<br />
his friends among the elite; and it makes sense that he did so, too, for his purported<br />
dōrodokia enabled him to secure broader support with the masses. The bribe itself served<br />
as the initial basis for a reciprocal relationship between public speaker and citizen. Over<br />
time, that relationship was only reinforced at both an individual level (when individuals<br />
continued to pay Cleon for his services) and a more general level (when Cleon exchanged<br />
favorable public policies for broad-based support).<br />
To modern ears, Cleon probably comes across as a corrupt crook at worst or a<br />
political opportunist at best, but it should be noted that the style of politics he began on<br />
the dēmos’ initiative became the standard for generations to come. In other words, what<br />
initially were considered ‘bribes’ later became perfectly licit ‘payments’, a shift that<br />
makes sense if we assign the political innovation here to the dēmos. 104 Far from being a<br />
104 This is a somewhat controversial claim given how often our sources rail against the payments received<br />
by rhētores: e.g. Hyp. 5.25 (Demosthenes received 60 talents for his decrees and for proposing his<br />
trierarchic law); Dem. 18.312 (Aeschines received 2 talents to oppose Demosthenes’ trierarchic law), Plut.<br />
Mor. 848B (Demosthenes received 5 talents for not saying anything). The veracity of these claims is<br />
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self-interested opportunist, in fact, he might genuinely have thought himself ‘champion<br />
of the people’ (or the two could be one and the same). 105 After all, in renouncing his old<br />
friendships, he reportedly criticized the corruption that could result from conducting<br />
politics through selective social and political channels. Philia, Plutarch has him claim,<br />
“often softened one’s thinking and led one astray from right and just policy in<br />
politics.” 106 Following Plutarch, we might imagine that Cleon, like his paymasters, was<br />
himself trying to improve a corrupt system. Whether this testimony is apocryphal or not,<br />
we cannot be certain, but it does make sense if we adopt the perspective of those<br />
Athenians for whom political subordination to a patron was no longer necessary and no<br />
longer desired.<br />
This chapter has examined the figure of the dōrodokos in the fifth century: a<br />
disobedient character whose presence signaled problems in the distribution of monies in<br />
Athens’ public economies of empire and patronage. By the end of the century, the<br />
dōrodokos was not simply a disobedient citizen, but one who had inverted the vertical<br />
relations between citizen and community; in this respect, he was opposed completely to<br />
“people’s power.” As the Peloponnesian War drew to a close, such opposition to the<br />
democracy crystallized in the form of two different oligarchic coups, at which point the<br />
figure of the dōrodokos became inextricably linked with oligarchy. Along with civil war,<br />
impossible to assess—despite the best efforts of Wankel (1982): cf. Harvey (1985) and Hansen (1991:<br />
274-6; cf. 1980). Given the extraordinary sums cited, these instances most likely represent problematic<br />
exceptions, that is, instances when a rhētor’s fee was blamed for his bad performance, rather than strong<br />
indications that payments themselves were banned. In fact, the very point of Hyperides’ testimony is that<br />
these kinds of payments were allowed so long as they did not result in harm to the dēmos.<br />
105<br />
Prostatēs tou dēmou: Ar. Eq. 1128, Ra. 569; cf. V. 419, Pax 684, Pl. 920; Thuc. 8.89.4. Connor (1971:<br />
110-15).<br />
106<br />
w(j polla_ th~j o)rqh~j kai\ dikai/aj proaire/sewj mala&ssousan e0n th| ~ politei/a| kai\ para&gousan,<br />
Plut. Mor. 806F.<br />
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therefore, oligarchy brought with it a new conception of the dōrodokos; and it is to this<br />
newly conceived figure that the next chapter turns.<br />
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In the Shadow of the Thirty:<br />
Dōrodokia in the Generation after the Peloponnesian War<br />
403-378 BCE<br />
When Plato’s Socrates sets up his ideal city in the Republic, he explicitly bans its<br />
citizens from becoming bribe-takers and money-lovers (dwrodo/kouj…filoxrhma/touj<br />
Pl. Rep. 390d6); the dōrodokos was not allowed in Callipolis. As a result, Socrates<br />
argues, the city should ban all poetry that praises or describes dōrodokia, including lines<br />
from Hesiod, parts of the Iliad in which Achilles accepts bribes, and even certain stories<br />
about the gods, like the hero Asclepius who according to tradition took bribes to bring a<br />
man back to life (Rep. 3.390d-e, 3.408b-c). Socrates fears that the moral education of the<br />
citizens of Callipolis might suffer if such poor exempla were held before them. Indeed,<br />
the philosopher goes so far as to say that they should deny that Achilles was ever so<br />
greedy (filoxrh/maton) as to take bribes from Agamemnon or Priam (Pl. Rep. 3.390e6-<br />
8). As Socrates later explains about Asclepius, if someone is the son of a god, they<br />
should insist that he is not venal or greedy (ai)sxrokerdh/j), and if he is greedy, they<br />
should insist that he is not the son of a god (Pl. Rep. 3.408c1-3). The two are simply<br />
incompatible social types.<br />
For Plato, not only was the dōrodokos a distinct social type in its own right, but<br />
that type was, specifically, money-loving just like an Achilles or an Asclepius, a corrupt<br />
character born of economic excess. Elsewhere in the Republic Plato identifies the causes<br />
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of this character corruption (diafqei/rei) as wealth and poverty (Pl. Rep. 4.421d1-4). 1 He<br />
consequently devotes considerable attention in the dialogue to how to separate the<br />
guardians from wealth, poverty, and commerce lest they be corrupted by the taint of<br />
money. 2<br />
In many respects, the dōrodokos of the Republic is strikingly familiar to a modern<br />
audience used to pictures of venal politicians who seek rents out of a desire for money or<br />
power. Although Monoson (2000: 127) astutely points out that the Republic’s policy<br />
recommendations—essentially separating the public and private spheres completely so<br />
that they can never mix—mark a considerable departure from democratic policy reforms,<br />
like the institution of accountability or rotation of office, it should be noted that Plato’s<br />
vision of a complete separation of private and public actually represents the logical,<br />
though radical, extension of contemporary anti-corruption reforms. The philosopher<br />
comes off as one of the first advocates of completely removing the market from politics.<br />
But if in Plato’s dōrodokos we can detect the seed of modern depictions of venal<br />
politicians, it is striking just how far removed the greedy, money-loving dōrodokos of the<br />
Republic is from the disobedient figure we encountered in the previous chapter.<br />
Certainly, when Creon asserts that money perverts men’s minds so that they take to evil<br />
actions (Soph. An. 297-301), we can detect some affinity to Plato’s sentiment. Yet for<br />
Creon, as we saw, money serves as an explanation for only a single incident; he may<br />
lambaste the power of money to achieve discrete aims, but nowhere does he suggest that<br />
1 Along the same lines, elsewhere in Plato wealth is contrasted with virtue (aretē): cf. Pl. Rep. 421d, 591d,<br />
Leg.742e, 705b, 893c, 836a, 919b; Arist. Pol.1273a37-38.<br />
2 Pl. Leg. 9.875a-e similarly posits that self-interest can corrupt even the most just of characters; cf. Pl. Leg.<br />
3.691c-d, 4.713c-d, 9.875a. This point comes out most forcefully in Socrates’ discussion of the Hesiodic<br />
races and their corruption over time (Pl. Rep. 8.547a-b, cf. 4.415a-b). There, the mixing of like and unlike<br />
metals—the races of gold, silver, bronze, and iron—constitutes a form of political degeneracy that leads to<br />
subsequent degradations in political constitution as individuals and society are increasingly ruled by<br />
desires, not reason (Pl. Rep. 8.547a-53e). See Irwin (1995: 281-97) and Balot (2001: 246-7).<br />
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the guard was inherently the type of person, the kind of character who was prone to take<br />
gifts. Indeed, the question of character or character types is largely absent from Creon’s<br />
discussion of bribery, and this marks a crucial difference between Plato’s and Sophocles’<br />
presentation of the dōrodokos. 3<br />
Plato’s distinct correlation of money and character types signals a broader shift in<br />
how the dōrodokos was conceptualized at Athens in the first few decades of the fourth<br />
century. Long before Plato, it had been thought that wealth or poverty could corrupt<br />
one’s character: greed was certainly a well-defined concept before the fourth century. 4<br />
What changed around Plato’s time, however, was that wealth and poverty came to be<br />
heavily correlated with dōrodokia, as well. Dorodokia was conceived primarily as a kind<br />
of financial crime, the dōrodokos a character who had violated economically defined<br />
obligations. Again, to a modern audience this particular conceptualization of bribery may<br />
seem self-evident, but it emerged at Athens for very particular reasons.<br />
This chapter will uncover those reasons, examining what changed from the late<br />
fifth to the early fourth centuries, and then detail the period’s resultant picture of the<br />
dōrodokos. After sketching the political anti-type of the Thirty that pervaded Athenian<br />
political ideology in the decades after their bloody regime, we will examine how the<br />
dōrodokos was closely mapped onto this anti-type in two court cases dealing with<br />
dōrodokia (Lysias 28 and 29). The final section, focusing on Aristophanes’ Wealth and a<br />
3 The distance between Sophocles and Plato is emblematic of the fundamental shift in politics brought on<br />
by Pericles and his successors. Recall that, through provision of jury pay and misthophoria for magistrates<br />
Pericles was similarly thought to have ‘bribed’ the dēmos (e.g. sundeka/saj, Plut. Per. 23.5). Plato later<br />
says that Pericles actively made the Athenians “money-loving” (filargu/rouj, Plat. Gorg. 515e), but<br />
already in Aristophanes we find reflection of whether Pericles improved or corrupted the dēmos. It was<br />
only in discussions of the shift to the New Politics, however, that issues of character corruption arose.<br />
4 Balot (2001: 58-98) on greed (pleonexia) in the archaic period. On the relationship between wealth and<br />
civic character, Solon’s poetry provides particularly relevant comparanda for this chapter: see Sol. fr. 4.5-<br />
6, 6.3-4, 13.11-13W.<br />
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defense speech on the charge of dōrodokia (Lysias 21), will illuminate why this<br />
conceptual convergence took place. As will be clear, primarily because of the<br />
Athenians’ political and economic efforts to get along as a democracy after the horrors of<br />
oligarchy, the dōrodokos became a thief of sorts, someone who sought actively to harm<br />
the dēmos. 5<br />
The Thirty as Anti-type at Athens:<br />
That an Athenian like Plato might view the dōrodokos through an economic lens<br />
ostensibly reflected the dire financial situation Athens faced at the beginning of the fourth<br />
century. 6 Sparta’s occupation of the Attic countryside during the last decade of the<br />
Peloponnesian War had ravaged much of the land, including olive trees, grain, vines, and<br />
livestock and had consequently disrupted agricultural production and patterns of rural<br />
land tenure. 7 Sparta’s threatening position effectively shut down production at the<br />
Laureion silver mines, as well. 8 Moreover, a drop in commercial production and the loss<br />
of virtually all of Athens’ overseas possessions, not to mention the immense annual<br />
5 It should be noted at the outset that the great majority of examples and evidence discussed in this chapter<br />
come from the 390’s and 380’s. Historical sources for the 370’s in Athens are notoriously scarce, while<br />
sources on dōrodokia in the 360’s are few and far between: Timagoras (367 BCE) was discussed in the<br />
Introduction; and our only other attested trial of dōrodokia, that of either Callistratus or Philon (361/0<br />
BCE), receives only a passing reference in Hyperides and Lycurgus (Hyp. 4.1-2; Lyc. 1.93; cf. Dem 50.48).<br />
We simply do not have enough evidence for these two decades to make anything more than a tentative<br />
claim about how Athenians conceptualized bribery at this time. The limited extent to which we can discuss<br />
how the Second Athenian League (379/8-355 BCE) may have affected conceptions of bribery and politics<br />
is discussed below.<br />
6 For general historical overviews to this time period, see Seager (1967), Funke (1980), David (1986),<br />
Strauss (1986), French (1991). On Athens’ economic conditions after the Peloponnesian War, see<br />
Andreyev (1974), Strauss (1986: 42-69), Ober (1985: 14-31), Burke (1990), French (1991). Politics in the<br />
post-war period: Cloché (1919, 1923), Sealey (1956), Bruce (1966), Seager (1967), Funke (1980: 1-26,<br />
102-67), Krentz (1982), Strauss (1986: 11-41, 89-178).<br />
7 Thuc. 7.27.3-4, Lys. 7.6, Aeschin. 2.147, 175. Andreyev (1974: 6-7, 18-25), Ober (1985: 113-14),<br />
Burke (1990: 3-4), French (1991: 24-7). Cf. Hanson (1983: 131-73).<br />
8 Thuc. 6.91.7, 7.191.1, 7.27.5. Ober (1985: 14), Strauss (1986: 46), French (1991: 33).<br />
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tribute paid by the allies, had taken its toll on the Athenian treasury. 9 The result, as<br />
contemporary literary sources dramatically illustrate, was that Athenians were acutely<br />
aware that they did not have as much money as they used to. 10<br />
While having less money surely might incline an Athenian to focus more intently<br />
on financial recovery, it is less clear how economic losses would by themselves shift how<br />
he thought about dōrodokia, economic obligations, public office and the like. Such a<br />
broad cultural shift suggests that the important factor here was the social meaning of the<br />
monies lost: how they had been lost, who had lost them, what they had signified and<br />
what, by contrast, their absence now signaled. Only by grasping this social meaning can<br />
we make sense of the fact that, elsewhere in the Republic, Plato groups dōrodokia<br />
together with crimes like theft, burglary, temple robbery, and blackmail (Pl. Rep. 9.575b-<br />
c), in other words, with outright stealing. Such crimes were financial (and sometimes<br />
violent) in nature, but for Plato they shared one additional feature: they were all also the<br />
crimes of a tyrant, a man of most evil character (cf. to\n ka/kiston, Pl. Rep. 576b3). The<br />
dōrodokos thus acquired distinct political significance, as well—he was a thief just like a<br />
tyrant—and tracing how this particular meaning came to be assigned to him requires that<br />
we examine not just Athens’ economic circumstances, but also her changed political and<br />
social environment in the early fourth century.<br />
Plato’s association of dōrodokia with tyrants was not by chance, for the image of<br />
a tyrant evoked the memory of oligarchs, specifically the oligarchic Thirty who had<br />
9 Strauss (1986: 48-52), Burke (1990), French (1991: 31).<br />
10 To take but a single anecdote, in 399 BCE Athens had difficulty paying back a mere two talents to<br />
Boeotia (Lys. 30.22). Cf. Hell. Oxy. 17.4, Lys. 19.11, Ar. Pl. and Ec. passim. See Ober (1985: 17-19) and<br />
especially David (1984) on Aristophanes, Fuks (1972, 1977) on Isocrates and Plato, respectively.<br />
Although Athens was able to recover somewhat with the Second Athenian League in the 370’s and 360’s,<br />
this state of affairs continued at least through the end of the Social War in 355: in his Poroi, or Ways and<br />
Means (355 BCE), Xenophon remarks how contemporary politicians still blamed poverty for Athens’<br />
imperialistic needs (Xen. Por. 1.1).<br />
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briefly ruled Athens in 404/3 during the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. 11 This pro-<br />
Spartan junta initially oversaw the re-drafting of Athens’ laws, including a return to the<br />
ancestral laws (patrioi nomoi), which did not include Ephialtes’ contentious, if pro-<br />
democratic, reforms in the mid-fifth century. 12 Yet their rule quickly turned violent and<br />
exclusionary: sykophants and other scoundrels (ponēroi) were executed, as were certain<br />
metics, and the franchise was limited to 3,000 citizens. 13 The oligarchs later confiscated<br />
property and used the Council of 500 as a court to purge the city whether by exiling or<br />
killing their enemies. 14 Civil war soon erupted between the exiled Athenians and those<br />
still in the city, led by the Thirty. After the exiles’ victory at Phyle, the Thirty were<br />
deposed, but a Spartan force defeated the exiled Athenians at the Piraeus, and the Spartan<br />
leader Pausanias effected a reconciliation between the opposing Athenian camps. When<br />
the democracy was reinstated, all citizens swore an oath of amnesty: with the exception<br />
11 To be fair, the image of the tyrant was central to Athenian political ideology throughout the democracy,<br />
as detailed by Rosivach (1988), the essays in Morgan (2003), and Ober (2005: 212-48). I emphasize here<br />
two important points. First, Ober rightly argues that anxieties over the threat of tyrannical oligarchs were<br />
particularly pronounced towards the end of the fifth century; cf. Osborne (2003). Just after the restoration<br />
of the democracy in 410, for example, Demophantus passed an anti-tryanny decree which was sworn by all<br />
citizens and which explicitly rewarded to anyone killed in attempting to kill a tyrant the rewards given to<br />
the tyrant-slayers Harmodius and Aristogeiton (Andoc. 1.96-8). Likewise, Gallia (2004: 458 n.36) sees<br />
further parallels between the early tyrant-slayers and the murderers of Phrynichus, one of the oligarchic<br />
leaders in 411/0.<br />
Second, as will be argued in this chapter, the rule of the Thirty in particular marked a watershed<br />
moment in the history of Athenian political ideology. Beginning in 403, Athenian democratic ideology<br />
came to define the democracy in opposition not to tyranny more generally, but to the oligarchy of the<br />
Thirty, in particular. For reasons that will become apparent, it was in conjunction with this shift that the<br />
dōrodokos came to be associated with tyrant-like (greedy, harm-dealing) oligarchs.<br />
12 Xen. Hell. 2.3.11-12, Diod. 14.3.7-14.4.2, AP 35.1-2. Note how Critias is referred to as a nomothetēs at<br />
Xen. Mem. 1.2.31. Rhodes (1981: 440-5 ad AP 35.2), Krentz (1982: 49-50), Ostwald (1986: 477-8).<br />
13 Execution of sykophants: Xen. Hell. 2.3.13-14, Lys. 25.19, AP 35.3, Diod. 14.4.2; cf. Lys. 12.5.<br />
Metics: Xen. Hell. 2.3.21. Franchise: Xen. Hell. 2.3.18, AP 36.2. For discussion of the Thirty’s political<br />
measures, see especially Rhodes (1981: 415-55 ad AP 34-37), Krentz (1982), Ostwald (1986: 475-90).<br />
14 Prosecutions to confiscate property are mentioned in Lys. 19.4, 27.1, 30.22. Further executions: Xen.<br />
Hell. 2.3.21, 2.4.21; Isoc. 7.67, 20.11; Aeschin. 3.235; AP 35.4, 37.2; Diod. 14.2.1, 14.4.4, 14.5.5; in the<br />
Apology Socrates recounts how he disobeyed an order from the Thirty to arrest Leon of Salamis (Pl. Ap.<br />
32c4-e1). Ostensibly, the bulk of these measures could have been enacted at least under the auspices of<br />
purging the city of unjust men (cf. Lys. 12.5, Xen. Hell. 2.3.18, AP 36.2), but contemporary observers were<br />
not always favorable to the Thirty’s actions.<br />
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of a few select magistrates, nobody could be punished thereafter for any crime committed<br />
during the Thirty’s reign and the ensuing civil war. 15<br />
The ‘amnesia’ sworn by the Athenians was a means of communally forgetting the<br />
horrors committed during the Thirty’s reign; and in other respects, too, the Athenians<br />
tried to forget or undo the period of oligarchy under the Thirty. 16 But, as Plato’s Republic<br />
obliquely evinces, the oligarchs’ legacy lived on. Decades later speakers in court still<br />
brought up their opponents’ involvement in the events of 404/3 as important evidence<br />
that they thought should have continuing relevance. 17 Members of the cavalry, which<br />
had actively cooperated with the Thirty, were resented. 18 Likewise, the good or bad of<br />
someone’s actions was often measured against the Thirty’s example. So, in a prosecution<br />
speech at a dōrodokia trial, one speaker frames his opponent’s bribery in terms of the<br />
Thirty’s heinous actions. 19 We might say that in the decades after the Peloponnesian<br />
War, political behavior was reconfigured in the shadow of the Thirty, as the oligarchs<br />
became an anti-type against which public officials were measured. 20<br />
15 The amnesty applied to all Athenians except the Thirty, their successors the Ten, the Ten supervisors of<br />
the Piraeus, and the Eleven; any of these latter would have been covered by the amnesty had they submitted<br />
their official accounts, but few likely did so (AP 39.6). Carawan (2002) says that the amnesty only applied<br />
to those who were atimoi at the time, but see the cogent reply by Joyce (2008) who reinstates the orthodox<br />
view that the amnesty was about general political forgiveness. See further Loraux (1997), Wolpert (2001),<br />
Ober (2005: 171-82).<br />
16 Demosthenes records that all court decisions from the Thirty’s reign were deemed invalid (Dem. 24.56),<br />
and in 402/1 the properties confiscated by the Thirty were sold by the poletai if not to their original owners<br />
(many of whom had been excecuted), then often to their owners’ neighbors: SEG 16.120-1, 32.161;<br />
38.149, 41.100=Athenian Agora XIX part 2; see also Walbank (1982) for text and discussion. Xen. Hell.<br />
2.4.38 also notes the return of possessions to their owners after the peace.<br />
17 See, for example, the accusations found passim in Lysias 16, 25, fr. 9 (Eryximachus); Lys. 31.12-14<br />
condemns the Athenian Philon simply for not actively opposing the Thirty.<br />
18 Cf. Lys. 16.8, 26.10. On the cavalry’s involvement in the Thirty’s reign, see Bugh (1988: 120-53),<br />
Krentz (1982: 116-17), and Németh (2006: 86-90).<br />
19 Lys. 28.14, discussed in greater detail below; cf. Lys. 25.30.<br />
20 Similarly, in 411/0 less than a decade earlier, the oligarchy of the Four Hundred had set a precedent for a<br />
number of the Thirty’s measures, including vitiating the power of the jury courts (Thuc. 8.67, AP 29.4) as<br />
well as exiling, imprisoning and executing citizens (Thuc. 8.70.2; cf. Andoc. 2.13). Again, though, the<br />
Thirty in particular became a powerful anti-type in democratic politics in the early fourth century, and it<br />
was the latter oligarchy, not the former, that was continually evoked in public discourse. For this reason I<br />
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What was this anti-type exemplified by the Thirty? As Ryan Balot perceptively<br />
details, critics of the Thirty consistently condemned the oligarchs’ lawlessness and greed,<br />
in effect likening them to omnivorous tyrants. 21 In the first place, the Thirty became sole<br />
masters of the polity, just like tyrants, and were later castigated for using political<br />
institutions in harmful, unjust, and undemocratic ways. They replaced the Council with<br />
500 partisan members, and, in later limiting the franchise to 3,000, not only arrogated the<br />
dēmos’ authority to determine who should become a citizen, but effectively transformed<br />
the Assembly into a partisan body, as well. The effectiveness of the courts was vitiated:<br />
public accountability, granted under Ephialtes’ reforms, was removed, and the Thirty<br />
began executing citizens by circumventing the courts and holding trials in the Council of<br />
500. After the franchise was limited, this circumvention became moot, for a law was<br />
passed allowing the oligarchs to execute without trial anybody who was not one of the<br />
3,000. Thus, although the Thirty began favorably by prosecuting sykophants,<br />
embezzlers, and bribe-takers—reportedly much to the people’s delight—their impulse to<br />
use political organs to strengthen their position quickly devolved into a bloody perversion<br />
of democratic institutions. 22<br />
Plato is sure to point out that the lawlessness of the tyrant stemmed from his<br />
incessant, unyielding desire (erōs): in other words, precisely the same cause as his greed<br />
and dōrodokia (Pl. Rep. 9.574e2-575a5). Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, source after<br />
focus more on Athenian narratives of the dōrodokos ‘in the shadow of the Thirty’, not ‘in the shadow of<br />
oligarchy’.<br />
21 Balot (2001: esp. 220-2) on the Thirty; the comparison to tyrants appears already in Xen. Hell. 2.3.16.<br />
Balot (2001: 234-48) provides a particularly compelling reading of Plato’s Republic within the context of<br />
contemporary Athenian conceptions of greed. I follow his analysis in juxtaposing the Thirty with Plato’s<br />
Republic, though ultimately I am more interested in Plato’s depiction of the dōrodokos (qua a greedy<br />
official).<br />
22 Council: AP 35.1. Ephialtes’ reforms and the courts: AP 35.2. Jury courts: AP 35.2 with Bonner (1926:<br />
213-15). Execution without trial: Xen. Hell. 2.3.14, 17, 21; AP 37.1. Favorable response from dēmos: AP<br />
35.3; cf. Xen. Hell. 2.3.12, Lys. 12.5, 25.19.<br />
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source posits that the Thirty committed these injustices in order to gain money and satisfy<br />
their greed. Lysias, for example, reasons that the Thirty may have done a number of<br />
things in the name of bettering the constitution, but in fact they simply wanted money,<br />
and he was not alone in his estimation. 23<br />
Yet an equally damning reason for these sources’ focus on money might stem<br />
from the use to which some of that money was put: namely, to pay the Spartan guard that<br />
the Thirty had hired to support and protect the oligarchy. Xenophon explicitly makes this<br />
connection, and it is tempting to follow him on this point. 24 After all, the Spartan guard<br />
had reportedly been instrumental in arresting Athenians before their execution, disarming<br />
those who were not part of the 3,000, and compelling the 3,000 to condemn the<br />
Eleusinians so that the Thirty could seize their property. 25 On this view, just as much as<br />
injustice was a means to acquiring more money, money was a means to injustice—indeed<br />
a very symbol of that injustice.<br />
Whether in taking from the polis or in harming the polis for their own profit, the<br />
Thirty’s desire for money entailed engaging in negative reciprocity, providing bads for<br />
goods to the Athenian people. In pointing to the Thirty’s purported greed, therefore,<br />
contemporary sources called attention to just how problematic the oligarchs’ relationship<br />
to the rest of the city really was: they essentially only ‘took’ from the city, providing<br />
23 Lys. 12.6-7; cf. Xen. Hell. 2.3.16, 21, 43. See further Balot (2001: 220-2) and Lys. 12.5, 12.6, 12.11,<br />
12.83, 12.93, 25.18; Xen. Hell. 2.3.21-2, cf. 2.4.40-2; AP 35.4; Diod. 14.4.4-5, 5.5-7. On the greed and<br />
financial crimes of the Thirty, see also Dillery (1995: 139-63), Németh (2006: 159-66).<br />
24 On the hiring of the Spartan guard under Callibius, see Xen. Hell. 2.3.13, Diod. 14.4.3-4; cf. AP 37.2.<br />
Xenophon reports that the guard had been hired out of the Thirty’s own pocket; yet, given the elite but by<br />
no means super-wealthy status of the Thirty—on which see now Németh (2006: 159-66)—it is unclear<br />
how exactly this cost would be paid for. Xen. Hell. 2.3.21 states that the oligarchs confiscated additional<br />
property and executed metics and former citizens alike explicitly in order to pay for the guard; Lys. 12.6<br />
probably alludes to this same reason.<br />
25 Ostwald (1986: 488-90) points out the potential difficulties in following Xenophon’s chronology here<br />
and in positing that the Spartan garrison was requested early in the Thirty’s rule; I nevertheless follow<br />
Xenophon because Lysias 12.6 seems to refer to the same sequence of events. Arrests: Xen. Hell. 2.3.14.<br />
Disarming: Xen. Hell. 2.3.20. Eleusinians: Xen. Hell. 2.4.9-10, Diod. 14.32.4.<br />
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nothing or, at worst, only bads in return for the goods (monetary and otherwise) they had<br />
received. We will return to this point later, but for now it is worth mentioning that this<br />
focus on ‘taking’ effectively redefined the civic friendship between oligarch and<br />
community. Rather than having a relationship predicated on reciprocal exchange, as<br />
under the democracy, the rulers of the oligarchy only took, never gave, and often actively<br />
harmed. As ‘enemies’ of the city (e.g. e1xqra pro\j th\n po/lin, Lys. 12.2), they were<br />
perceived to be already outside the moral community of the polis, that is, outside of any<br />
reciprocal exchange relationship with that community. The oligarchs’ problematic<br />
relationship to money, therefore, was symptomatic of their problematic relationship to<br />
polity, as well.<br />
So the metic Lysias brings out the injustice of this ‘exchange’ relationship when<br />
he describes his own treatment at the hands of the Thirty. “We were not worthy of this<br />
treatment by the polis,” he laments, “but had produced all our dramatic choruses and paid<br />
numerous taxes” (Lys. 12.20). By weighing his own payment of liturgies and taxes<br />
against the actions of the oligarchs—extortion, property confiscation, theft, and the<br />
murder of Lysias’ brother (Lys. 12.8-19)—the orator underscores how he had given,<br />
while they only took or, worse, gave him but the death of his brother in return. Civic<br />
reciprocity was nowhere to be found.<br />
The context of Lysias’ description helps illuminate another, slightly different<br />
shade of meaning. The orator infers that the Thirty were rounding up metics at the time<br />
in order to pay for their own government (Lys. 12.6; cf. Xen. Hell. 2.3.21). As noted<br />
above, the property stolen by the oligarchs was thus symbolic of the power they were<br />
unjustly exercising for themselves. Lysias makes this point, too, in describing a bribe he<br />
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gave the oligarch Peison (Lys. 12.8-11). Peison swears an oath that he would rescue<br />
Lysias from death were he to receive one talent of silver, which Lysias duly provides<br />
even though he suspects that Peison was untrustworthy. Not only does Peison break his<br />
oath, but he takes far more than just the promised talent. His dōrodokia thereby<br />
constitutes an act of greed, an unjust transgression in its own right and a symbol for the<br />
unjust power that Lysias’ money would be used to support. So the oligarchs profited from<br />
the city’s misfortunes, and their profiting caused the city added misfortune.<br />
As Balot outlines, the dominant image of greed at this time was of an aristocrat<br />
plundering the dēmos’ possessions—providing bads to the community—and it is in this<br />
light that we find the Thirty’s actions linked closely to a social type or kind of<br />
character. 26 Oligarchs in particular were thought prone to covet and steal the property of<br />
others, although it is unclear whether they were so stereotyped because of the Thirty or<br />
the Thirty were so stereotyped because they were oligarchs. 27 In any case, their shameful<br />
profiting (ai)sxroke/rdeia) was thought to be an inherent part of their character (tro/pou,<br />
Lys. 12.19), and here again we are reminded of Plato’s character sketches of tyrant and<br />
dōrodokos alike.<br />
This emphasis on financial crimes, on ‘taking’ from the city rather than providing<br />
it with a good return, is characteristic of stories about all sorts of ‘bad’ politicians in the<br />
26 Balot (2001: 179-233) illuminates the concept of greed in the late fifth and early fourth centuries, and his<br />
analysis provides a helpful foundation for our investigation of how this newly defined social category was<br />
implicated in broader discursive practices. Hence, as will be clear below, one of the central questions this<br />
chapter attempts to answer is why the Athenians described greed at this time using such highly monetized<br />
language as they did, and why, more importantly, it was greed and not some other motive that was posited<br />
for politicians’ misdeeds during this period.<br />
27 E.g. Lys. 25.17, 34.5; cf. Lys. 25.25-26. Certainly these stereotypes existed before the Thirty and were<br />
used to describe the oligarchs of 411/0, on which see Balot (2001: 212-19); but I am inclined to think that<br />
the generic figure of the oligarch further crystallized after the Thirty in direct response to their actions: see<br />
further below.<br />
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first few decades after the Peloponnesian War. 28 What I would like to suggest is that<br />
such a specific focus on negative reciprocity, on providing bads for goods, was born of<br />
the Thirty’s horrific regime. 29 Indeed, the Thirty’s negative exemplum helps explain why<br />
the injustices of politicians might readily be linked with theft or financial appropriations:<br />
both stealing from and actively harming the city were ways of giving bads when goods<br />
would normally be expected. The stereotypical crimes of a tyrant, according to Plato, are<br />
all crimes of ‘taking’ precisely because tyrants are unable to honor the reciprocity<br />
inherent in friendships; no faith can be placed in the tyrannical man. 30 Here, too,<br />
financial ‘taking’ stands as metaphor and manifestation of the tyrant’s unjust relationship<br />
to the polity.<br />
The dōrodokos and the Thirty in Lysias 28 and 29:<br />
Thus far we have seen how in contemporary sources the Thirty’s financial<br />
motives and political injustices were inextricably linked, both on a conceptual level as<br />
forms of negative reciprocity and on a practical level as the pursuit of money was both<br />
cause and consequence of unjust rule. I have suggested, moreover, that this close<br />
interrelationship between money and injustice was symptomatic of a generic type<br />
exemplified by the Thirty and characteristic of a range of ‘bad’ politicians during the first<br />
28 Extrapolating from our admittedly spotty evidence, perhaps more than in any other period politicians at<br />
this time were accused of crimes involving the mismanagement and expropriation of money: Cf. Strauss<br />
(1985: esp. 70-1), Dillon (1987: 165-6). Embezzlement: Lys. 27.19; Pamphilus (Xen. Hell. 5.1.2, 5; Ar.<br />
Pl. 174 with schol.; Plato com. fr. 14K); Epicrates (Lys. 27); Epicrates and Onomasas (Lys. 27.3);<br />
Nicomachus (Lys. 30.26); Alcibiades (Lys. 14.37-8); Archedemus (Lys. 14.25). Malicious prosecution<br />
(sykophancy): Lys. 20.7, 20.15, 20.19, 25.26, 25.30.<br />
29 Cf. Xen. Hell. 2.4.21 and Rosenbloom (2002: 336-7), who posits that the atrocities of the Thirty created<br />
a new conception of violence that ‘private profit’ could cause to the polis. This chapter aims to outline the<br />
effects of this paradigm shift on the different, yet ultimately related, concept of dōrodokia and to examine<br />
in detail the conceptual development that occurred in the generation after the Thirty.<br />
30 Pl. Rep. 9.576a4-8. Note, too, the destruction a tyrant wrecks upon his parents (Pl. Rep. 9.574a5-c4).<br />
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few decades of the fourth century. The dōrodokos, as we have seen, was an example of<br />
this broader generic type modeled off of the Thirty’s negative exemplum.<br />
At this point, I would like to examine this generic figure in action by turning to<br />
two prosecution speeches that deal heavily with dōrodokia. There the character of the<br />
dōrodokos is explicitly framed in reference to the Thirty’s actions; as a result, it<br />
incorporates this association of money with political injustice. Specifically, the conceit<br />
of profiting ‘at the polis’ expense’—in its twin meanings of stealing from the polis and<br />
actively causing it harm—recurs throughout the orations. After seeing that the dōrodokos<br />
was modeled off of the Thirty, we will investigate further reasons why this was the case.<br />
In 390/89 Thrasybulus of Steiria, hero of the democratic uprising against the<br />
Thirty in 403, was sent with his associates on a naval expedition to the coast of Asia<br />
Minor in order to raise funds. This was a major expedition, as Athens was able to extend<br />
her influence in the Aegean back to where it had been before the end of the<br />
Peloponnesian War. 31 After this initial success in Thrace, the expedition was asked to<br />
return and give an audit of their expenses (cf. Lys. 28.5-6). Reportedly on the advice of<br />
his associate Ergocles, Thrasybulus refused and continued extracting money from towns<br />
in the Hellespont, including Halicarnassus, which complained of misconduct (Lys. 28.5-<br />
6, 12, 17). Thrasybulus soon died in a riot, and the rest of the fleet, including Ergocles<br />
and his treasurer Philocrates, returned to Athens, where they faced impeachment<br />
(eisangelia). Ergocles was convicted, sentenced to death, and his money was ordered to<br />
be turned over to the city’s coffers; a version of the prosecutor’s speech for that trial is<br />
31 On Thrasybulus’ expedition and Athens’ involvement in the ongoing Corinthian War, see especially<br />
Seager (1967), Funke (1980).<br />
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found in Lysias 28. When the money was not found, Philocrates was prosecuted for the<br />
possession of public property, as documented in Lysias 29.<br />
Ostensibly, dōrodokia should have very little to do with these cases, for their clear<br />
focus is on klopē, embezzlement (Lysias 28), or on withholding public property (Lysias<br />
29). 32 Consistently, the speakers of each oration emphasize how the defendant has<br />
‘taken’ in one form or another; and these accusations, whether of the defendant’s conduct<br />
or of similar conduct by other officials, regularly involve verbs like kle/ptein (steal),<br />
lamba/nein (take), and u(fai/rein (deprive of)—that is, verbs of clear ‘taking’. 33 This<br />
conceptual focus on ‘taking’ is understandable given the charges of embezzlement for<br />
Ergocles and the withholding of public property for Philocrates. Yet we immediately run<br />
into a problem here. ‘Taking’ is intended to apply to both embezzlement and dōrodokia,<br />
for Ergocles seems to have been charged with both crimes: both are listed whenever his<br />
crimes are catalogued (Lys. 28.3, 28.11; cf. Lys. 29.5, 29.11), and both are thus presented<br />
through the same conceptual frame. 34<br />
How are we to understand this uneasy, confused relationship between ‘taking’ and<br />
dōrodokia? Why, after all, does the speaker of Lysias 28 fear not that Athens is full of<br />
peculators, but that dōrodokia is rampant (Lys. 28.9)? Or why does Lysias 29 read more<br />
32<br />
Cohen (1983: 31-2) usefully outlines the legal background for both speeches. See also Sinclair (1988b:<br />
60-4).<br />
33<br />
kle/ptein: Lys. 28.3, 11, 16; 29.11, 13. lamba/nein: Lys. 28.5, 29.11. u(fai/rein: Lys. 28.7, 16; 29.5.<br />
Cf. Lys. 28.13, 29.13. I use the verb ‘take’ here solely as a conceptual frame and do not intend any overt<br />
reference to the legal class of ‘taking’ in Anglo-American law.<br />
34<br />
The two crimes are nearly conflated when the speaker refers to the embezzled funds as “the property<br />
taken from the cities” (ta\ e)k tw=n po/lewn ei)lhmme/na, 28.5). What is significant about this appellation is<br />
that the verb lamba/nein much more regularly refers to reciprocal exchanges than to outright peculation:<br />
LSJ s.v. lamba/nw II1h. In other words, the very funds that were considered ‘embezzled’ might very well<br />
have been contextualized within a series of regular payments for services, exchanges which, as we have<br />
seen, would have been indistinct from actual bribes. Harvey (1985: 79-80) points out how these crimes are<br />
often closely associated, but it is worth noting that this association was particularly frequent in the first few<br />
decades of the fourth century: Strauss (1985).<br />
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like a catalogue of dōrodokia—including bribery of prosecutors (Lys. 29.1), witnesses<br />
(Lys. 29.7), orators (Lys. 29.6), and juries (Lys. 29.12)—than an indictment for<br />
possessing public property? To say the least, dōrodokia enjoys a surprisingly prominent<br />
role in these speeches, and one reason why, I argue, is that dōrodokia qua a kind of<br />
financial taking (like embezzlement) functions as a metaphor for Ergocles’ and<br />
Philocrates’ problematic relationship to the polis.<br />
In broadly listing Ergocles’ crimes—betraying other poleis, doing injustice to<br />
Athenian citizens and proxenoi, and going from rags to riches at the expense of the<br />
public’s property (e)k pe/nhtoj e)k tw=n u(mete/rwn plou/sioj gegenhme/noj, Lys. 28.1)—<br />
the speaker quickly shifts attention to the last of these offenses: how Ergocles became<br />
one of the richest men in Athens while the ships he had commanded ended up only<br />
poorer (Lys. 28.2, 4). The magistrate’s most heinous crime appears to be that he enriched<br />
his own home “at your expense” (e)k tw=n u(mete/rwn, Lys. 28.13), an accusation repeated<br />
throughout the speech as Ergocles’ own fortunes are counterbalanced against the polis’.<br />
This conceit is configured in two different ways. First, Ergocles is accused of having<br />
taken bribes while the polis was poor (cf. e)n tosau/th| a)pori/a| tw=n u(mete/rwn<br />
pragma/twn, Lys. 28.11): Ergocles’ dōrodokia was especially bad because at that time<br />
the citizens were financially oppressed from having to pay the eisphora (Lys. 28.3, 4).<br />
And second, he is thought to have grown rich while actively making the polis poor: he<br />
and his friends profited even while his ships actually diminished in number (Lys. 28.2).<br />
Repeatedly, Ergocles’ gains are weighed against the polis’ dangers (Lys. 28.4, 7, 13-14)<br />
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as his profiteering is thought to have harmed the masses (plh=qoj a)dikou=si, Lys.<br />
28.13). 35<br />
The speaker uses the trope of profiting e)k tw=n u(mete/rwn in order to cast<br />
Ergocles as one of a familiar breed of corrupt public officials, bad citizens who do the<br />
community injustice in the pursuit of profit (cf. ponhrou/j, Lys. 28.13). In this way,<br />
Ergocles’ offenses are viewed as characteristic of the officials of his day. His opponent<br />
comments:<br />
Not only Ergocles is on trial, but also the entire polis. For today you will<br />
demonstrate to your public officials whether they must be just or whether they<br />
should take as much of your property as possible (w(j plei=sta tw=n u(mete/rwn<br />
u(felome/nouj) and procure their own safety in the same way that these men are<br />
trying to do today. (Lys. 28.10)<br />
By employing a relative clause of characteristic to reiterate Ergocles’ crimes—<br />
overturning cities, stealing money, and committing dōrodokia (Lys. 28.11, cf. 28.1, 3)—<br />
the speaker paints Ergocles not as a unique, and uniquely corrupt, politician, but as a<br />
character type; he is just like the sort of person who would commit these offenses. In<br />
fact, he is a ‘paradigm’ for all men (para/deigma, Lys. 28.11), and he should therefore<br />
be convicted to serve as a lesson to others (Lys. 28.15-16; cf. e)pidei=cai, Lys. 28.9, 15;<br />
e)pidei/cete, Lys. 28.10). With a conviction, Athens would prove that she improves the<br />
character of her leaders (Lys. 28.15); with an acquittal, she would make her citizens only<br />
worse (xei/rosi, Lys. 28.16).<br />
Crucially, this character type is explicitly measured against the benchmark set by<br />
the Thirty’s anti-type. In the middle of his exhortation to make an example of Ergocles,<br />
the speaker instructively contrasts the actions of public officials like Ergocles with the<br />
35 Here, too, the polis’ dangers are contrasted with the safety Ergocles and his philoi seek: Lys. 28.10, 11.<br />
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crimes of the Thirty: “Whosoever…in a democracy harms the multitude (plh=qoj<br />
a)dikou=si) while making their own private homes larger at your expense (e)k tw=n<br />
u(mete/rwn) deserves your anger far more than do the Thirty,” he remarks (Lys. 28.13).<br />
As the speaker explains, the Thirty had been elected to do the people harm<br />
(kakw=j…u(ma=j poih/seian, Lys. 28.14), so there was no surprise when they achieved<br />
just that. By contrast, officials like Ergocles were elected to do the exact opposite. That<br />
Ergocles had endangered the polis rather than save it thus made him more heinous than<br />
even the Thirty (Lys. 28.12-14).<br />
For the speaker, the Thirty prove to be not simply a convenient threshold for<br />
measuring character but particularly a model for understanding the motivations of<br />
Ergocles and his philoi. If profiting e)k tw=n u(mete/rwn and harming the multitude were<br />
characteristic of the Thirty, then Ergocles’ actions brought him dangerously close to the<br />
oligarchs. Ergocles’ response in court, naturally, would have been to prove his own<br />
democratic affiliation—but the speaker warns the jury about just such a rhetorical move<br />
on Ergocles’ part (Lys. 28.12). According to the speaker, Ergocles in fact desires to set<br />
up an oligarchy (Lys. 28.7, 11), and his anti-democratic sentiments are tellingly<br />
reminiscent of the Thirty themselves. First, Ergocles is depicted as wanting to rule, not to<br />
be ruled by others, just like the Thirty became tyrant-like masters of the Athenians (Lys.<br />
28.7). Moreover, like the Thirty who wished both to control the political institutions by<br />
which officials were held accountable and to rid the city of (democratic) sykophants who<br />
might try to hold them accountable, Ergocles reportedly calls his democratic accusers<br />
sykophants (Lys. 28.5-6). By escaping accountability and pursuing more profit, Ergocles<br />
too hoped to “cut out” the sykophants (e)kko/yh|j, Lys. 28.6).<br />
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Indeed, Ergocles’ actions align himself and his philoi against the polis as they<br />
assume a relationship of negative reciprocity with the community precisely as the Thirty<br />
had done. As financial crimes conceptualized as ‘taking’, both embezzlement and<br />
dōrodokia reveal this relationship. No longer are Ergocles and his men considered philoi<br />
of the city (Lys. 28.17), for, by acquiring their wealth, they effectively demonstrate ill-<br />
will towards the people (cf. a3ma ga\r ploutou=si kai\ u(ma\j misou=si, Lys. 28.7; cf.<br />
e1xqran, Lys. 28.16). As a result, the only charis they and others like them have is for the<br />
money they have given and taken. They show no charis to the people (Lys. 28.16).<br />
Thus, if the flow of money marks relations of goodwill, then embezzlement and<br />
dōrodokia equally signal how Ergocles only ‘takes’ from or ‘harms’ the people; there is<br />
no reciprocity, as he and his men treat the city even worse than do her enemies (Lys.<br />
28.15).<br />
As in our analysis of the financial crimes of the Thirty, dōrodokia qua a kind of<br />
financial ‘taking’ here symbolizes the political injustice of Ergocles’ relation to the rest<br />
of the community. The imbalance of profiting ‘at the polis’ expense’ acts as a conceptual<br />
frame for understanding his purported oligarchic aspirations and particularly how he<br />
provides negative reciprocity—active harm—to the people. Because the defendants have<br />
but ‘taken’ from the city, they merit not the ‘giving’ of charis but the ‘taking’ of<br />
vengeance; one bad turn deserves another. 36<br />
It was already noted that dōrodokia plays a prominent role throughout Lysias 29,<br />
too, but by now it should be clearer why this might be the case. With Philocrates’ guilt<br />
36 A point forcefully made in the speaker’s last words: “by the same act you should give thanks to your<br />
friends and take vengeance on the guilty” (a3ma toi=j te fi/loij toi=j u(mete/roij a)podou=nai xa/rin kai\<br />
para\ tw=n a)dikou/ntwn th\n di/khn labei=n, Lys. 28.17). The parallel structure of the clause strongly<br />
contrasts the city’s philoi with the defendants themselves. Moreover, by counterpoising a)podou=nai xa/rin<br />
and di/khn labei=n, the speaker effectively underscores how like merits like.<br />
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quickly established, the speaker spends the remainder of the speech cataloguing all the<br />
various ways in which Philocrates bribed others. Like Ergocles, Philocrates apparently<br />
sought to avoid accountability specifically by bribing citizens, jurors, accusers, and<br />
witnesses. 37 Indeed, throughout the speech Philocrates is presented in tandem with<br />
Ergocles—essentially, he is considered guilty by association with his friend (esp. Lys.<br />
29.3)—and the speaker of Lysias 29 underscores how the pair maintained the exact same<br />
sort of negative reciprocity with the people. Like Ergocles, who actively harmed the<br />
people (cf. kakw=j diaqei/j, Lys. 29.2; cf. 29.14), Philocrates becomes an enemy of the<br />
people by withholding public property (e)xqrou/j, Lys. 29.9). 38 In short, Ergocles and<br />
Philocrates provide the same paradigm of bad citizens who choose to pursue profit even<br />
at the risk of becoming outsiders to the moral community of the city. 39<br />
Unlike in Lysias 28, however, Philocrates’ negative reciprocity is weighed against<br />
the regular, reciprocal exchanges of performing a liturgy for the community, like paying<br />
the eisphora (Lys. 29.9). And again, the speaker contrasts the liturgists’ regular<br />
reservations about the trierarchy with Philocrates’ willingness to undertake the service,<br />
the implication being that Philocrates volunteered so that he could profit (Lys. 29.4). The<br />
speaker reinterprets the motivation of Ergocles, too, in the same light, as Ergocles is<br />
thought to have pursued personal gain, not public honor, in becoming stratēgos<br />
(0Ergoklh=j xrhmatiou/menoj a)ll’ ou) pro\j u(ma=j filotimhso/menoj e)ce/pleuse, Lys.<br />
37 Both men are thought to have paid off their accusers (Lys. 29.1, 6) and potentially their juries (Lys.<br />
29.12, 13); additionally, the speaker insinuates that Philocrates bribed his witnesses (cf. pepo/ristai, Lys.<br />
29.7).<br />
38 Note how the speaker balances the people’s refusal to ‘give’ immunity to Ergocles with Ergocles’ own<br />
negative reciprocity—plundering and embezzling public funds (cf. dw/sete…diarpa/zousi kai\ kle/tousin,<br />
Lys. 29.13). The lack of return given to Ergocles reflects the negative return he provided the city.<br />
39 In fact, the speaker effectively elides any difference between the two when he remarks that with a guilty<br />
vote at Philocrates’ trial the jurors would send the same message as they had in convicting Ergocles<br />
(29.13).<br />
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29.14). The difference is a subtle yet crucial one, for both men are now presented less as<br />
potential oligarchs who might defect from the polity, than as elites defecting on their<br />
explicitly financial obligations to the city. In other words, the conceit of profiting ‘at the<br />
city’s expense’ signals a different kind of failed political reciprocity, one focused on<br />
profiteering elites more generally, not necessarily oligarchic public officials specifically.<br />
From Financial Obligations to Financialized Obligations:<br />
The shift from Ergocles’ oligarchic negative reciprocity to Philocrates’ failure to<br />
make good on his financial obligations to the community—both framed in terms of<br />
dōrodokia ‘at the city’s expense’—suggests a precarious relationship between the<br />
Athenian community and its elite members in the decades after the Thirty. Even if the<br />
possibility of oligarchy—that is, complete elite defection—was a dead issue after the<br />
stain left by the Thirty, the Athenians nevertheless had anxieties that elites might defect<br />
on their financial obligations to the community, precisely the area where their<br />
participation was needed most. Although Athens’ elite citizens might not have wished to<br />
become outsiders to the moral community of the dēmos, as the Thirty had done, they<br />
nevertheless might have wished to keep their money in a sense ‘outside’ the reach of the<br />
community.<br />
This anxiety was particularly acute in the early fourth century, for contemporary<br />
sources frequently insinuate that the wealthy were not giving back to the community as<br />
much as they should. 40 Irrespective of how elites like Ergocles or Philocrates had<br />
acquired their fortunes, they were condemned for not spending it in the proper way, that<br />
40 Cf. Ar. Pl. 352-90, Isoc. 8.125, 127; Lys. 18.18, 22.14, 25.26, 25.30, 26.22, 27.9, 27.21, 28.1, 30.28;<br />
Ober (1989: 233-6) provides a helpful discussion. On the problem of liturgy evasion, see especially<br />
Gabrielsen (1986), Christ (1990; 2006: 143-204).<br />
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is, for not providing a sufficient financial return to the city. In part, this anxiety stemmed<br />
from Athens’ economic reality in the early fourth century. With the loss of empire, she<br />
had lost a tremendous source of revenue in the allied tribute, and she consequently had to<br />
rely heavily on the war-time tax, or eisphora, levied exclusively on her richest citizens.<br />
During and after the Corinthian War in the 390’s and 380’s, the eisphora was levied with<br />
considerably greater frequency than it had been during the Peloponnesian War, and this<br />
increased burden supposedly led many elites to skip out on their duties to the polis. 41<br />
Yet after the Thirty the Athenians were acutely aware, as well, that elites might<br />
make them poorer, just as the Thirty had done. Athenians readily assumed, therefore, that<br />
the wealthy as a whole really did have more money than they claimed. Tax and<br />
liturgical evasion were thought to be rampant at this time, as elites were suspected of<br />
‘hiding’ their wealth, usually by converting it into credit at banks or by refusing to rent<br />
out property which they had not publicly declared. 42 The more elites refused to make<br />
their property ‘visible’—that is, ‘publicly recognized’—the greater the city’s difficulty in<br />
collecting the eisphora and finding trierarchs. As Xenophon attests, such a refusal to<br />
give back to the community, especially in its state of need, was punished as if one had<br />
actively stolen from the public purse (Xen. Oec. 2.6-7).<br />
41 On the eisphora, see generally de Ste. Croix (1953), Ruschenbusch (1978a), Mossé (1979b), Rhodes<br />
(1982), Brun (1983: 3-73). During the Peloponnesian War, the eisphora was levied in 428 (Thuc. 3.19.1)<br />
and perhaps only two more times between 410 and 404 (Lys. 21.3; Diod. 13.47.7, 52.5, 64.4). During the<br />
ten years of the Corinthian War, by contrast, it was levied at least four times, as Brun (1983: 27) notes,<br />
including twice during the period 395-2 (Isoc. 17.41), once in 388 (Xen. Hell. 5.1.5), and once more in<br />
387/6 (cf. Is. 10.20). Burden of the eisphora: Lys. 28.3-4, 29.5, cf. Ar. Ec. 197-8; Christ (2006: 161-2,<br />
165).<br />
42 Given the central financial importance of the liturgical system in the democracy—on which, see Davies<br />
(1971), Lauffer (1974)—the alleged explosion of liturgy evasion was an especially problematic<br />
development. Cohen (1992: 201-7) is foundational for how the rise of banking in the early fourth century<br />
correlated with elites’ purportedly ever greater efforts to avoid liturgical duties. The elites employed<br />
various methods to ‘hide’ their wealth or make it ‘unseen’ (aphanēs): Andreyev (1974: 20), Gabrielsen<br />
(1986: 105), Christ (1990: 158-60), and, for the distinction between ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ wealth,<br />
Gabrielsen (1986).<br />
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So the precarious relationship elites maintained with the people in the wake of the<br />
Thirty continued to be framed in terms of their financial relationship to the community;<br />
financial transactions were viewed as a metaphor for how citizens, particularly<br />
politicians, negotiated their civic relationship to the community. Indeed, Aristophanes’<br />
Wealth, put on in the same year as the trials of Ergocles and Philocrates (389/8 BCE),<br />
echoes many of the same sentiments from Lysias 28 and 29. 43 Yet of particular<br />
importance for our investigation is how the poet in fact expands our frame for<br />
understanding citizens’ financial obligations to the community. Through Wealth we<br />
come to see that Athenians were concerned not just with financial obligations, but<br />
especially with the ‘financialization’ of civic obligations. Outlining this discursive<br />
process will enable us to examine more closely how, after the Thirty, new patterns of<br />
social relationships in politics affected Athenian discourse on dōrodokia.<br />
Wealth depicts a world in which all the ‘good’ people (chrēstoi) are poor, while<br />
only the ‘wicked’ (ponēroi) prosper (e.g. Ar. Pl. 28-31, 502-4); in such a dystopia, many<br />
men in the city starve or are cold simply because they refuse to be criminal (Ar. Pl. 28-9,<br />
363). 44 Because the god Wealth is blind and unable to tell chrēstos from ponēros, the<br />
wealthy are disproportionately comprised of ponēroi who are willing to ‘take’ from<br />
43 Several scholiasts refer to a ‘first’ and ‘second’ Wealth produced by Aristophanes, and the scholiast at Pl.<br />
173 says that the first Wealth was produced in 409/8. What that play was about and what its relation was to<br />
the second Wealth (389/8) have been hotly debated: cf. Hertel (1969: 28-32), who claims there was only<br />
one production (in 389/8), MacDowell (1995), Sommerstein (2001: 28-33). Even if the original had<br />
included a substantial portion of our current play—so MacDowell (1995), but see Sommerstein (2001: 30-<br />
3)—this would not significantly affect my argument about the late-fifth and early-fourth century shift<br />
towards a monetized vision of the world.<br />
44 Chremylus’ colorful description of a life of poverty—replete with hunger, pests, and rags (Ar. Pl. 533-<br />
47)—is echoed throughout the play, on which see especially Dillon (1987: 162-3). Cf. Ar. Pl. 219, 263,<br />
504, 535-47, 627-30, 843-7.<br />
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others and grow rich. 45 The entire premise of the comedy, repeated by almost every<br />
character, is that the good are poor, while the bad are rich. 46 Just as Plato would later<br />
suggest in the Republic, the mere possession of wealth was itself thought to turn<br />
somebody into a greedy ponēros, and politicians here were ponēroi par excellence (Ar.<br />
Pl. 30-1, 379, 567-70). 47<br />
Hence, the orators’ conceit of profiting ‘at the city’s expense’ transforms into a<br />
‘rags to riches’ trope: anybody who recently acquired wealth must be bad. Yet this<br />
truism has two distinct meanings in the play: people can profit only through being bad,<br />
and simply possessing wealth makes one greedy and bad. 48 Ultimately, both valences are<br />
at stake in the comedy’s version of the ‘rags to riches’ trope. Politicians might ‘take’ in<br />
order to acquire wealth; and, once they have it, out of sheer greed they might not ‘give’ it<br />
up. The profiteering of politicians in Wealth is certainly reminiscent of Ergocles’<br />
negative reciprocity with the community, but the play also picks up on how Philocrates<br />
defected on his financial obligations to the community.<br />
45 They are, as a result, frequently called thieves and contrasted with chrēstoi who ‘give’ to others and to<br />
the community: e.g. Ar. Pl. 203-6, 510-16, 665-6, 672-84, 869-71, 903-23. Cf. Olson (1990: 240-1). On<br />
the terms chrēstos and ponēros in late-fifth- and early-fourth-century public discourse, Rosenbloom (2002,<br />
2004) is foundational.<br />
46 Ar. Pl. 28-31, 36-8, 49-50, 502-4, 751-6. This formulation shares much with the Ecclesiazousae’s focus<br />
on the inherent selfishness of contemporary Athenians: e.g. Ec. 186-8, 301-10, 376-93, and the entire<br />
scene with the selfish man (Ec. 746-876). Cf. Sommerstein (1984: 330-1).<br />
47 See especially Ar. Pl. 107-11, 363-9, 569-70, 1003. Indeed, in a central agōn that has played a critical<br />
role in recent interpretations of the play, Chremylus and Poverty argue over whether Wealth or Poverty<br />
improves one’s character (Ar. Pl. 558-600). McGlew (1997: 35 with bibliography) rightly points out how,<br />
ever since at least Flashar (1967), the majority of critics have viewed Poverty as a decidedly new and<br />
different viewpoint entering into the comedy. For those who think that her argument is stronger than<br />
Chremylus’, the entire second half of the play seems ironically conceived, at best, or unsettlingly proestablishment,<br />
at worst: e.g. Flashar (1967), Konstan and Dillon (1981), Olson (1993). Somewhat<br />
differently, Heberlein (1981) opposes an ironist approach to the play yet, like Poverty, is suspicious of the<br />
changes that occur at play’s end. On the other hand, McGlew (1997: esp. 39-42) is joined by Sommerstein<br />
(1984) in positing that Poverty represents the weaker of the two sides. I do not come down on any<br />
particular side of this debate; for our purposes, it is crucial that both sides in fact agree that money (or a<br />
lack thereof) determines one’s character.<br />
48 Olson (1990: 228-30), Lévy (1997: 205-6).<br />
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So when Poverty and Chremylus have a debate about Zeus’ wealth, it is the<br />
economic return provided by the god that is at issue (Ar. Pl. 582-91). Poverty reasons<br />
that Zeus could not possibly be rich because a rich god would never crown athletic<br />
victors at his festival with crowns of wild olive; rather, because he was so rich, he would<br />
surely give away valuable gold crowns (Ar. Pl. 582-6). This is precisely the logic<br />
Socrates would later employ in claiming that Asclepius and Achilles could not possibly<br />
have been dōrodokoi. Chremylus responds with a different view: Zeus, rich yet sparing,<br />
chooses merely to save his own wealth while not spending anything on the victors (Ar.<br />
Pl. 587-9). Yet in that case, as Poverty criticizes, he is greedy and stingy<br />
(a)neleu/qeroj…filokerdh/j, Ar. Pl. 591), the same affront leveled against Philocrates in<br />
Lysias 29. As in Lysias 28 and 29, therefore, Wealth measures political justice according<br />
to an economically defined ‘good’ given to the community. As thieves or stingy<br />
members of the community, politicians including dōrodokoi are vilified, while those who<br />
give and take in turn ultimately prosper when Wealth regains his sight at play’s end.<br />
Aristophanes’ use of the ‘rags to riches’ conceit in Wealth is thus readily aligned<br />
with the accusation of profiting ‘at the city’s expense’ found in the speeches against<br />
Ergocles and Philocrates; however, this alignment marks a considerable departure from<br />
fifth-century use of the ‘rags to riches’ trope. In the fifth century, as we saw in the<br />
previous chapter, Aristophanes had lambasted politicians like Cleon for just this sort of<br />
suspicious accumulation of wealth. While such accusations certainly underscored how a<br />
politician may have been escaping democratic accountability, they were nevertheless<br />
leveled at pro-democratic politicians. There was no concern of oligarchic aspirations.<br />
By contrast, the ‘rags to riches’ conceit in Wealth was directed at citizens who were<br />
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actively harming the community: greedy elites who, like a Philocrates, potentially aimed<br />
at overthrowing the democracy (esp. Ar. Pl. 568-70). 49 In this respect, we might say that<br />
the ‘rags to riches’ trope, too, was framed in the shadow of the Thirty.<br />
Aristophanes’ comedy moves us past the focus on financial obligations found in<br />
Lysias’ speeches, for in the world of Wealth, money, prosperity and poverty pervade the<br />
way the characters conceptualize the kosmos. 50 In a long and humorous catalogue, two<br />
characters point out that Zeus would be powerless without wealth, for men would no<br />
longer sacrifice to him in order to get wealthy themselves (Ar. Pl. 130-42); nor would<br />
courtesans or artisans continue practicing their trade if they were already wealthy (Ar. Pl.<br />
149-68). Wealth is posited as the cause of political alliances, love, military expeditions,<br />
the actions of politicians, and even the meeting of the Assembly (Ar. Pl. 171-80). 51 In<br />
short, without wealth—specifically money (a)rgu/rion, Ar. Pl. 131, 141, 154, 158; cf.<br />
147)—all things fine and good in the world would be no more (Ar. Pl. 144-5).<br />
In reducing everything to money—in explaining causes and consequences, human<br />
action and natural forces, in economic terms—Aristophanes suggests that the world had<br />
somehow become ‘financialized’. His suggestion does not seem far-off, judging from<br />
other contemporary sources. Especially during this period, elite claims to being a good<br />
citizen were often framed as a financial calculus of the economic expenses a citizen or his<br />
family had incurred on behalf of the polis. To take but a single example, the speaker of<br />
49 As Robin Osborne (2003) has recently detailed, in the fifth century the Athenians were concerned that a<br />
charismatic individual might monopolize power, thus acquiring his riches at the polis’ expense; by the<br />
fourth century, this anxiety over relative power had transformed into fear of outright constitutional change,<br />
i.e. oligarchy.<br />
50 Cf. Albini (1965), David (1984: 32-8), Olson (1990: 225-30).<br />
51 Pay for attending the Assembly, which had only recently been introduced after the restoration of the<br />
democracy, is taken as a particularly clear sign of Athenians selfishness and greed in the Ecclesiazousae.<br />
The lament at Ar. Ec. 303-10 is indicative of the play’s stance towards that new pay. See further discussion<br />
in David (1984: 21-32), Dillon (1987: 178-9) and below.<br />
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Lysias’ speech On the Property of Aristophanes first lists his father’s benefactions—<br />
including chorēgiai, trierarchies, and eisphorai—and then details that his benefactions<br />
totaled 9 talents and 2,000 drachmas, plus additional minor expenses spent on poorer<br />
citizens (Lys. 19.57-9; cf. 19.29). 52 Further, that elites were using banks or ‘hiding’ their<br />
wealth through property markers (horoi) could have cut both ways, as they could have<br />
done so in order to acquire wealth to pay liturgies. On this view, the negative evaluation<br />
of such ‘hidden’ wealth might reflect, too, that there was growing social distance between<br />
people and the land they owned and worked: the commodification of new things (like<br />
land) signaled new ways in which people related to the world. 53 In a sense, therefore,<br />
Wealth opens up the tantalizing suggestion that these were not so much financial<br />
obligations as obligations that had been financialized. 54<br />
As with Plato’s seemingly proto-modern conception of the dōrodokos,<br />
Aristophanes’ thoroughly financialized perspective might sound oddly familiar to a<br />
52<br />
Similarly, Lys. 19.25 with 19.42-3 and 19.9, 26.3. Cf. Ant. 2.2.12, Is. 6.60. Christ (2006: 172-3) on the<br />
‘cost-consciousness’ of Athenians at this time. Conversely, a typical accusation that a citizen had shirked<br />
his financial obligation often entailed an assessment of the economic outlay that was due the polis. By<br />
insisting that an individual was ‘hiding’ his wealth, that he really had more money than he had let on and<br />
could therefore give more money to the polis than he had already done, such accusations were explicit<br />
claims that an individual had denied the polis a specific economic return: e.g. Ar. Ec. 601-3; Lys. 3.24,<br />
20.23; Isoc. 7.35; Is. 5.35-7, 7.39-40, 11.47-9.<br />
53<br />
This is, admittedly, a contentious claim, one that I le ave only as a suggestion, but see Andreyev (1974:<br />
20), French (1991: 27-30).<br />
54 2<br />
Around this time, in fact, we begin to find honorary crowns of specific monetary amounts: IG i 110.11-<br />
12 (1000 drachmas; 409 BCE), IG ii 2 1 .69-71 (1000 drachmas; 403/2 BCE), IG ii 2 2b.6-8 (300 drachmas;<br />
403/2 BCE; restored, but see Henry [1983: 22]), IG ii 2 103.29-30 (1000 drachmas; 369/8 BCE). As Henry<br />
(1983: 22-5) details, by mid-century this practice had become commonplace: e.g. IG ii 2 223 (500<br />
drachmas; 343/2 BCE), IG ii 2 338.19-21 (1000 drachmas; 333/2 BCE), IG ii/iii 2 1252.7 (500 drachmas, cf.<br />
a)pod]w/sousi toi=j eu)ergetou=[sin a)ci/aj tw=n/ eu)ergethma/twn], 1252.15-16; ca. 350-300 BCE); cf.<br />
Whitehead (1986: 163).<br />
Certainly, this focus on the precise cost of the crown might reflect the community’s desire to<br />
budget expenses better in the wake of its financial problems. Yet undoubtedly one by-product of assessing<br />
the cost ahead of time and publicly announcing it was that the ‘worth’ of deeds could be more readily<br />
calculated. In fact, in the earliest examples, the tamiai (or Hellēnotamiai) were to provide a cash award that<br />
was to be used expressly to create a crown: cf. IG i 2 110.11-12, IG ii 2 1.69-71. As a result, over time<br />
distinct crown ‘values’ came to be associated with different kinds of civic benefactions: typically only<br />
foreigners received 1000-drachma crowns, while Athenians most often were the ones to receive crowns of<br />
500 drachmas. See further Henry (1983: 22-6).<br />
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modern audience. That everything can somehow be reduced to money is, after all, a<br />
common anxiety about capitalism and the relationship between capitalist markets and<br />
society. Yet in that case it is all the more striking that this perspective should appear at<br />
Athens alongside Plato’s alignment of dōrodokia and greed. Why at this time was<br />
financial logic so important in considerations of political justice? One reason, I argue, is<br />
that the measures adopted by the Athenians to recover politically and financially from the<br />
Peloponnesian War and the horrors of the Thirty transformed the landscape of social<br />
relations both in and out of politics. The financialized view in Aristophanes was born of<br />
these changes—specifically, the continued movement towards a more impartial,<br />
impersonal public sphere in which all citizens, democrat and potential oligarch, could<br />
cooperate. In order to get along after the Thirty and their financial crimes, the Athenians<br />
actually adopted a ‘financialized’ view of polity.<br />
Once again, we can trace this story by following the dōrodokos. Here our final<br />
guide will be Lysias 21, a speech written (shortly) after 403/2 BCE for an unnamed<br />
magistrate accused of dōrodokia. 55 The speech falls into roughly two halves: an<br />
extensive list of liturgies performed by the defendant (Lys. 21.1-11), followed by an<br />
overview of his conduct as citizen and magistrate alike (esp. Lys. 21.18-19), with some<br />
brief concluding remarks on his civic pride and patriotism (Lys. 21.22-5). Although the<br />
general contours of Lysias 21 resonate with numerous other forensic speeches from the<br />
same period, this particular speech stands out for its unusually long list of liturgies and<br />
55 The date follows Todd (2000b: 228), based on the latest event mentioned in the speech, a chorēgia in<br />
403/2 (Lys. 21.4). Equally as likely, to my mind, is Schmitz’ (1995: 72) suggestion of placing the speech<br />
in early 401. Given the comprehensive, year-by-year list of liturgies provided in the speech, however, it<br />
would be difficult to assume a date much later than Schmitz’ suggestion.<br />
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the resultantly severe imbalance of the composition. 56 On the one hand, the catalogue<br />
seems a grand elaboration on the common topos of requesting charis from the people in<br />
exchange for all the good deeds the defendant has done. 57 On the other hand, whereas in<br />
other speeches requesting charis for euergetism is usually unrelated to the charge brought<br />
forward, in this speech the euergetism somehow forms the crux of the defendant’s legal<br />
argument for innocence. “I would be mad, jurymen,” he reasons, “if, in pursuit of honor<br />
(filotimou/menoj), I should spend my inheritance on you yet also take gifts from others<br />
unto the detriment of the polis” (e)pi\ de\ tw= | th=j po/lewj kakw= | para\ tw=n a1llwn<br />
dwrodokoi/hn, Lys. 21.22). The speaker’s catalogue of liturgies is as much an<br />
explanation of his innocence as a request for pardon. This is perhaps a counterintuitive<br />
claim: how could detailing his expenses on the polis possibly be a demonstration that he<br />
had not taken bribes? Let us investigate further. 58<br />
The defendant’s list of liturgies, indeed the entire extant speech, is framed as a<br />
defense of character: “About the charges themselves, jurymen, I have given you<br />
sufficient explanation,” the speaker begins, “but I think it fit that you listen to me about<br />
56 On the exceptionality of this catalogue of liturgical expenses, see Schmitz (1995: 85-6), Todd (2000b:<br />
229) and especially APF 592-3. The latter in particular explains this extraordinary catalogue as an<br />
extraordinary attempt by the defendant to make up for his family’s oligarchic sympathies; but, as will be<br />
clear from what follows, the catalogue can be seen as playing an integral legal role in the speaker’s legal<br />
defense, as well.<br />
57 So, Lys. 21.25. Likewise, the defendant in Lysias 20 confesses that he and his family treated the city<br />
well solely to gain an acquittal should they ever be prosecuted (Lys. 20.31). Cf. Ant. 2.2.12; Is. 5.41-2,<br />
6.60-1, 7.38-41; Isoc. 18.67; Lys. 25.13; [Dem.] 50.2, 7. For discussion, see Dover (1974: 176-7), Ober<br />
(1989: 226-33, 241-3), Johnstone (1999: 100-8), Christ (2006: 172-81).<br />
58 Scholars are quick to note that what we have of Lysias 21 is not the defendant’s full speech, but an<br />
epilogos, or the second part of a defense coming after the defendant’s treatment of the charges themselves<br />
(cf. Lys. 21.1). Assuming that the speech does not deal at all with the charges, their interpretations have<br />
consequently focused on the defendant’s character and his general strategy to ingratiate himself to the<br />
jurors, not on any legal arguments he makes. Schmitz (1995: esp. 91-3), for instance, explicates all of the<br />
rhetorical arguments with an eye towards illustrating how they were typical for an elite Athenian who, like<br />
the defendant of Lysias 21, probably had oligarchic sympathies; cf. APF 592-3, Todd (2000b: 229). I am<br />
concerned, by contrast, to illuminate how these arguments might be typical for an elite charged with<br />
dōrodokia. After all, it was not uncommon to make legal arguments in an epilogos—e.g. Lys. 14-15, 28-<br />
29—and, as we will see, the defendant in Lysias 21 seems to do just that.<br />
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other things, so that you know what kind of person I am (peri\ oi3ou tino\j o1ntoj e)mou=)<br />
when you cast your vote” (Lys. 21.1). In the defendant’s own estimation, he is a model<br />
citizen who should be emulated by other citizens—“pray to the gods that others are such<br />
citizens [as I]” (21.15)—for his exemplary conduct in public and in private (cf. Lys.<br />
21.18-19). He closes his speech by enjoining the jurors to vote for his acquittal and<br />
thereby to continue benefiting from citizens like himself (toiou/toij…poli/taij, 21.25),<br />
meaning the entire class of liturgy payers. 59<br />
What kind of model citizen was the defendant? Obviously, he was considerably<br />
wealthy, but his subtle presentation of character and financial expense suggests that he<br />
was trying to contest the label of oligarchic sympathizer—precisely the kind of role later<br />
played by Ergocles and Philocrates. Given his clear wealth, almost assuredly he would<br />
have been a member of the 3,000 during the oligarchy, for the Thirty do not appear to<br />
have confiscated his property. 60 The defendant downplays this involvement by glossing<br />
over the year 404/3, when the Thirty were in power, even though he carefully lists his<br />
liturgical expenses with reference to the name of the eponymous archon for every other<br />
year. 61 Further, he seems to rebut a curious series of accusations: that he had been<br />
pleased at the city’s misfortunes, given bad judgments as a judge, done shameful deeds or<br />
profited e)k tw=n u(mete/rwn while in office (Lys. 21.18). This is a curious sequence, for it<br />
reads more like a generic list of the Thirty’s crimes than as a catalogue of complaints<br />
about a specific individual. Finally, he contrasts himself with the political guardians who<br />
59 See Schmitz (1995: 89-90) on the use of the first-person-plural h(mete/rwn at Lys. 29.13.<br />
60 APF 592-3, Schmitz (1995: 92-3). In this light, Schmitz (1995: 84-5) notes that the speaker could have<br />
been an oligarchic sympathizer for his omission of ancestry or involvement in the civil war, his omission of<br />
specific political offices, and his espousal of aristocratic ideals (ko/smion ei}nai kai\ swfro/na, Lys. 29.19).<br />
61 He refers to the year, simply, as a ‘later’ (u3steron, Lys. 29.4) time period, sandwiched between his role<br />
as gymnasiarch when Alexias was archon (405/4 BCE) and as chorus-leader when Euclides was archon<br />
(403/2 BCE): Lys. 29.3-4 with APF 592-3, Schmitz (1995: 85).<br />
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plunder the city, on the grounds that his own financial outlays provided consistent<br />
revenue for the treasury; rather than endanger the city, he endured numerous dangers on<br />
its behalf. 62<br />
In an attempt to distinguish himself from the elites who plundered the city,<br />
providing bads for goods, the defendant thus presents himself as anything but the Thirty’s<br />
anti-type: he was no greedy dōrodokos like the oligarchs. In place of their anti-type, he<br />
substitutes a model of citizenship predicated largely on financial obligations. His own<br />
‘goods’ to the community are explicitly financial outlays, and when he describes the<br />
reciprocity he enjoys with the city, he underscores that he is owed a return precisely for<br />
the steady revenue he has provided. 63 The precise reason why he should be emulated, he<br />
claims, is that he does not covet public property, but rather spends his own money on the<br />
people (tw=n me\n u(mete/rwn mh\ e)piqumh/swsi, ta\ de\ sfe/tera au)tw=n ei)j u(ma=j<br />
a)nali/skwsin, Lys. 21.15), a refrain which recurs throughout his speech (Lys. 21.12, 17,<br />
22; cf. 21.23). He is the sort of person who benefits the polis by being frugal in private<br />
and generous in public (Lys. 21.16), constantly providing maximal revenue for the polis.<br />
And it is precisely because of this expenditure that he considers himself to have justice on<br />
his side. 64<br />
The benefit he provided, however, was not some indescript civic ‘good’, but a<br />
specific, quantified financial outlay; in this sense, the civic obligation itself is<br />
62<br />
Plundering the city: Lys. 21.13, 14. Danger: kindu/nouj u(pe\r u(mw=n kekinduneukw/j, Lys. 21.11; cf.<br />
21.3, 24, 25.<br />
63<br />
He refers to the entire catalogue of liturgies as his way of “doing the city such great goods” (tosau=ta<br />
a)gaqa\ ei)rgasme/noj th\n po/lin, Lys. 21.11; cf. po/sa t\hn po/lin eu} pepoihke/nai, Lys. 21.8). Outlining<br />
further the reciprocal return he expects for the exceptional amount spent on the polis, the speaker<br />
emphasizes the language of gift exchange (cf. dwrea/n, a)nti tou/twn par’ u(mw=n labei=n, lamba/nein,<br />
decai/mhn, a)xa/rista, Lys. 21.11-12). Cf. Lys. 21.13-14.<br />
64<br />
Lys. 21.12. He subsequently reprises this notion in claiming that, because of his public benefactions, the<br />
people should rightly spare him: Lys. 21.17.<br />
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‘financialized’, just as we saw in Aristophanes’ Wealth. The defendant signals this<br />
financialization in two ways: he enumerates the costs of every one of his liturgies, and he<br />
asks the jury to think of how much revenue in money his services brought the city. First,<br />
every single public service is given a numerical price: 2,000 drachmas here, 5,000<br />
drachmas there, 6 talents over one period of time, 30 mnae and 40,000 drachmas over<br />
another. Had the jurors been keeping a running tab in their minds, they would have<br />
discovered that the defendant had spent 63,600 drachmas—the colossal sum of 10.5<br />
talents—in doing ‘good’ for the city. Elsewhere, too, he refers to his money (xrh/mata,<br />
Lys. 21.13, 21) and the specifically financial value it holds for the polis (esp. Lys. 21.12-<br />
13).<br />
Such enumeration of expenses and value is perhaps understandable in the context<br />
of financial outlays, but the defendant also alludes to the quantifiable revenue his services<br />
brought back for the community. When describing his performance of the trierarchy, he<br />
asks how much ‘bad’ his deeds wrought for the city’s enemies, how much ‘good’ it did<br />
the polis itself; but he prefaces both of these questions by asking, above all, how much<br />
money (xrh/mata) a ship decked out like his brought in as revenue. 65 Although the<br />
defendant never signals that a certain total amount of public revenue and private<br />
expenditure would justly merit an acquittal—in this sense, there was ultimately no ‘price’<br />
65<br />
Kai/toi ou3tw pareskeuasme/nhn trih/rh po/sa po/sa oi1esqe a)nhlwke/nai a)nhlwke/nai xrh/mata xrh/mata; xrh/mata h2 po/sa tou\j<br />
polemi/ouj ei)rga/sqai kaka/ kaka/; kaka/<br />
h2 po/sa th\n po/lin eu eu} eu pepoihke/nai; Lys. 21.8. This language returns later in<br />
the speech with the antithesis of eu} peponqo/taj…eu} pepoihko/twn, Lys. 21.22. Both passages pick up<br />
on contemporary public decrees honoring those who “do the polis well” (eu} poi/ein): e.g. IG i 3 80.9 (421/0<br />
BCE); IG i 3 174.6 (c.420 BCE); IG i 3 102.9 (410/9 BCE); see discussion at Veligianni-Terzi (1997: 198-<br />
200). What is remarkable about this echo is that, in the fifth century at least, this formula appears only in<br />
decrees honoring foreigners with either citizenship or the proxeny. The earliest secure attestation of such<br />
praise in a decree honoring a citizen dates to the mid-fourth century: IG ii 2 1188.15-16 (mid-C4); cf. IG ii 2<br />
196.13-14 (353/2 BCE). It is possible, then, that the defendant in Lysias 21 was consciously picking up on<br />
his perceived outsider status and, with reference to his good deeds, seeking re-integration into the moral<br />
community of the dēmos.<br />
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on justice—his itemization of expenses and quantification of revenue suggest that the<br />
‘good’ of each act was nevertheless measured in financial, both numerical and monetized,<br />
terms.<br />
The speaker of Lysias 21 suggests that his civic obligations should be evaluated<br />
according to a narrowly financial lens—that is, they should be assessed according to the<br />
exact amount of financial revenue they provided—precisely because the polis was so<br />
poor, sources of revenue were few and far between, and the city’s leaders were<br />
plundering the treasury (o(ra=te ga/r…ta\ prosio/nta th| = po/lei w(j o)li/ga e)sti/ kai\<br />
tau=ta w(j u(po\ tw=n e)festhko/twn a(rpa/zetai, Lys. 21.13). In other words, according<br />
to the defendant, the city needed to focus on exact financial revenue in order to recover<br />
financially after the Thirty.<br />
The defendant’s line of thinking fits in well with a range of different fiscal<br />
measures taken at Athens in the generation after the Thirty. These measures focused on<br />
the exact financial return an investment would provide the community. In 378/7, for<br />
example, the symmory system was created, whereby wealthy elties were assigned to a<br />
‘share group’ (symmoria) that would cover the specific cost of the eisphora war tax. 66<br />
This reform seems to have been designed to ensure that the city could collect the full<br />
amount of the tax, that the earlier method of collection—on an individual basis by local<br />
demarchs—simply was not effective enough. 67 When the eisphora was collected, the 300<br />
wealthiest citizens, three per symmory, were liable to pay the entire tax up-front, while<br />
collecting reimbursement from the other members of their symmory. By making<br />
66 Philochorus FGrH 328 F46; de Ste. Croix (1953), Ruschenbusch (1978), Rhodes (1984), Gabrielsen<br />
(1985: 36; 1987: 47-51), MacDowell (1986) on the symmory system.<br />
67 Cf. Hakkarainen (1997: 10-11), van Wees (2006: 369-70). On the previous system of eisphora<br />
collection, see AP 21.5 with 8.3, Davies (1981: 143-50), Whitehead (1986: 132-3).<br />
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corporate groups, not individuals, responsible for the sums, the city thus diminished the<br />
impact that shirkers would have on the final total collected. Similarly, Agyrrhius’ grain<br />
tax law of 374/3 was designed to guarantee that a certain financial outcome—there, a<br />
specific amount of grain—would accrue to the city. 68<br />
These reforms were critical to Athens’ financial recovery particularly because the<br />
city no longer had revenue coming in from the allied tribute; even when the Second<br />
Athenian League was established in 378/7, allied contributions did not go towards the<br />
democracy’s administrative expenses. 69 Instead of a tribute, however, Athens did depend<br />
on considerable subsidies from Persia: not only monies for specific public projects, like<br />
the building of the Long Walls, but also payments to support the efforts of Athenian<br />
generals and soldiers. 70 Although funding problems continued for Athenian generals, the<br />
financial boon was appreciated and relied on all the same. 71 In this respect, it is telling<br />
that, whereas in the fifth century the receipt of Persian gold carried with it the stigma of<br />
treasonous plotting, in the fourth century Conon was actually honored for his ability to<br />
leverage the King’s funds. 72<br />
68 Ober (2008: 260-3) illustrates this point well; see also Stroud (1998), Osborne (2000).<br />
69 Davies (1978: 224), Cargill (1981: 124-7), de Ste Croix (1981: 293), Dreher (1995: 79-80). So IG ii²<br />
123.11-12 expressly indicates that allied syntaxeis were to be controlled by the synedrion of the League,<br />
not by the Athenian dēmos.<br />
70 Long Walls and Persian gold: Xen. Hell. 4.8.8-10, Diod.14.84.5-85.4. Persian subsidies of the Athenian<br />
fleet began soon after 401, when Cyrus broke from his brother, thereby breaking the previously strong link<br />
between Persia and Sparta. In 397 Pharnabazos gave 500 talents of silver for equipment and soldier pay<br />
(Diod. 14.39.1), although ultimately the fleet ended up being very poorly paid (Hell.Oxy. 19.2, Isoc. 4.142).<br />
In 395, 220 talents were given to pay for the fleet, but Conon eventually had to ask for more money (Diod.<br />
14.81.5-6). For discussion and further context, see Lewis (1979: 232-3). The trend towards mercenary<br />
armies begins at this time, as the armies of Conon and Iphicrates, and later Chabrias, Chares and Timotheus<br />
were hired out by foreign poleis: Pritchett (1974: 56-116), although see now Trundle (2004) on the<br />
problematic appellation of ‘mercenary’.<br />
71 In the 370’s Timotheus had numerous problems on his expedition to Corcyra: [Dem.] 49.9, 49.13, Lys.<br />
fr. 228; cf. Diod. 15.47.2-3. Likewise, Iphicrates: Xen. Hell. 6.211-14. Pseudo-Demosthenes points out<br />
that, because regular pay was almost impossible, desertion was a problem, and generals had to continually<br />
conscript soldiers: [Dem.] 50.6, 11, 23.<br />
72 Hence not all gifts of ‘Persian gold’ were ill-received, as Lewis (1989) and Mitchell (1997: 111-33)<br />
rightly explore. Treason and Persian gold recur throughout Herodotus’ Histories: Hdt. 1.69.1, 1.105.1,<br />
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When the defendant in Lysias 21 measures his contribution to the city in<br />
explicitly financial terms—63,600 drachmas’ worth of good—his financializing lens thus<br />
parallels a contemporary focus on guaranteeing that a specific amount of revenue might<br />
accrue to the polis. 73 Yet this ‘financialization’ extends beyond simply measuring<br />
drachmas; in the speaker’s view, it defines even how political justice works. One striking<br />
aspect about the speaker’s financial calculus here is that it constitutes an argument in his<br />
own defense. After all, had he wished to demonstrate simply that he had provided an<br />
imprecisely defined, symbolic ‘good’ for the city, he easily could have done so, and with<br />
an impressive list of good deeds at that. 74 Instead, he enables the jurors to calculate an<br />
exact monetary value for his return—63,600 drachmas (at least)—and it is this number<br />
that he seems to weigh when he begs the jury not to think that there is “so much money”<br />
(tosau=ta xrh/mata) for the sake of which he might wish ill upon the polis (Lys. 21.21).<br />
By providing precise financial expenses, he is able to demonstrate how absurd his<br />
opponent’s case must be: why spend 63,600 drachmas on ‘good’ for the community in<br />
order to receive its goodwill in return, only to turn around and squander that investment<br />
by taking bribes and thereby incurring ill-will? Far from being merely a spectacular<br />
3.148, 6.72, 6.82.1-2, 8.29-30, 9.2.3, 9.5.1-2, 9.41.2-4. Cf. Hdt. 5.30.6, 5.31.2; Timotheus fr. 790 Page;<br />
Dem. 9.41-4, 19.271-2. A statue of Conon was erected in the Agora in 393 after Cnidus in recognition of<br />
his military and financial support—cf. Dem. 20.68-70 and see Gauthier (1985: 96-7)—and note how<br />
Alcibiades tried to win the King’s resources explicitly to help, not harm, the city (Plut. Alc. 37.4).<br />
73 We can push this trend back at least to the last decade of the Peloponnesian War. Certainly, as the<br />
treasury was gradually depleted during the war, the Athenians had enacted similar reforms: notably in<br />
414/3 the collection of a 5% tax (eikostē) on imports and exports throughout the empire instead of the allied<br />
tribute, collection of which had apparently been ineffective: Thuc. 7.28.4 with excellent discussion in<br />
Kallet (2001: 196-9). As Kallet details, the imposition of the eikostē, which was a purely economic matter<br />
presumably lacking the tribute’s overt political connotations of subjugation, marked a broader shift in how<br />
the Athenians were thinking about archē. Increasingly, archē was framed in economic, not political, terms.<br />
See further Kallet (2001: 196-204).<br />
74 Contrast the mere passing mention of liturgies performed and dangers endured on behalf of the polis at,<br />
for example, Ant. 2.2.12, Is. 5.41.1, Lys. 3.47.<br />
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display of his largesse, the defendant’s catalogue of liturgical expenses signifies his<br />
innocence and illustrates how irrational his opponent’s claim surely must be.<br />
This is a remarkable argument in context. In other speeches defendants cite their<br />
liturgies as an argument from ethos: a demonstration of their good character and,<br />
occasionally, a reason why they should be treated leniently by the courts. 75 Indeed, this is<br />
how the defendant in Lysias 21 opens his speech, and he draws attention to this exact<br />
phenomenon after finishing his own catalogue of liturgies (Lys. 21.11, 17). Yet his<br />
argument from ethos subtly shifts into an argument from logos, or reason, in two different<br />
ways. He claims that, because elites plunder the city’s coffers, it would be “worth it”<br />
(a1cion) for the community to continue relying on a sure source of revenue, i.e. the<br />
defendant’s financial contributions, rather than to confiscate his property and to have the<br />
city manage it (Lys. 21.13-14). The defendant’s phrasing here is particularly strong, as<br />
he claims that he would make a better tamias—treasurer—than the official tamiai of the<br />
city (Lys. 21.14). 76 Precisely because the financial returns accrued by the city would be<br />
greater if the defendant were to keep his money than if the city were to take it,<br />
confiscating his property would be tantamount to injustice (cf. a)dikh/sete, Lys. 21.14).<br />
75 See above note 57.<br />
76 Schmitz (1995: 87-8) rightly discusses this passage in conjunction with the common rhetorical refrain<br />
that the polis would beneft most by letting the rich manage their own money, but it should be noted that the<br />
defendant here presents a variation on the standard topos. Rather than say that the polis would benefit less<br />
by taking his property than by leaving it alone, the defendant insinuates that the people would not benefit at<br />
all, for others would ‘divide it amongst themselves’ (diane/mountai, in the middle voice, Lys. 21.14). This<br />
subtle variation allows the defendant to transform his version into an argument about political justice. As a<br />
matter of justice, he assumes, the community is owed reciprocity, and only by letting the defendant remain<br />
tamias of his own property could that just outcome be obtained; otherwise, the community would suffer<br />
from negative reciprocity at the hands of plundering elites.<br />
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His is a logical argument predicated on how much money the community would receive:<br />
a vote for the greatest financial gain would be a vote for justice. 77<br />
The second argument from logos comes towards the end of the speech, when, as<br />
we just saw, the defendant proves his innocence by showing how irrational it would have<br />
been for him to have taken bribes in the first place (Lys. 21.21-22). His argument is<br />
strikingly similar to those made by political economists today who employ rational actor<br />
models in studying contemporary corruption. Just as they emphasize that the proper<br />
context of incentives and sanctions will determine whether or not someone is inclined to<br />
take bribes, the defendant claims that in no way would taking bribes have been in his own<br />
best interests. If anything, he asserts, it would have been irrational (cf. mainoi/mhn, Lys.<br />
21.22). As with the previous argument predicated on the community’s pursuit of<br />
financial resources, his defense rests on the assumption that he, too, would always try to<br />
maximize wealth.<br />
With both of these arguments, therefore, the defendant employs logos—rational,<br />
impersonal reasoning—that reduces questions of political justice to profit maximization.<br />
It seems we are back in the world of Wealth, with its thoroughly financialized vision of<br />
politics and society. Yet the argumentation employed in Lysias 21 sheds light on how, or<br />
why, that world became so financialized. In Lysias 21 the financialization of political<br />
justice is ultimately underpinned by the defendant’s shift from ethos to logos: that is, a<br />
shift from arguments based on inherent character to those based on impersonal reason.<br />
Although the defendant begins his speech by focusing intently on his own character, he<br />
ultimately shies away from such a personalized view of justice. Instead, in the course of<br />
77 In making this argument, the defendant virtually equates justice (ta\ di/kaia) with the financial benefits<br />
he provides the people (ta\ lusitelou=nta), as they amount to one and the same thing: his own acquittal<br />
(Lys. 21.12).<br />
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transforming his list of liturgies into an argument from logos, he opens up a<br />
depersonalized space wherein any citizen in his position would have acted the same way<br />
(i.e. not have taken bribes) and consequently would have merited an acquittal (as the<br />
most profitable outcome for the polis). 78<br />
The image of the dōrodokos in Lysias 21 negatively frames a positive image of<br />
political justice, one predicated on impersonal—let us say ‘arms-length’—social distance.<br />
In so doing, that image signals what was a critical shift in how politics was conducted at<br />
the turn of the century. Earlier we saw how changes necessary for financial recovery in<br />
the wake of both the Peloponnesian War and the debt accrued by the Thirty helped shift<br />
the Athenians’ focus towards evaluating the outcome of an action in terms of the money<br />
it might bring the community. As Lysias 21 obliquely suggests, moreover, Athens’<br />
attempts at political recovery in the shadow of the Thirty also contributed to the<br />
transformation of the dōrodokos into a greedy elite. By opening up a greater space for<br />
arms-length ties in the public sphere, within which space the Athenians could frame<br />
political injustice in increasingly impersonal terms, these political reforms sought to<br />
prevent public officials from providing bads for the community’s goods, just as the Thirty<br />
had done.<br />
These changes began immediately with the Amnesty of 403, which signaled a<br />
common desire to make political justice more impersonal. Recall that one hallmark of<br />
the Thirty’s reign was an ad hominem use of political process: they had subverted the<br />
courts to make personal attacks on elite citizens and had personally selected who could<br />
78 That this space is effectively depersonalized, i.e. removed from any personal investment the actors may<br />
have, is clear from the defendant’s comment that, ideally, the benefited should not judge their benefactors<br />
(Lys. 21.22). As he himself notes, however, while such a non-private space would be ideal, it is moot in<br />
his case precisely because he has benefited the entire community (so there is nobody left to judge him).<br />
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and could not be a member of the 3,000. By contrast, with the Amnesty the Athenians<br />
chose to forget completely the entire period of the Thirty, in effect refusing to punish<br />
specific individuals for their specific crimes. That the Thirty and other officials from the<br />
oligarchy had to undergo a scrutiny before being admitted back into the polity only<br />
underscored that they should be brought to trial as offending public officials, not private<br />
citizens. 79 The Athenians thereby laid a foundation of impersonal justice, and in fact later<br />
that year they passed a law making it illegal to create ad hominem legislation (And.<br />
1.87). 80 In short, the Amnesty epitomized the Athenians’ commitment to shaping law<br />
and justice around the abstract, impartial concept of a citizen, rather than the highly<br />
subjective image of an individual. 81<br />
Lysias 21 was delivered probably within only a couple years of the Amnesty, yet<br />
its nod towards impartial political justice points to a trend in political reforms that would<br />
continue for decades. One significant way that the Athenians tried to create a more<br />
depersonalized space for justice was by further separating the ‘private’ and ‘public’<br />
79 Note how it was only after the Thirty that it became routine for all public officials to submit their<br />
accounts at the end of office: see Chapter Six below. Accordingly, that only formal officials under the<br />
oligarchy would be brought to justice could have signaled the Athenians’ commitment to a new system of<br />
mandatory accountability for all officials.<br />
80 As the defendant of Lysias 21 suggests, justice was to be a fair exchanged based on mutual good<br />
character (Lys. 21. 12, 14), a notion which would later underpin the increasingly greater use of contracts in<br />
conducting maritime trade: Cohen (1971), and recently Lanni (2006: 149-74). Even the role of judicial<br />
witnesses like a speaker’s family members, epitomes of a highly discretionary mode of justice, was<br />
severely curtailed. Sometime in the early fourth century it became compulsory for witness testimony to be<br />
presented in written, not oral, form at a public trial: Ruschenbusch (1989: 34-5) suggests an early fourthcentury<br />
date, while Rhodes (1995: 310-11) cautiously posits sometime in the 370’s. Although this law was<br />
probably introduced to diminish the incidence of witness perjury—so Dem. 45.44, [Dem.] 46.6,<br />
Humphreys (1985: 321-2)—it nevertheless could have prevented witnesses from arguing impassionately<br />
(and subjectively) on behalf of a particular litigant: Rubinstein (2000: 72-5).<br />
81 Of course, this process was never complete, and throughout the fourth century, too, we find speakers<br />
appealing to the jurors qua individuals: Allen (2000), Lanni (2006). Still, the shift to a more abstract<br />
concept of law—argued for especially in Ostwald (1986), Sealey (1987), and Harris (2006)—is much more<br />
pronounced around the turn of the century, as epitomized by Socrates’ discussion of the laws in Plato’s<br />
Crito. While I would not refer to the Athenian legal system even in the fourth century as ‘the rule of<br />
law’—see especially Chapter Five below—one central claim I make here is that after the Thirty the<br />
Athenians made the space of law and justice even more ‘depersonalized’ than it had been in the fifth<br />
century.<br />
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spheres. In the last chapter we saw how in the fifth century a Cimon might be extolled<br />
for lavishly spending his money in private, albeit on informal public services like feeding<br />
his demesmen. In the fourth century, however, as the speaker of Lysias 21 suggests, the<br />
paradigm was to be frugal in private, to spend one’s money only on formal public<br />
liturgies. 82 In this sense, it is important to note the striking extent to which the speaker of<br />
Lysias 21 divides monies into ‘mine’ and ‘yours’, that is, into private and public funds. 83<br />
Indeed, such a clear demarcation of monies is good evidence that the dēmos’ earlier<br />
desire to control political monies and to legitimate only certain liturgical channels had<br />
worked.<br />
Crucially, the growing depersonalization of the public sphere—its further and<br />
clearer demarcation from the private sphere, as found in Lysias 21—was born of concrete<br />
changes in the patterns of social relationships that were leveraged within the practice of<br />
politics. Two political trends in particular contributed to the continued growth of this<br />
depersonalized space. First, as emblematized by the creation of a series of new political<br />
boards, there was a greater focus on collaborating and thereby preventing the<br />
concentration of political authority within a single domain. 84 The board of nomothetai, or<br />
lawgivers, provided an immediate check on the Assembly’s lawmaking abilities, helping<br />
to prevent conflicting or unclear legislation. 85 Similarly, a board of forty dikastai kata<br />
82 Cf. Lys. 21.16. On this point, Humphreys (1978b) is essential.<br />
83 See, for example, Lys. 21.11, 13-14, 15, 16. Again, for the speaker the mere possession of such funds<br />
constitutes an essentially private, or personalized, act that should be far removed from the impartial justice<br />
required in the public sphere. For this reason, he remarks that benefactors probably should not be judged<br />
by their beneficiaries (Lys. 21.22).<br />
84 On the increased coordination among fourth-century public officials and political bodies, see especially<br />
Rhodes (1980: 303); on Athenian political coordination more generally, see Ober (2008).<br />
85 The nomothetai were a board of ten, selected one per tribe from the list of annually selected jurors,<br />
beginning either in 403/2 or in 399 after the completed revision of the law code. On the nomothesia<br />
process, see Harrison (1955), MacDowell (1975), Rhodes (1985), Ostwald, (1986: 521-2) Hansen (1991:<br />
165-75).<br />
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dēmou, or traveling judges, was restored, augmented, and relocated to the city center; and<br />
coordination was the central focus in the creation of both the symmories, as we saw<br />
above, and a new selection procedure for secretaries. 86<br />
This bureaucratic expansion certainly helped the workings of the democracy, yet<br />
one probable consequence of such increased collaboration was that it diluted the social<br />
ties of the actors involved. With more collaboration and with collaboration among more<br />
people, the kinds of relationships formed through and leveraged within the political<br />
process would have tended closer to arms-length, what we might call ‘professional’ ties. 87<br />
Indeed, even outside of political boards, we find political groups more atomized in the<br />
fourth century, as their membership changed more rapidly than it had in the fifth<br />
century. 88 This change was due no doubt in part to Athens’ desire to recover politically<br />
from the Thirty. Whereas close relationships had prevailed among the hetaireiai that<br />
oligarchs had leveraged for political power in the late fifth century, in the new democracy<br />
the political clubs were effectively discolored by their associations with the oligarchs,<br />
and they ceased to be such powerful political tools. 89 Instead, elite political associations<br />
86 dikastai kata dēmou: AP 53.1, Haussoullier (1979: 123-6), Whitehead (1986: 261-4). On the<br />
symmories and collaboration, see especially Rhodes (1980: 311). In the fifth century secretaries had been<br />
selected from the Council (IG ii 2 104-107), but later in the fourth century they were selected from the<br />
citizen population at large (IG ii 2 110-11; cf. AP 54.3). This, too, fostered coordination among still more<br />
officials.<br />
87 Arms-length ties, the now familiar ideal in corporate and political contexts, are marked by either brief or<br />
standardized social interaction: see Granovetter (1985), Uzzi (1997), Zelizer (2005b). Commonly they are<br />
thought of as ‘impersonal’ ties, but this just means that the content of the ties tends towards exemplifying<br />
social distance (as between strangers) than social intimacy (as between friends or family). The larger a<br />
corporate body engaged in collective action, the more diluted the relational ties typically are—and hence<br />
the greater the social distance, on average, between actors. In showing that there was greater participation<br />
in the fourth-century democracy, Taylor (2008) provides indirect evidence for the dilution of social ties<br />
within fourth-century politics.<br />
88 Strauss’ (1985: 11-41) sociological analysis of politics in the early fourth century is essential on this<br />
point.<br />
89 Calhoun (1916), Strauss (1985: 11-41).<br />
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were managed by smaller, more short-lived groups of leaders at the top. 90 In this way,<br />
the social ties that characterized these boards—and, more broadly, how deliberative<br />
politics was conducted—were closer to depersonalized arms-length ties. 91<br />
A second way in which the public sphere became more depersonalized was<br />
through the standardization of practices within institutional bodies. Such a shift could<br />
have had a significant impact on the social character of the space in which those practices<br />
were conducted. As we will see in detail in Chapter Six, the processes for holding public<br />
officials accountable were standardized at the end of the fifth century; this meant that all<br />
public officials had to go through the exact same process of appearing before financial<br />
examiners (logistai), then examiners (euthynoi). 92 Likewise, in the first third of the<br />
century, the selection of jurors and magistrates was routinized with increasingly complex<br />
sortition processes. 93 One effect of such routinization was to ensure that citizens<br />
underwent the same process, meaning that no one individual would be given more or less<br />
fair treatment. This same impetus underpins the standardization of public honors in terms<br />
of the language or phrases used as well as, later in the century, the frequency with which<br />
90 A distinct yet analogous shift can be detected in how citizens were praised publicly by the community.<br />
Beginning around 412, abstract nouns and adjectives that marked membership in a broad corporate group—<br />
i.e. those desiring the dēmos’ praise—supplanted more individualized forms of honor: Whitehead (1993:<br />
47) with sources. Certainly these abstract forms of praise were used in reponse to oligarchic sentiments as<br />
a way of distinguishing between ‘us’ and ‘them’, democrats and oligarchs; yet it is striking how, in<br />
response to the threat (and actuality) of oligarchy, the Athenians defined democracy in abstract, impersonal<br />
terms, just as we have been tracing.<br />
91 Note how in Plato’s Republic it is the impersonal force of rational reason which is meant to guide the<br />
Guardians’ political decisions. Just as the Guardians were to be kept utterly separated from private<br />
interests like money or family ties, so, too, was the justice of their decisions predicated on depersonalized<br />
deliberation.<br />
92 For a description of this process, see Andoc. 1.78, AP 48.3-5 and recently Efstathiou (2007).<br />
93 AP 63-6 provides details: see also Chapter Seven below.<br />
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they were awarded. 94 Political justice was characterized by an impersonal, routinized<br />
approach to political process.<br />
With increased political collaboration and a greater routinization of political<br />
process, the practice of democratic politics in the early fourth century most likely would<br />
have been marked by a greater prevalence of arms-length, professional ties. I would<br />
suggest, further, that such ‘professionalization’ of politics was not merely a consequence<br />
but was actually an intended result of at least some of Athens’ institutional changes. So<br />
the defendant of Lysias 21 underscores that people should not be judged by those they<br />
benefit (Lys. 21.22). To modern eyes, his sentiment certainly brings to mind the obvious<br />
idea of conflict of interest, but, again, it is important to remember that this idea emerged<br />
prominently in Athenian politics precisely after a period in which oligarchs had used the<br />
city’s political institutions for their own interests. Athens’ shift towards a more<br />
depersonalized space for politics, itself tied to the concurrent ‘financialization’ of civic<br />
obligations, was a conscious shift away from the Thirty’s mode of self-interested political<br />
practice, as emblematized by the greedy dōrodokos. Accordingly, it is likely that the<br />
creation of more arms-length ties in politics went hand-in-hand with Athens’ political<br />
recovery in the restored democracy.<br />
This chapter has explored two main reasons why the money-loving, thieving<br />
dōrodokos appeared in Athens in the generation after the Thirty. Emphasizing a financial<br />
return constituted both a sign of Athens’ own need for money after the Peloponnesian<br />
94 Praise: see above n. 90. Standardized language appears especially on decrees passed without change<br />
from the Council’s recommendations: cf. Rhodes (1972: 52-81), who collects the sources. The prescripts<br />
of decrees also became standardized with the archon’s name and precise dating according to the Athenian<br />
political or sacrificial calndears—a marked change from the fifth century’s use of names without<br />
patronymics or demotics for identifying the secretary, prytaneis, and proposer of the decree: Henry (1977:<br />
49). By much later in the century (340’s BCE), even the awarding of public honors had become routine for<br />
completion of certain offices: AP 46.1; Aeschin. 1.111-12, Dem. 22.36, 22.38-9; cf. Dem. 22.8-20 with<br />
Whitehead (1983: 73n.32).<br />
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War and, especially, a metaphor for understanding the oligarchs’ problematic relationship<br />
to the polity. Thinking through the relationship between Athens’ elite and the rest of the<br />
community, the Athenians thought with the dōrodokos. Moreover, as our reading of<br />
Wealth and Lysias 21 has demonstrated, configuring the dōrodokos as a greedy thief<br />
entailed a ‘financialization’ of the ways in which civic obligations were understood.<br />
With a proliferation of arms-length ties in the practice of politics, and with the creation of<br />
political institutions focused almost exclusively on gaining a quantifiable financial return,<br />
the public sphere in Athens grew, becoming more like the bureaucratic world to which<br />
modern readers are more accustomed.<br />
Of course, Athens would not always remain in the shadow of the Thirty, and by<br />
mid-century shortly after the Social War, she had made almost a full recovery,<br />
economically as well as politically. But with that recovery came a new problem: the rise<br />
of Philip of Macedon and the growing threat he posed to Athenian freedom. As the next<br />
chapter explores, with these changes in Athens’ economic and political fortunes,<br />
dōrodokia again shifted meaning, becoming an ever graver threat to the democracy.<br />
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The Democracy in Danger:<br />
Dōrodokia and the Rise of the “Crop of Traitors”<br />
378-322 BCE<br />
As Athens tried to move out of the shadow of the Thirty, she faced an<br />
increasingly unstable Greek world, one dominated by inter-state alliances and warfare.<br />
Indeed, as leading city-states rose to relative prominence—first Sparta, then Athens in the<br />
370’s, followed by Thebes in the 360’s—much of the rest of the Greek world allied<br />
against them in order to control any potentially new threat. The Second Athenian League<br />
was one such alliance, directed against Sparta upon its initial formation in 378 but later<br />
counterpoised against Thebes after Sparta’s defeat at Leuctra. Yet by 355, the League<br />
was in shambles after the conclusion of the two-year Social War, in which a number of<br />
Athens’ allies had revolted. With these shifts in international alliances frequently came<br />
civil conflict, or stasis, as cities changed regimes to signal changed allegiances. Even<br />
with such inter-state alliances, no area in Greece was stable for long, for tensions were<br />
high both inside and outside the city. 1<br />
Stasis, then, was an enduring feature of the fourth century Greek polis. 2<br />
Importantly for this chapter, the fear of stasis lay at the heart of the dominant image of<br />
1 On these developments, see Seager (1974), Davies (1978: 168-70), Cargill (1981), Cawkwell (1981),<br />
Jehne (1994), Dreher (1995). The fourth century was rife with stasis: just a cursory overview encounters<br />
violent revolutions in Corcyra (Xen. Hell. 6.2.3-15; Diod. 15.46-7, 15.95.3; Aen. Tact. 11.13-15), Corinth<br />
(Xen. Hell. 4.4.1-13) and the Peloponnese (Isoc. 6.64-7, Diod. 15.40). Cf. Tod 144.25-6, 147.28-9 for<br />
examples of explicit clauses against constitutional subversion in interstate alliances.<br />
2 An overview of stasis in the fourth century can be found in Fuks (1972, 1977, 1979) on social tensions in<br />
Isocrates and Plato’s Republic and Laws, respectively; de Ste. Croix (1981: 292-9); Lintott (1982: 222-<br />
38); Gehrke (1985) catalogues and analyzes instances of stasis in the fifth and fourth centuries. It should<br />
be noted that, while stasis has been interpreted as a primarily political phenomenon instigated by a foreign<br />
power—so Ruschenbusch (1978b), Lintott and Gehrke—Fuks and de Ste. Croix (1981: esp. 293-5) rightly<br />
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the dōrodokos that emerged in the second half of the fourth century. In the ‘amnesia’<br />
following the stasis of the late fifth century the dōrodokos had become thoroughly<br />
financialized, but, as the century progressed, he was increasingly viewed in starkly<br />
political terms. As this chapter examines, the thief soon gave way to the traitor.<br />
The image of a traitorous dōrodokos was closely connected to the rise of Philip II<br />
of Macedon, an enormously wealthy king with an impressively large army. 3 Philip’s<br />
progressive gaining of the helm of Greek affairs dominated the political landscape from<br />
the 350’s until his death in 336. Looking back at this period, in 330 in his most famous<br />
speech On the Crown the orator Demosthenes links Philip’s rise to both dōrodokia and<br />
the stasis it bred:<br />
In all the Greek states—not in some but in every one of them—it chanced that there had<br />
sprung up the most abundant crop of traitorous, venal, and profligate politicians ever<br />
known within the memory of mankind. These persons Philip adopted as his satellites and<br />
accomplices. The disposition of Greeks towards one another was already vicious and<br />
quarrelsome; and he made it worse. Some he cajoled; some he bribed; some he corrupted<br />
in every possible way. He split them into many factions, although all had one common<br />
interest—to thwart his aggrandizement. 4<br />
remind that there were significant social and economic factors augmenting these political tensions within<br />
poleis.<br />
3<br />
Under Philip’s guidance, Macedonia developed from a rugged, pastoral society into a cultured and<br />
prosperous, agricultural-based community (Arrian, An. 7.9.2-3). Macedonia was rich in gold and silver<br />
mines (Hdt. 5.17, Thuc. 4.108.1, Diod. 16.8.6) as well as in timber (Dem. 19.89), and Philip developed<br />
both industries to a remarkable degree. During Philip’s heyday from 348 to 336, his coinage was actually<br />
the strongest currency in Europe, and Macedon’s resources were numerous times greater than those of<br />
Athens even during her revival under Lycurgus. With such enormous resources, Diodorus writes, Philip<br />
employed a considerable army which also proved vital to Macedonian expansion (Diod. 16.8.7). On<br />
Philip’s wealth and the success of the Macedonian army, see further Cawkwell (1978: 47-8) and especially<br />
Hammond in Hammond and Griffith (1979: 2.651-71).<br />
4<br />
Dem. 18.61, which I reproduce in full to highlight the tight sequence of dōrodokia, betrayal and stasis (in<br />
bold): para_ ga_r toi=j 3Ellhsin, ou) tisi/n, a)ll' a3pasin o(moi/wj, fora_n fora_n prodotw~n prodotw~n kai kai\ kai kai\\<br />
\ dwrodo&kwn<br />
dwrodo&kwn<br />
kai\ qeoi=j e0xqrw~n a)nqrw&pwn sune/bh gene/sqai tosau&thn o3shn ou)dei/j pw pro&teron me/mnhtai<br />
gegonui=an: ou4j sunagwnista_j kai\ sunergou_j labw_n kai\ pro&teron kakw~j tou_j 3Ellhnaj<br />
e1xontaj pro_j e9autou_j kai\ stasiastikw~j<br />
stasiastikw~j stasiastikw~j e1ti xei=ron die/qhke, tou_j me\n e0capatw~n, toi=j de\ didou&j didou&j, didou&j<br />
tou_j de\ pa&nta tro&pon dia diafqei/rwn<br />
dia diafqei/rwn<br />
fqei/rwn, fqei/rwn kai\ die/sthsen ei0j me/rh polla&, e9no_j tou~ sumfe/rontoj a3pasin<br />
o1ntoj, kwlu&ein e0kei=non me/gan gi/gnesqai. For other references to this ‘crop of traitors’ cf. Aeschin.<br />
3.234, Diod. 16.54.2, 16.85.4 and, generally, Cargill (1985).<br />
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For Demosthenes, as well as for other contemporary Athenians, Philip’s arrival on the<br />
Greek political scene heralded the rise of a horde of traitors: not merely a handful of<br />
corrupt individuals acting in isolation, but an entire ‘crop’ of rogues from all over Greece<br />
who formed factions, instigated stasis and thus betrayed their cities for the price of a<br />
bribe. Philip’s wealth and dōrodokia became the hallmarks of Greek politics in the final<br />
decades of the Athenian democracy, and, as we will see, it was in light of both their<br />
attitudes towards Philip’s diplomacy and its purported link to stasis that the Athenians<br />
began to reshape their understanding of the dōrodokos. 5<br />
As in the case of Timagoras, whose fateful gifts from the Persian king were<br />
investigated in the Introduction, the bribe-takers lambasted by Demosthenes were<br />
considered traitors to their city. What is crucial for our purposes, though, is that<br />
supposedly they were not working alone. Unlike Timagoras, who was singled out for his<br />
treasonous politicking with the enemy, the purported traitors on Philip’s payroll were a<br />
concerted group acting from within the city. Philip’s trademark brand of diplomacy was<br />
thus thought to have fomented factions within the city: the threat of dōrodokia was a<br />
threat of stasis as well.<br />
So, for example, in the Third Philippic, delivered in 341, Demosthenes holds up<br />
the town of Olynthus as a model for the evil overcoming all of Greece (Dem. 9.56-62).<br />
At Olynthus, he says, the city was divided into those subservient to Philip in all respects<br />
(pa/nq’ u(phretou=ntej) and those trying to ensure that the citizens not become Philip’s<br />
slaves (Dem. 9.56; cf. Diod. 16.53.2). Though the orator does not put a number on them,<br />
Philip’s partisans in Olynthus appeared to be numerous, for, as he claims, they<br />
5 On Philip’s reputation for bribing, cf. Dem. 18.19, 18.61, 19.300; Diod. 16.8.7, 16.53.3, 16.54.3-4,<br />
16.55.4, 16.95; cf. Plut. Mor. 178a-b. See further Ryder (1994) and Mitchell (1997: 149-50).<br />
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systematically ruined the city by maliciously prosecuting and slandering the city’s<br />
defenders until the dēmos was won over (Dem. 9.56). As Demosthenes chillingly<br />
describes of the town of Oreus, it was Philip who directed and funded the inevitable civil<br />
conflict that ensued when his hirelings, now a partisan mass, fought against the city’s<br />
staunch defenders (Dem. 9.59-62). 6<br />
Given that stasis was a persistent problem throughout the fourth century, though,<br />
Philip was no more its cause than were Thebes, Sparta, and indeed Athens. In this<br />
respect, Demosthenes’ suggestion that the problem of political instability was due<br />
directly to Philip’s rise is misleading. In fact, the orator’s alarming portrayal of Philip’s<br />
systematic and systematically corrupt rise, though shared by a number of contemporary<br />
Athenians, was misleading in two further respects, as well. It presupposed a Macedonian<br />
policy of methodical expansion, as if Philip began with some master plan for taking over<br />
all of Greece and for targeting Athens in particular. But, as numerous scholars have<br />
shown, Philip’s actions in context often seem more like shrewd ad hoc measures than an<br />
actual preconceived plan to take over Athenian territory in Attica, let alone all of Greece. 7<br />
6 Calling Philip the chorēgos (choir-director) and prytanis (president; cf. xorhgo\n e)/xontej Fi/lippon kai\<br />
prutaneuo/menoi, Dem. 9.60), Demosthenes borrows civic language from the democracy, thereby showing<br />
how Philip’s presence effectively subverted the workings of democratic institutions.<br />
7 Harris (1995: 115-6); Cawkwell (1978: 108-13), who reaches a similar conclusion about Philip’s aims in<br />
346; and especially Buckler (1996: 84-6); cf. de Ste Croix (1981: 292). In the case of Olynthus, for<br />
example, Philip seemed to be after money, not power, just as Diodorus attests (Diod. 16.53.3); indeed,<br />
Philip’s actions against minor players in the Chalcidian Federation suggest that he might never have<br />
anticipated the capture of Olynthus one year later: cf. Diod. 16.53.2 and Ryder (2000: 53). Moreover,<br />
Cawkwell (1978: 122-3) reminds that some poleis welcomed Philip with open arms, hailing him as their<br />
savior, and at least in these cases Philip’s dōrodokia was irrelevant.<br />
The rhetoric of Macedonian expansionism was common in Demosthenes: e.g. 8.2, 8.14, 8.18,<br />
8.60, 9.6-19. So, for instance, in the Third Philippic the orator ends a chronological survey of Philip’s<br />
conquests with the summary statement, “Neither the Greek nor the barbarian world is big enough for the<br />
fellow’s [sc. Philip’s] greed” (pleoneci/a, Dem. 9.27). Cf. Dem. 19.315-31. Still, it was seemingly not<br />
until the First Philippic (351) that Demosthenes viewed Philip as a true threat: cf. Ryder (2000: 45-51); de<br />
Ste Croix (1981: 607n.36) places this turning point earlier (352), while Harris (1995: 50) would locate this<br />
turning point still later at the fall of Olynthus in 348 (cf. Dem. 19.101-2, 302-6, Aeschin. 2.79). Either<br />
way, Philip was not always a manifest threat for Demosthenes, and in fact the orator himself later confessed<br />
to exaggeration in depicting Philip as waging war against all Greeks (Dem. 18.20, 24).<br />
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Distortion also enters into Demosthenes’ picture in his depiction of all of Philip’s dōra as<br />
bribes, even though in some cases those dōra make more sense as financial support for a<br />
military venture than as corrupting payments meant to benefit only a select few. In the<br />
case of Philip’s activity in the Peloponnese, for example, his funds seem to have been<br />
provided not to induce stasis, but to help various poleis ward off Spartan aggression. 8<br />
Still, despite these historical ‘inaccuracies’, it is crucial that many Athenians seem<br />
to have accepted this storyline exactly as Demosthenes and other prominent Athenians<br />
told it. 9 In other words, Demosthenes’ picture, however inaccurate, had considerable<br />
resonance in Athens in the latter half of the fourth century; indeed, it might be not so<br />
much ‘inaccurate’ as representative of broader contestations of the legitimacy of Philip’s<br />
diplomacy and the consequent significance of his expansionism. Why, then, did stories<br />
about the rise of Philip and his diplomatic use of dōrodokia take the specific form that<br />
they did? What was persuasive about imagining that a faction of corrupt men would<br />
betray the city, and what did conjuring up this image gain for an orator like<br />
Demosthenes? As this chapter examines, the image of a traitorous dōrodokos was quite<br />
malleable during this period, so we should dig beneath its surface to uncover the hidden<br />
factors that shaped its framework.<br />
In order to answer these questions, let us turn to Demosthenes’ speech On the<br />
False Embassy, in which he prosecutes his rival Aeschines for taking bribes from Philip<br />
while they were both on an embassy to Macedon during the middle of Philip’s aggressive<br />
8 Although Demosthenes later repeats his claim that a handful of Arcadians, Argives, and Messenians had<br />
turned traitorous (Dem. 18.295), we have no evidence of factional struggles in these cities. To the contrary,<br />
the historian Polybius’ defense of these purported traitors is a strong indication of Demosthenic hyperbole<br />
here (Polyb. 18.14.6): Ryder (1994: 238-41).<br />
9 Cf. Isoc. 5.73-5; Aeschin. 2.72-3; Dem. 2.4, 4.18, 5.12, 8.20, 8.53, 8.61-6, 9.14, 9.36-47, 9.49, 9.53, 9.63-<br />
7. Although we cannot push this argument too far, another potential indication of the persuasiveness of<br />
Demosthenes’ narrative is the substantial political success he enjoyed from 346 until Philip’s death, on<br />
which period see especially Ryder (2000).<br />
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expansion (Demosthenes 19). By examining how and why the orator distorts his<br />
narrative about Philip’s diplomacy, we can begin to understand the underlying concerns<br />
that shaped this dominant image of the dōrodokos in the second half of the fourth<br />
century. The next section will take up how and why the traitorous dōrodokos appeared in<br />
wholly domestic contexts, as well.<br />
From 357, when Philip seized the Athenian territories of Amphipolis and Pydna<br />
in northern Greece, Macedon and Athens were at war (Aeschin. 2.70, 3.54; Isoc. 5.2).<br />
For the most part, Athens was unable to thwart Philip’s advance, as he slowly secured a<br />
major portion of northern Greece, including Athens’ last strategic stronghold in<br />
Chalcidice, Olynthus, the loss of which in 348 we saw bitterly recounted in the Third<br />
Philippic. By 347, when Philip agreed to enter into peace negotiations with Athens, he<br />
was knocking on the door of central Greece, about to march in and settle an ongoing war<br />
between Athens’ ally Phocis and her bitter enemy Thebes. Early the next year, ten<br />
envoys—including Philocrates and the orators Aeschines and Demosthenes—were sent<br />
to Macedon to negotiate the peace. The First Embassy returned to Athens, where<br />
Philocrates persuaded the Athenian Assembly to ratify the Peace of Philocrates, which<br />
recognized the current holdings of both Athens and Macedon. The same envoys were<br />
elected to the Second Embassy, charged with getting Philip to swear to the same terms,<br />
yet a whole two months passed before Philip would meet the embassy. By the time<br />
Philip swore to the treaty’s terms, Macedon had acquired even more territory in the north,<br />
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including former Athenian holdings, and Philip soon settled the Third Sacred War by<br />
destroying Athens’ ally Phocis. 10<br />
As the dust settled on the events of 346, the Athenians quickly realized that the<br />
Peace of Philocrates and its aftermath were an utter failure for the city: with the Peace,<br />
all of Philip’s gains in northern Greece over the previous decade had been recognized,<br />
and now he had a major hand in controlling affairs in central Greece. Still, Aeschines, a<br />
strong advocate for maintaining diplomatic ties with Macedon, continued to push for<br />
rapprochement with Philip. When in 343 these efforts at diplomacy fell apart, Philocrates<br />
and Aeschines, both major proponents of the Peace, were in trouble. Philocrates was<br />
charged with treason and fled Athens rather than face trial; and, with public opinion<br />
decisively on his side, Demosthenes prosecuted Aeschines for misconduct on the Second<br />
Embassy. 11 Demosthenes’ speech On the False Embassy is based on his prosecution<br />
speech on that occasion. 12<br />
It is abundantly clear from Demosthenes’ prosecution speech that, in the orator’s<br />
eyes at least, his opponent Aeschines took bribes from Philip, and he was a traitor for<br />
doing so. Throughout, Demosthenes’ clear focus is on his opponent’s bribe-taking: no<br />
fewer than 55 times he accuses Aeschines of being on Philip’s payroll, of which instances<br />
10 For a more detailed background to these events with primary sources, see Griffith in Hammond and<br />
Griffith (1979: 2.216-328), Sealey (1993: 50-101), Paulsen (1999: 28-45), Buckler (2000: 117-32),<br />
Ryder (2000: 45-72).<br />
11 Griffith in Hammond and Griffith (1979: 2.450-95), Harris (1995: 102-15), Paulsen (1999: 45-50),<br />
Buckler (2000: 132-4) and MacDowell (2000: 1-14) helpfully collect the primary sources on the aftermath<br />
of the Peace of Philocrates.<br />
12 On the trial itself, see recently Harris (1995: 116-18), Buckler (2000: 134-40), MacDowell (2000: 14-<br />
22). For Demosthenes’ prosecution speech (Dem. 19) and Aeschines’ defense speech (Aeschin. 2), recent<br />
commentaries by MacDowell (2000) on Demosthenes and by Paulsen (1999) on both speeches are<br />
invaluable.<br />
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at least 13 also insinuate that Aeschines was a traitor. 13 In the opening of the speech,<br />
Demosthenes underscores how Aeschines failed in every one of his duties as an<br />
ambassador—by providing a dishonest report to the people, giving them bad advice, not<br />
following their explicit instructions, and wasting precious time that the city could have<br />
used to pursue other opportunities (Dem. 19.4-6)—and each one of these failures was<br />
thought due to the receipt of dōra (Dem. 19.4, 7-8). More damning is Demosthenes’<br />
repeated accusation that Aeschines “profited at the city’s expense,” a refrain familiar<br />
from the earlier part of the fourth century, as we examined in the last chapter. 14 Yet,<br />
instead of profiting at the city’s financial expense, as the accusation earlier signaled,<br />
Aeschines is accused of actively bringing ruin to the city. That is, he is accused of being<br />
a traitor, not a thief. His personal profit is weighed against the destruction of Athens’ ally<br />
Phocis and, Demosthenes suggests, the eventual ruin of Athens herself. 15<br />
Beneath the veneer of these accusations lay a much larger, more sustained<br />
problem, one critical to the very security of the polis: for the democracy to survive,<br />
ambassadors had to be honest and trustworthy (Dem. 19.182-4). 16 As the orator warns,<br />
there would surely be dire consequences for trusting in a traitor like Aeschines. 17 In<br />
13 Dem. 19.8, 9, 16, 19-20, 27, 29, 68, 88, 94, 97, 102, 104, 110, 111-3, 114-5, 116-18, 120, 121, 125, 127,<br />
134, 142, 143-6, 147, 149, 201, 205, 209, 220, 236, 243-5, 254-5, 279, 286, 292-3, 301, 303-9, 308, 313,<br />
316, 328-9, 331 to which should be added the orator’s accusations that Aeschines was a traitor for taking<br />
bribes: Dem. 19. 88, 90, 133, 146, 178, 180, 182-4, 207-8, 229, 258, 301-2.<br />
14 The accusation recurs throughout Demosthenes’ speeches: Dem. 3.29, 8.66, 17.11, 18.109, 18.211-7,<br />
18.250, 18.298-9, 18.320, 21.123-5 57.60.<br />
15 Dem. 19.7, 275. This weighing of interests recurs throughout Demosthenes’ speech: e.g. Dem. 19.8, 90,<br />
143-6, 147, 149. Cf. 18.298-9.<br />
16 As a result, Demosthenes frequently upholds his own, purportedly trustworthy actions and reports as a<br />
foil to Aeschines’: cf. Dem. 19.15-16, 18, 33, 45-6, 150-2 with 155 and 157, 205-8, 211-12, 223, 229-30.<br />
In response, Aeschines takes a similar tack, foregrounding Demosthenes’ ties with Philip’s purported<br />
hireling Philocrates, while distancing himself from Philocrates: Aeschin. 2.14, 18, 54, 56, 63-6, 69; cf.<br />
3.58, 69, 79.<br />
17 Indeed, to further this aim the orator’s accusations repeatedly link Aeschines’ bribe-taking to purported<br />
instances of lying: because Aeschines was bribed, he lied in his reports to the Assembly, he lied about<br />
Philip’s intentions while giving advice to the people, and in this manner he committed the greatest<br />
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describing the resolution to the Third Sacred War, when on Aeschines’ advice the<br />
Phocians handed over their cities to Philip, Demosthenes stresses the trust placed in<br />
Aeschines when he was giving his policy recommendations:<br />
You hear that, men of Athens...‘the Phocians are to hand over their cities’, it says, ‘to<br />
Philip’—not to the Thebans, nor the Thessalians, nor anyone else. Why? Because it was<br />
reported to you by Aeschines that Philip had come for the preservation of Phocis. They<br />
put all their trust in Aeschines (tou&tw| dh_ pa&nt' e0pi/steuon); they were guided by him in<br />
all their considerations; they were guided by him in making peace....Notice how they<br />
trusted and how they suffered (ti/ pisteu&santej ti/ e1pasxon)...No more terrible or more<br />
serious events, men of Athens, have occurred in Greece in our time, nor I think in the past<br />
either. (Dem. 19.62-4)<br />
The Phocians placed their trust in the wrong man and subsequently were devastated by<br />
Philip (cf. Dem. 19.53). Nor were the Phocians the only ones who made the fatal mistake<br />
of trusting one of Philip’s secret hirelings. We saw earlier in the Third Philippic how the<br />
destruction of Olynthus provided a vivid paradigm for the havoc that Philip might wreak,<br />
so it is telling that when Demosthenes reprises the story in On the False Embassy, he<br />
specifically points towards the Olynthians’ foolishness in trusting corrupt speakers like<br />
Lasthenes and Euthycrates. Significantly, instead of pointing to just those two traitors by<br />
name, Demosthenes says that there were (at least) two more unnamed people who joined<br />
Philip’s side; in effect, the corruption was spreading. Even as more and more people<br />
inexplicably came upon more and more riches—and all to the disadvantage of the city—<br />
the Olynthians continued to follow their pro-Macedonian leaders, trusting in them even<br />
more (cf.pistote/rouj h(gh&santo), at times even honoring them and thereby bringing<br />
upon themselves their own demise (Dem. 19.265). 18<br />
conceivable wrong to the city (Dem. 19.184). His actions were “fine and trustworthy” (kalo\j ka)gaqo\j<br />
kai\ di/kaioj) only to his paymaster Philip; to the city they were nothing short of treason (Dem. 19.110).<br />
18 On Lasthenes and Euthycrates, cf. Dem. 8.40, 9.66, 18.48, 19.265, 19.342; Din. 1.26; Hyp. Fr. B19.1;<br />
Diod. 16.53.2; Griffith in Hammond and Griffith (1979: 2.323).<br />
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For Demosthenes, a disease (no/shma) was sweeping across Greece, infecting<br />
leaders and corrupting them to stir up civil strife within their cities. This stasis sprang<br />
from a partisan, self-interested desire by otherwise trusted citizens to gratify Philip by<br />
handing the city over to him (Dem. 19.259-67). 19 Corrupted under the guise of friendship<br />
(philia) with Philip, these traitors sought to satisfy their philos even if that meant<br />
destroying their polis (Dem. 19.259; cf. 18.51-2). 20 And if the destruction across the rest<br />
of Greece was any sort of guide, Demosthenes suggests, Athens was in trouble. Within<br />
her walls were veritable traitors: Philocrates (only just in exile), Aeschines, Phrynon,<br />
Pythocles—associates of Philip, all, and they were not alone. 21 Anybody who spoke in<br />
Aeschines’ defense, even if he were otherwise considered trustworthy, was implicitly<br />
acting in Philip’s, not Athens’ interests (Dem. 19.289). Demosthenes is unequivocal<br />
about the real source of danger to the polis: in Olynthus, Megara, or Elis, he claims,<br />
though doubtless numerous men pocketed public monies, they were not the ones who<br />
19 The image of stasis as a disease or nosos was commonplace: see Brock (2000), Kalimtzis (2000: esp. 1-<br />
31) for further treatments of this motif. Just to get a feel for how novel was Demosthenes’ picture of<br />
dōrodokia leading to stasis, it is worth comparing this passage with two others: the near-contemporary<br />
Third Philippic of Demosthenes himself (341) and Thucydides’ Histories, written some sixty years prior.<br />
In both Demosthenic texts, dōrodokia is seen as the root cause of stasis: because of dōrodokia, patriotic<br />
citizens turn traitorous (Dem. 9.36-40, 19.259), slavery is dressed in the garb of friendship (Dem. 9.36,<br />
19.259), while concord and virtue are traded for vice and faction (Dem. 9.39-40). Under the corrupting<br />
influence of dōrodokia, Demosthenes suggests, things have been turned into their opposites.<br />
It is precisely this alarming trend—where values are turned on their head—that is the hallmark of<br />
Thucydides’ description of the stasis that spread from Corcyra through all of Greece (Thuc. 3.82-4): “At<br />
their own will,” the historian writes, “men changed the customary meaning of words in relation to deeds”<br />
(Thuc. 3.82.4), for a brilliant explication of which see Loraux (1986b). Yet Thucydides attributes the stasis<br />
at Corcyra not to bribery, but to a greedy desire for power (archē) and an ardor for fighting once engaged in<br />
civil conflict (Thuc. 3.82.8). By contrast, Demosthenes underscores how people wanted to befriend Philip<br />
and thereby to win dōra from him—power is never mentioned, and it is altogether unclear that<br />
Demosthenes’ crop of traitors was interested more in power, which most did not obtain, than simply in<br />
dōra. In fact, Athenian bribery was rarely attributed to some excessive desire for power: von Reden<br />
(1995: 95, 103n.76). Thus, although the orator and historian paint the same terrifying picture of stasis,<br />
they differ greatly in illuminating its cause.<br />
20 Note how Aeschines’ corrupt counsel led the dēmos to vote for the Peace of Philocrates, which<br />
Demosthenes outright calls “dangerous, perilous and not to be trusted” (e0piki/ndunoj de\ kai\ sfalera_ kai\<br />
a1pistoj, Dem. 19.97).<br />
21 Phrynon: Dem. 19.189, 229-30. Pythocles: Dem. 19.225, 314; cf. 18.285. That there were still more<br />
traitors in Athens is suggested at Dem. 9.29, 9.39, 18.296-7.<br />
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sought to destroy their city; it was, instead, the partisans of Philip, his “guests and<br />
friends” (ce/noi kai\ fi/loi), citizens who actively abused the people’s trust in order to<br />
betray the city (Dem. 19.294-5; cf. 18.46, 19.248).<br />
No longer was the dōrodokos conceptualized primarily as a thief as he had been<br />
earlier in the century; nor was the dōrodokos a solitary individual like Timagoras a<br />
couple decades prior. 22 By 343, Demosthenes suggests, an entire network of traitors had<br />
become dōrodokoi, threatening the very security of the city; indeed, dōrodokia shattered<br />
the foundations of trust underlying the Athenian polis. The Athenians simply could not<br />
trust that all their leaders were trying to ensure the people’s safety (cf. Dem. 9.64); and<br />
when they did trust a leader, they often did not trust the right one (cf.ou1te pisteu&ein,<br />
Dem. 19.23). 23 In Demosthenes’ vision, the Timagorean model of bribery qua treason<br />
had been transposed into a new context in which the fear of imminent stasis gripped the<br />
polis and ever more distrust was brewing among the citizens. 24<br />
Demosthenes’ speech On the False Embassy reflects a notable shift from<br />
arguments based on logos, as espoused by the defendant in Lysias 21, to those steeped in<br />
ethos and pathos. In so doing, the orator’s narrative about Philip’s bribery brings to the<br />
fore an assumedly pervasive distrust among the citizens, a fear that seemingly<br />
trustworthy citizens had already sold the city’s interests—in other words, that stasis and<br />
22 In fact, Demosthenes compares his opponent to Timagoras three times, each time insinuating that he was<br />
a ‘bad friend’ like Timagoras: Dem. 19.191, 226, 248.<br />
23 Indeed, it was right around this time that the oracle at Dodona warned Athens to be wary of the conduct<br />
of her leaders and counselors, who might betray the city’s interests. On this oracle, see Dem. 18.253,<br />
19.297-9; Din. 1.78, 98; Parke (1967: 139-41). Cf. Aeschin. 3.130. Similar oracles from the Sibyl and<br />
Musaeus can be found in Pausanias 10.9.11, who attributes them, however, to the fifth century.<br />
24 Cf. Isoc. 4.114-17, 167-8. Likewise, in the Third Philippic, Demosthenes rails against how dōrodokia<br />
used to be punished, but now was commonplace and overturning the very concord (homonoia) that had<br />
held together the city ever since the overthrow of the Thirty (Dem. 9.38-9). Here, too, he refers to<br />
dōrodokia as a disease (cf. nenh/soken, Dem. 9.39). On the significance of homonoia as a prominent<br />
political slogan in the fourth-century Greek world, see especially de Romilly (1972), West (1977), Funke<br />
(1980).<br />
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constitutional change were well on their way. Not just another isolated Timagoras,<br />
Aeschines was emblematic of a larger class of ponēroi, lying rogues bought by Philip at<br />
the price of the city’s destruction and plotting the city’s demise from within (Dem.<br />
19.68). Accordingly, Demosthenes recommends that Aeschines be punished to serve as a<br />
lesson to all the current and would-be traitors in Athens (Dem. 19.231-2, 339-40, 343).<br />
Although we should be wary of taking any orator at his word, there appears to<br />
have been at least some truth to Demosthenes’ picture of stasis and pervasive distrust. 25<br />
Indeed, after the conclusion of the Social War in 355—and only two years after Philip<br />
had taken Pydna and Amphipolis—amid considerable anxieties over financial recovery,<br />
Athens was especially vulnerable to the threat of stasis. For one, Philip’s imposing<br />
presence in the Aegean was a direct threat to Athens’ interests in securing grain from<br />
Thrace. 26 As a result, Athens’ use of a select few citizens to handle relations with the<br />
Spartacid Kings in Thrace—and thereby to secure favorable trade terms—became a risky<br />
endeavor, it was thought, for those few elites might easily be corrupted by the enemy to<br />
divert the grain elsewhere. 27 What is more, the Social War and, with it, the demise of the<br />
25<br />
As Plato’s intense focus on stasis would suggest. So, for instance, Rep. 4.422e-423a remarks, “Any<br />
state, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the state of the poor, the other the state of the rich.”<br />
On fourth-century Athenians’ preoccupation with stasis, see further Fuks (1972, 1977, 1979), de Ste. Croix<br />
(1981: 69-80), Brock (2000: 27-30), Kalimtzis (2000: 15-31). Similarly, Aeneas Tacticus’ manual on<br />
siegecraft (350’s) is rife with concerns that the polis might be attacked by its own citizens: e.g. Aen. Tact.<br />
10.20, 14.1, 17.1, 22.21. Cf. Whitehead (1990: 25-33). Note how when the League of Corinth was formed<br />
in 337, there was a clause explicitly aimed at preventing constitutional subversion: Tod 177.12-14; cf.<br />
[Dem.] 17.5, 12, 15.<br />
26<br />
See Oliver (2007: 43-4) on the successful threat Philip posed to Athen’s ability to police maritime trade<br />
in the 340’s and 330’s.<br />
27<br />
Beginning in the late fifth and early fourth centuries, ties between the Spartacids and traders in the<br />
Bosporan region were notoriously close: traders were given tax breaks and priority in loading their cargo<br />
(Dem. 20.31-2), as well as ateleia at the emporion at Theodosia (Dem. 20.33); Bosporan elites were<br />
educated at Athenian schools (Isoc. 17.4, 15.224); and Athenian elites regularly spoke in favor of awarding<br />
Bosporan elites statues and public honors (Gauthier [1985: 156-7]; Oliver [2007: 23]). Moreno (2007:<br />
175-9) provides an exhaustive treatment. Concerns about corruption and the grain trade were thus<br />
pronounced—Lysias 22 is a classic early example of fears in this area—but ultimately these did not include<br />
fears of treason. Whereas the grain-dealers in Lysias 22 might be castigated for trying to harm the dēmos<br />
(Lys. 22.14-15) and even for colluding to get rich (Lys. 22.20), they were not suspected of trying to<br />
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Second Athenian League only demonstrated how infeasible empire was in the mid-fourth<br />
century. No longer, then, could the Athenians even hope to gain public revenues from<br />
external League monies; instead, they once again had to look to within their community<br />
to raise public monies. 28<br />
On two different fronts the city’s internal financial reorganization likely<br />
problematized the bonds of trust between citizens. First, anxieties over elite defection<br />
only increased as the public treasury relied still more on their involvement in raising<br />
public revenues, in terms of both providing and managing the city’s revenues. We saw in<br />
the last chapter how concerns over gaining a specific amount of revenue prompted the<br />
creation of the symmories, or groups of citizens responsible for paying the cost of the<br />
eisphora tax during war. Likewise, in the 360’s these same symmory groups probably<br />
became the basis for paying the costs and upkeep of naval warships (triērarchia), as<br />
well. 29 By the 350’s, both liturgies, crucial for the defense of the city, acquired new<br />
prominence as the most critical—and hence the most honorable—financial contributions<br />
to the city. 30<br />
overthrow the democracy. In this sense, the fears surrounding their dealings were wholly analogous to<br />
those leveled against the purported dōrodokoi of Lysias 27-9 analyzed in the previous chapter: cf. Moreno<br />
(2007: 222).<br />
With the emergence of Philip, however, there was a tangible threat that an enemy might affect the<br />
provision of grain—and it was here, in the combination with Philip, that fears of stasis emerged. At this<br />
time, wheat became synonymous with bribery from Athens’ enemies—e.g. Dem. 19.114, 19.145; Din.<br />
1.43—as the reliance on only a handful of individuals thus became a major security issue for the Athenians.<br />
Cf. [Dem.] 34.47, 42.20; Oliver (2007: 41-4).<br />
28 See especially Cawkwell (1981: 40-55), Hakkarainen (1997: 4-8) on this conceptual shift; this idea<br />
features prominently in Isocrates’ On the Peace (esp. Isoc. 8. 19-21) and Xenophon’s Ways and Means, cf.<br />
Rh. Al. 1446b19-21.<br />
29 Whether or not the eisphora and triērarchia were collected through the same symmory groups is still a<br />
matter of debate: see, for example, Ruschenbusch (1978: 275-84) for, MacDowell (1990: 372-3) against.<br />
30 Demosthenes’ speech against Leptines in defense of rewarding military liturgists with exemption from<br />
festival liturgies (ateleia), is a locus classicus for emphasizing the importance of military liturgies over and<br />
above festival liturgies: Dem. 20, 21.160, cf. Lyc. 1.139 with Hakkarainen (1997: 14-19).<br />
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Once the polis had acquired these revenues, they had to be managed for the<br />
community’s benefit. One marked difference around this time is how public monies were<br />
concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. Through the middle part of the century we find<br />
a shift from disbursement of all funds by approval of the Assembly to the creation of an<br />
‘allocation’, or merismos, to specific officials to be used as needed within their own<br />
domain. 31 Simultaneously, the domain of the Theoric board, created or at least heavily<br />
reorganized in the 350’s, grew considerably over a period of a few decades until it<br />
encompassed the construction and maintenance of public buildings, certain religious cults<br />
and festivals, and even war and defense policy. 32 It, too, was managed by citizens elected<br />
to the Theoric board, not by the Assembly as a whole. 33 With both the collection and<br />
management of the polis’ revenues, therefore, increasing dependence on elite<br />
involvement—and especially elite goodwill—could have amplified fears that elites might<br />
defect. 34<br />
31 Cf. IG ii/iii 2 29 (386 BCE), IG ii/iii 2 223 B, 226 (both dated to 343/2 BCE), AP 48.2, Arist. Pol.<br />
1321b31. On the growing use of the merismos in public finances, see especially Rhodes (1980: 309-15),<br />
Hakkarainen (1997: 5-6).<br />
32 See, for example, Cawkwell (1963: 56-7), Hakkarainen (1997: 6-7); the fund itself was called the<br />
‘common administration of finances’ (koinh\ dioi/khsij, Aeschin. 2.149). Theoric handouts to citizens:<br />
Theopomp. FGrH 115 F 99, schol. ad Dem. 10.11 (=Dind. 203.21). Building programme: Din. 1.96,<br />
schol. ad Dem. 3.29 (=Dind. 133). Our sources seem to confuse the origin of the Theoric Fund with earlier<br />
monies to citizens: e.g. Pericles’ misthophoria and jury pay (cf. Plut. Per. 9) or Agyrrhius’ provision of<br />
pay or Assembly attendance (cf. Hesych. s.v. draxmh\ xalazw=sa). While some scholars have thus<br />
assumed that the Theoric fund had existed long before Eubulus in the 350’s and 340’s—e.g. Jacoby (ad<br />
Philochorus FGrH 328 F 33), see further citations in Cawkwell (1963: 55n.53)—I view these as<br />
anachronistic references to institutions that performed a similar kind of function: see Ruschenbusch (1979)<br />
for a cogent argument in favor of Eubulus’ creation of the Theoric fund.<br />
33 Cawkwell (1963: 58-9). On the election of the Theoric commission, see AP 43.1.<br />
34 Hakkarainen (1997: 14-19) perceptively points out that around this time elite contributions became more<br />
regularly rewarded with charis from the community, that is, that a formal system of reciprocal exchanges<br />
emerged: see further Whitehead (1983) on the central importance of philotimia as a civic pursuit at this<br />
time. I will take up this idea in the next section, but for now it is worth pointing out that one reason why<br />
the provision of charis became regularized was that it needed to be: without the guarantee of charis in the<br />
form of public honors, elites very well may have defected. In this way, the institutionalization of an<br />
explicitly reciprocal relationship between elites and the community could have stemmed from heightened<br />
anxieties over elite defection.<br />
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Such fears implicated the relationship between elites and other citizens, but there<br />
is evidence that Athens’ financial reforms problematized the relationship between<br />
citizens and foreigners, as well. During the Social War, a number of slaves and metics<br />
had deserted the city, thereby significantly reducing the city’s commercial revenues and<br />
the taxes they accrued (Isoc. 8.20-21). As a result, one major focus of Athens’ financial<br />
recovery in this period was on fostering commercial trade. So the Athenians tried to<br />
entice metics to return to the city, facilitated trade through the creation of commercial<br />
courts, and even naturalized metic bankers so that they would remain in Athens. 35<br />
Crucially, these efforts at boosting commercial trade destabilized traditional<br />
categories of civic status, in effect blurring the lines between citizens and others and<br />
thereby diluting the content of civic ties among citizens. Metics were enticed to return in<br />
large part by the grant of enktēsis, or the citizen right to possess property within the<br />
polis. 36 Similarly, the commercial courts granted what was essentially a citizen right—to<br />
defend oneself or prosecute another before an Athenian jury—to foreigners; indeed, a<br />
number of bankers at this time were actually granted citizen status. 37 In both cases,<br />
traditional boundaries between citizen and non-citizen were blurred. 38 It is important<br />
here that the space in which this occurred, the Piraeus port, was heavily commercialized,<br />
35<br />
In his Ways and Means, Xenophon explicitly recommends bringing back metics (Xen. P. 2.1-7), creating<br />
facilities and hostels to promote trade (Xen. P. 3.12-13; cf. Din. 1.96), and creating commercial courts dikai<br />
emporikai (Xen. P. 3.3) on which see [Dem.] 7.12, AP 59.5, Pollux. 8.63 and Cohen (1973: 59-74),<br />
Vélissaropoulus (1980: 241-5). Additionally, Xenophon recommends creating a board of ei)rhnofu/lakej<br />
to make the city more attractive to trade (Xen. P. 5.1); such an idea may very well have underpinned the<br />
creation of the Theoric Commission.<br />
36<br />
Pečirka (1962: 152-60) collects the sources; see also Burke (2002: 182).<br />
37<br />
Cohen (1973: 59-74) on the maritime courts, Osborne (1981-3: 194-9, 210-15) on the naturalization of<br />
bankers.<br />
38<br />
Most forcefully argued by Burke (2002: 182-3). On the marked distinctions between citizens and metics<br />
in Athenian civic ideology, Whitehead (1977) is foundational; recently, Kostas Vlassopoulos (2007) has<br />
argued that these boundaries were far more blurry in reality than our literary sources would suggest—cf.<br />
Hagemajer Allen (2003) for a similar conclusion reached from a different approach—but accepting his<br />
view does not preclude constant contestation and problematization of those same boundaries.<br />
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meaning that the content of pre-existing social ties among citizens in that space would<br />
have already been diluted to something closer to an arms-length tie. Within that context,<br />
interactions between citizens and non-citizens would have been virtually identical, the<br />
civic bond linking two citizens and the trust it engendered thus diminished. 39<br />
We have good reasons to think, therefore, that citizens really were more anxious<br />
about the civic bonds of community at this time. As a result, what had earlier been<br />
conceptualized as a socio-economic class of elite rogues plundering the city’s resources<br />
was now envisioned as an amorphous and omnipresent group of pro-Macedonian elites;<br />
political, not socio-economic, affiliations were now key. This conceptual frame for the<br />
dōrodokos was a potent one in the 340’s and 330’s and was frequently used to<br />
delegitimize public speakers and their policies. Time and again, an orator labeled his<br />
opponents pro-Macedonians or outright cronies on Philip’s payroll in order to cast doubt<br />
upon their policies and actions. So, in 341 Demosthenes insinuated that anyone who was<br />
in favor of peace with Philip was receiving payment (misthos) from the Macedonian; and<br />
in 330, Aeschines and Demosthenes traded barbs, each claiming that the other was a<br />
traitorous hireling of Philip. 40 Similarly, around 338 Hyperides’ speech against<br />
Philippides revolved around the claim that certain public officials whom Philippides had<br />
proposed be honored were, in fact, Macedonian sympathizers. Moreover, Hyperides<br />
claims, they had taken bribes to honor either Philip, certain Macedonians, or even some<br />
pro-Macedonian Athenians. 41<br />
39 See further Karayiannis and Hatzis (2007: 9).<br />
40 Demosthenes asserts that all pro-Macedonians were hired by Philip: Dem. 8.53. Cf. Dem. 6.32, 6.34,<br />
8.61, 8.66, 9.9. Aeschines on Demosthenes: Aeschin. 3. 58, 66, 81, 167, 170, 173, 209, 226, cf. 3. 239-40<br />
and Dem. 18.82, 103-4, 107, 19.222. Demosthenes on Aeschines: Dem. 18.28, 31-3, 36, 42, 44, 45-9, 50-<br />
1, 51-2, 131, 149, 236, 284, 296, 298-9, 307, 320.<br />
41 Hyperides 2: see especially fragments 15a and 15b for the accusation that the officials were traitors who<br />
had taken money from some Macedonian source. Similarly, Din. 1.10, 18-21, 70 with Worthington (1992:<br />
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This narrative of dōrodokia was used to delegitimize opponents even in<br />
unexpected situations. In one fascinating case from the early 320’s, known from<br />
Hyperides’ speech On Behalf of Euxenippus, the defendant Euxenippus was prosecuted<br />
for speaking publicly against Athens’ interests after taking a bribe. 42 As the narrative<br />
goes, after sacking Thebes in 336, Alexander the Great gave Athens the territory in<br />
neighboring Oropus, where there was a shrine to the local deity Amphiaraus. Athens<br />
divided the territory into five regions, one for every two tribes. There was a problem<br />
with the division, however, as the area surrounding the shrine to Amphiaraus—area<br />
which had been consigned to two of the tribes—was thought to belong to the god and<br />
therefore could not be divvied up for those tribes (cf. Hyp. 4.16). So Euxenippus and two<br />
other Athenians were sent to sleep in Amphiaraus’ shrine, that they might have a<br />
prophetic dream from the god about who owned the land (Hyp. 4.15-18). Euxenippus<br />
reported that the land belonged to the god, whereupon one Polyeuctus proposed that the<br />
two tribes be compensated for being deprived of the land. He was immediately tried and<br />
convicted for proposing a contradictory law (graphē paranomōn, cf. Hyp. 4.15), after<br />
139-43 ad 1.10); Diod. 17.4.8, [Plut.] X. Or. 848a. In his speech Against Ctesiphon (Aeschines 3),<br />
Aeschines plays off this common accusation of treasonous bribe-taking when describing Demosthenes’<br />
dealings with the Persian King (Aeschin. 3.238-40). Although the King had initially refused to send any<br />
gold to Athens, in 336 he sent 300 talents to win the city as an ally, a gift which the Athenians refused to<br />
accept. Still, Demosthenes purportedly ended up pocketing 70 talents of that money, probably as an<br />
inducement to persuade Athens to ally with Persia. Here, rather than accuse Demosthenes of having simply<br />
taken money against Athens’ interests, Aeschines claims that Demosthenes took the King’s money and<br />
committed treason by refusing to spend even 10 talents to help Athens’ ally Thebes fight against<br />
Alexander. Demosthenes’ inaction resulted in Thebes’ destruction; for this reason, Aeschines suggests,<br />
Demosthenes was a danger to Athens (Aeschin. 3.24). Dinarchus and Hyperides, too, later call<br />
Demosthenes a traitor for the same reason: Din. 1.10, 1.15, 1.18-21, 1.24, 1.26; Hyp. 5.17, 5.21.<br />
42 Hyperides quotes the charge from the nomos eisangeltikos, under which Euxenippus was prosecuted:<br />
Hyp. 4.1-2, 4-10, 27-30, 38-9. For the wording of this law, see Hansen (1975: 12), Whitehead (2000:<br />
187-9 ad 4.8).<br />
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which he retaliated by prosecuting Euxenippus on the grounds that he had been bribed to<br />
misreport his dream and to speak against the interests of the city (Hyp. 4.30, 39). 43<br />
What is remarkable about this case is that Polyeuctus accuses Euxenippus of<br />
taking bribes not from the enemy (i.e. Alexander), but from other Athenians. Hyperides<br />
underscores the paradox of the prosecution’s claims: how could Euxenippus have been<br />
bribed to speak against Athens’ interests if he was receiving bribes from other Athenians?<br />
Though we lack Polyeuctus’ speech, we can piece together a tentative answer.<br />
Apparently, his prosecution depicted Euxenippus as a Macedonian “toady” (ko/laka,<br />
Hyp. 4.20; cf. kolakei/a, 4.19, 23), one who had already committed treason by doing<br />
favors for Alexander’s mother Olympias. Moreover, Polyeuctus seems to have claimed<br />
that Euxenippus had been bribed by traitors within Athens, people who were acting<br />
against the dēmos (u(penanti/a pra/ttontaj tw| = dh/mw|, Hyp. 4.39), that is, other pro-<br />
Macedonians.<br />
Though at first glance this case seems to be about Athenian internal affairs—how<br />
the tribes were to distribute the land in Oropus—the narrative framework of Polyeuctus’<br />
prosecution speech actually shared much with the Demosthenic narrative examined<br />
above. Euxenippus’ purported dōrodokia was readily explained through reference to a<br />
network of pro-Macedonian conspirators within the city. Although Hyperides<br />
masterfully illuminates the seemingly tortured logic of Polyeuctus’ case, it is significant<br />
that Polyeuctus, like Demosthenes before him, understood Euxenippus’ purported<br />
dōrodokia as the act of a traitor plotting with the enemy from within the city’s walls.<br />
Philip and Beyond: dōrodokia as a Threat to the Democracy:<br />
43 See further Whitehead (2000: 153-61) on the historical background to this speech.<br />
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Of course, not all instances of dōrodokia were explained as the machinations of a<br />
pro-Macedonian faction plotting against the city. Unsurprisingly, in fact, most cases of<br />
dōrodokia involving domestic issues were not filtered through a Macedonian lens; it is<br />
striking, though, that narratives about domestic dōrodokia nevertheless were shaped by a<br />
similar anxiety over the fate of the democracy. As suggested by a number of dramatic<br />
changes at this time—including moving the location of treason trials (eisangelia) from<br />
the Assembly to the lawcourts, granting the Areopagus Court authority to investigate<br />
potential crimes against the state, and renewing an anti-tyranny law (337/6)—many<br />
Athenians believed that the democracy was in danger and only the laws could save the<br />
city from ruin. 44 Even if Macedon was not considered the specific source of danger, the<br />
threat of stasis was thought to be only growing.<br />
Demosthenes’ sensational portrait of Philip’s dōrodokoi in fact points to deeper<br />
structural problems in the democracy in the last half of the fourth century. As we will<br />
examine in this last section, the persistent fear of citizen defection thus shaped the<br />
development of a second, related picture of the dōrodokos who was again likened to a<br />
traitor, but of a somewhat different sort. This time he was thought of not as a<br />
Macedonian hireling, but as a dangerous citizen who rejected the rewards of democracy,<br />
thereby betraying the people, the laws, and even the democracy itself. In this way, the<br />
figure of the dōrodokos continued to be used in a range of domestic scenes, as well, to<br />
think through what ‘democratic’ politics should look like.<br />
44 Eisangelia: Hansen (1975: esp. 53-5), Rhodes (1979: 108). Areopagus: For changes to the Areopagus<br />
at this time, see especially Wallace (1989: 131ff.). Following Chaeronea, the Areopagus was granted the<br />
power to sentence to death anyone who left the city: under this aegis Leocrates was prosecuted (Lyc. 1.52,<br />
53), but the court also seems to have prosecuted others as well (e.g. Aeschin. 3.252). Anti-tyranny law:<br />
SEG 12.87; Ostwald (1955: esp. 119-28), Mossé (1970), Teegarden (2007: 104-40). In addition to these<br />
institutional changes, it appears that at this time the eisangelia procedure for treason or overthrowing the<br />
democracy was increasingly exploited even in trivial cases: Hyp. 4.1-3; cf. Hansen (1975: 29-31), Todd<br />
(1993: 114).<br />
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By the measure of any contemporary account, the Athenians had cause for<br />
concern in the 330’s, an especially volatile time for Athenian foreign relations. By 340,<br />
Athens and Macedon had openly broken the Peace of Philocrates and renewed hostilities.<br />
Philip appeared to be on the move yet again, and a coalition of Greek forces was<br />
marshaled to stop him. But the Greek side was outmatched, and the resultant battle at<br />
Chaeronea in 338 was an unqualified disaster for Athens and her allies: Philip won<br />
decisively and assumed control over Greek affairs, a hegemonic position which he<br />
institutionalized the next year as leader of the panhellenic League of Corinth; the Second<br />
Athenian League was dissolved.<br />
Not surprisingly, Chaeronea sent shockwaves through Athens. Even though a<br />
number of Athenians were resistant to the League of Corinth—largely because Philip<br />
appeared to be treading on the autonomy of Greek poleis—the battle at Chaeronea had<br />
demonstrated that nothing much could be done with Philip still at the Macedonian helm.<br />
In 336, however, anti-Macedonian proponents saw their chance when Philip was<br />
assassinated. There was a series of revolts, but again it was not enough. Philip’s son,<br />
Alexander the Great, quickly suppressed the revolutions, and decisively so (Diod.<br />
17.4.4). The following year, when Thebes again tried to muster some form of resistance,<br />
Alexander razed the city and enslaved some 30,000 of its citizens (Diod. 17.8. 3-14.1,<br />
Arr. 1.7.1-8.8, Plut. Dem. 23.1). After Thebes’ obliteration, direct resistance to Macedon<br />
was essentially a dead letter. 45<br />
45 Sealey (1993: 194-205), Habicht (1997: 11-22), Ryder (2000: 78-84), Worthington (2000b: 90-9).<br />
Sparta’s subsequent attempt at a coup resulted in a heavy defeat in 330. As Worthington (2000b: 94)<br />
astutely remarks, calling for resistance to Macedon at that time would not have been a winning rhetorical<br />
strategy in large part because Alexander had left for the East soon after the sack of Thebes. Unlike Philip,<br />
who had maintained a near constant presence in Greece for decades, Alexander was a manifestly more<br />
distant threat.<br />
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Throughout this tumultuous period, there was a considerable tension brewing<br />
among Athens’ citizens, as some seemed to acquiesce to the Macedonian hegemony<br />
while others grew only more restless, awaiting the right moment to score some<br />
advantage, however small. The divided citizen body fragmented the democracy, and in<br />
the 330’s we find some hints that Athenians feared that Philip or Alexander would install<br />
a tyranny at Athens. 46 At the same time there was an acute focus on Demokratia, the<br />
abstract embodiment of the Athenian democracy. In 333/2, for instance, a statue of<br />
Demokratia was set up, and later the generals for the year made sacrifices to<br />
Demokratia. 47 Contemporary authors appeared newly intent on determining the essence<br />
of the Athenian democracy, and discussions about the patrios politeia, or ancestral<br />
constitution, were common. 48 As a direct result of these concerns, the authority of the<br />
Areopagus court only increased, taking on new powers of investigation (apophasis) and<br />
reclaiming its ancient status as ‘guardian of the laws’ and the democracy; and this was<br />
but part of a broader shift after the Social War towards more centralized administration. 49<br />
46 Cf. [Dem.] 17.14, Hyp. 2fr.1. Hence, Ostwald (1955: 123-5) and Teegarden (2007: 109-15) tie<br />
Eukrates’ law against tyranny and subversion of the dēmos to anti-Macedonian sentiment. In response,<br />
Mossé (1970) paints too one-sided a view of Athenian politics in the 330’s: granted, anti-Macedonian<br />
sentiment would not have been prudent after Chaeronea, but resentment of Macedonian control was not<br />
mere rhetoric; one wonders, after all, why a jury would have so overwhelmingly voted in Demosthenes’<br />
favor at Ctesiphon’s trial if Demosthenes’ political views were marginal. Although Sealey (1958) is right to<br />
point out the potentially ad hominem spirit of the law, he too is unconvincing in wholly removing its<br />
Macedonian dimension. That said, it is enough for our purposes simply that the law was part of the<br />
period’s back-and-forth political battles.<br />
47 A base from the statue has been found: IG ii² 2791. Sacrifices: IG ii² 1496.131-2, 140-1. Similarly,<br />
Euphranor of Isthmia was known to have done a wall a painting in the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios with<br />
representations of Demos and Demokratia together with Athens’ legendary founder Theseus (Paus. 1.3.3-<br />
4), and the anti-tyranny decree of 337/6 was inscribed beneath a depiction of Demokratia crowning the<br />
Demos. For these contemporary actions and more on behalf of Demokratia, Raubitschek (1962) remains<br />
foundational.<br />
48 E.g. [Dem] 59.75-7; Isoc. 12.143-8; Lyc. 1 passim. Ruschenbusch (1958: esp. 399-408 on the Solonian<br />
Consitution), Mossé (1978), Hansen (1989). For a thorough review of Demosthenes’ conception of the<br />
patrios politeia, see Witte (1995).<br />
49 In the late 350’s or 340’s the Areopagus was granted additional powers to draft a public report (called an<br />
apophasis) concerning suspected acts of treason: cf. Din. 1.50. On the apophasis procedure and its<br />
significance, see Carawan (1985), Wallace (1989: 113-9), Worthington (1992: 357-62), de Bruyn (1995:<br />
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Significantly, therefore, the Athenians’ response to the suspected threat of stasis in the<br />
340’s and 330’s focused on Athens’ laws, institutions, and political constitution as<br />
embodiments of the democracy itself. 50 As we will see, it was this new symbolic<br />
embodiment of the polis which was under attack by the dōrodokos.<br />
In particular, more than ever before the Athenians weighed the monies of<br />
dōrodokia against the currency of civic contributions and public honors. Certainly by the<br />
middle of the fourth century, it had been well-established that financial contributions by<br />
the wealthy were an essential part of the democracy: no longer did the city have an<br />
empire of allied states contributing a tribute, and, as we saw above, the city’s financial<br />
recovery in the 350’s and 340’s was predicated to a large extent on considerable elite<br />
involvement. 51 Above and beyond mere financial importance, however, the good works<br />
of elite citizens played a vital symbolic role within the polis as well. While Athens’ other<br />
117-20), and most recently Sullivan (2003). A number of contemporary sources discuss the Areopagus’<br />
role in the democracy: e.g. Isoc. 7 passim; Din. 1.5, 6, 9, 54-9, 62; Dem. 18.133-4; de Bruyn (1995: 155-<br />
61) and, on legal attacks against the Areopagus, Sealey (1958: 72-3).<br />
50 Indeed, that the laws, not the people, were sovereign was commonly pointed out in this period: cf.<br />
Aeschin. 1.4-5, 3.6, 3.169; Dem. 21. 223-5, 23.73, 22.46, 24.5, 24.75-6, 24.118, 25.20-1, 57.56; Lyc. 1.3-4;<br />
Din. 3.16; Hyp. 4.5. Hansen (1975: 48; 1990b: 239-42), Ostwald (1986: 497), Ober (1989: 299-304);<br />
Lanni (forthcoming) reminds, however, that this was as much a rhetorical claim as a reality, that the law<br />
was subordinated to judgments of the people in numerous ways. For the laws and the judicial system as the<br />
democracy’s safeguard, see especially Aeschin. 3.6, 3.169, 3.196; Lyc. 1.3-4, fr. 70; Dem. 24.156, 24.216<br />
with Allen (2000: 180-3). In this light, it is perhaps unsurprising to find that, in two cases of attempted<br />
overthrow of the democracy, the prosecutor claims that the defendant had simply broken the law, but that,<br />
because the laws embodied the democracy, his action had infringed upon the constitution, as well: the two<br />
cases involved Lycophron (Hyp. 1 fr. 4a.12, Lyc. fr. 70) and Diognides (Hyp. 3.3)<br />
51 On this point, it is crucial that the allied contributions to the Second Athenian League were termed a<br />
syntaxis (contribution) instead of phoros (tribute) precisely because the word phoros carried such pejorative<br />
connotations from the fifth century: IG ii² 45.21-2; Harpocration s.v. su/ntacij; cf. Dreher (1995: 59-60).<br />
More importantly, as IG ii² 123.11-12 indicates, the allied syntaxeis were to be controlled by the synedrion<br />
of the League, not by the Athenian dēmos. Unlike with the tribute, the democracy’s administrative<br />
expenses simply were not alleviated by the League’s contributions: Davies (1978: 224), Cargill (1981:<br />
124-7), de Ste Croix (1981: 293), Dreher (1995: 79-80). For Athens’ general financial woes during the<br />
fourth century, see especially de Ste Croix (1981: 607n.37). Concerning, specifically, the depletion of the<br />
treasury after the Social War, Dem. 10.77 remarks that the city’s total post-war revenues were a mere 130<br />
talents. Within ten years, however, this number was up to 400 talents (Dem. 10.37-9; Theopomp. FGrH<br />
115 F 166). Accordingly, much of Eubulus’ policy at the time was directed at generating domestic<br />
revenues through leasing the mines, maintaining foreign interests (especially in the Chersonese), and using<br />
private monies in public works: on these fiscal policy changes, Cawkwell (1963) and recently Burke<br />
(2002: esp. 171-5; 181-2).<br />
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efforts at financial recovery effectively destabilized the status boundaries between citizen<br />
and non-citizen—granting to non-citizens what had been citizen privileges in exchange<br />
for the financial boon they provided the city—the civic honor inherent in being a citizen<br />
was reinscribed in the monies that citizens provided the community. This amplified the<br />
symbolic value of those monies so that they became metaphors for a citizen’s loyalty to<br />
the polis; indeed, they were emblematic of a citizen’s trustworthiness, as well.<br />
As wealthy citizens contributed (financially or otherwise) to the community,<br />
increasingly during this period they were publicly honored for doing so. Just as in<br />
general during the mid-fourth century we see a roughly two-thirds increase in the number<br />
of extant public inscriptions, around the 350’s and 340’s we find an explosion in<br />
epigraphic sources recording public honors awarded an official for doing his job well. 52<br />
As Lambert (2004: 86) reminds, “it is clear that decrees honoring Athenians were not a<br />
wholly new phenomenon in the 340’s; it was the regular inscribing of the decrees by the<br />
city that was new.”<br />
Indeed, that civic honors were a privileged currency in the polis is an idea familiar<br />
from Chapter 2, where we saw how in the fifth century the dēmos’ authority to distribute<br />
public honors intimately shaped attitudes towards dōrodokia. Yet in the fifth century,<br />
these public honors were awarded infrequently in comparison to the regular provision of<br />
wage or misthos—itself also a symbolic reward—for a range of public officials. 53 By<br />
contrast, in the fourth century, our evidence for a similar misthos is scarce; it appears,<br />
instead, that magistrates were not provided a ‘wage’ which also doubled as a symbolic<br />
52 Hedrick (1999: 392 with discussion at 391-3). Of the more than 250 inscriptions honoring Athenian<br />
citizens during the democracy, none pre-date the 350’s: for fuller discussion, see Lambert (2004: 85-6).<br />
53 Detailed extensively in Domingo Gygax (forthcoming); see also Gauthier (1985).<br />
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token of gratitude. 54 Rather, the dēmos and local deme assemblies increasingly turned to<br />
dispensing symbolic honors for magistrates and private citizens alike: crowns of olive<br />
and gold, civic privileges, and public inscriptions commemorating the award of these<br />
honors. 55<br />
Not only were these honorific inscriptions more prevalent from the middle of the<br />
fourth century, but, crucially, they were also more specific in how they praised an<br />
honorand. For instance, honorific decrees shifted from naming a citizen solely by name<br />
to regularly including the names of his father and deme as well. 56 In the 360’s the<br />
Assembly and deme assemblies began to describe an honorand’s achievements and<br />
services more elaborately, employing a range of ‘cardinal virtues’ to characterize the<br />
public works and the honorand. 57 As David Whitehead has compellingly demonstrated,<br />
54<br />
Whether or not there was pay for public office in the fourth century is a vexed issue among ancient<br />
historians. Although it does not significantly affect my argument, I side with Hansen (1979, 1980), who<br />
claims, largely based on the silence of our sources, that after 411 there was no systematic misthos (“wage”)<br />
for public officials. At the deme level, this is surely correct, as Whitehead (1986: 161) points out; and<br />
epigraphic sources confirm that ambassadors were regularly paid a misthos of 20 drachmas, but only upon<br />
successful completion of their objectives, meaning the payment itself was not so much compensation as a<br />
token of gratitude: IG ii² 102.10-13 (c. 370), 124.12-18 (375/6), 264.9-12 (before 336/5).<br />
The opposite viewpoint has been championed most vigorously by Gabrielsen (1981) and<br />
supported by Rhodes (1981: 691-5), but the lynchpin in Gabrielsen’s argument, Aristotle’s Ath. Pol. 42.3<br />
and 62.2, states only that the nine archons and certain other officials received payments for “maintenance”<br />
(trophē or sitēsis), not a general, all-purpose “wage,” as misthos more regularly connotes: cf. MacDowell<br />
(1983: 75-6) pace Gabrielsen (1981: 67-81), and von Reden (1995a: 89-92) on misthos. Again,<br />
Gabrielsen (1981: 118-19) erroneously assumes that, because the masses frequently (he suggests almost<br />
exclusively) occupied lotteried public positions, they must have been remunerated or else they never would<br />
have chosen to enter office. Yet this premise is contradicted by the fact that every year hundreds of<br />
citizens—including those from lower social strata—spent a number of months serving as chorus members<br />
(chōreutai) in the city’s major festivals. Significantly, these citizens, like most public officials according to<br />
Hansen, received only the provision of meals as ‘remuneration’. In a city with a remarkably strong ethos of<br />
civic participation, it is not inconceivable that poorer citizens would have opted to run for public office,<br />
even without ‘compensation’, once or twice in their lifetime. After all, as Gauthier (1985: 118-9) reminds,<br />
political office was fundamentally an honor (timē).<br />
55<br />
Henry (1983: 22-42; 241-6; 262-78) catalogues the awarding of crowns, exemption from taxes (ateleia),<br />
and public dining, respectively.<br />
56<br />
This development continued well through the democracy to the point that at the end of the fourth century<br />
there emerged detailed relative clauses which still more specifically described the honorand: Henry (1983:<br />
10-11).<br />
57<br />
Naming: Henry (1983: 13). Elaboration in 360’s: Whitehead (1983: 61); cf. Henry (1983: 42-3).<br />
Cardinal virtues: Whitehead (1983; 1993: esp. 52-7, 67-72) on the division between general, all-purpose<br />
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by the middle of our period, in the 340’s, words cognate with philotimia (“love of<br />
pursuing honor”) “were integral to the language of achievement and reward in all<br />
Athenian honorific decrees.” 58 By the mid-fourth century, then, specifically identified<br />
citizens were regularly given specific rewards for specific actions in office. The honor a<br />
citizen won through exchanging goods with the community was more closely identified<br />
with the citizen himself. It thereby commemorated his trusted standing within the polis.<br />
Accordingly, the preponderance of civic honors for citizens and misthos for public<br />
office appears to have switched from the fifth to the fourth centuries, and by the time of<br />
the last few decades of the democracy, it was the currency of symbolic honors that was<br />
most highly prized. Simultaneous with this shift towards the more regular award of civic<br />
honors, citizens counted more and more on receiving some sort of regular, institutional<br />
recognition for jobs or services performed well. In other words, by the middle of the<br />
fourth century, just as much as services, liturgies, and public outlays from citizens had<br />
become essential for the democracy to function, the civic honors these citizens received<br />
had become a necessary inducement for their participation in the system. 59<br />
If in fact there was no regular misthos for public office, these honors had become<br />
the only formal reward for services to the community; and even if there were pay for<br />
office, the currency of honors awarded by the dēmos was manifestly more valued than<br />
cardinal virtues and those that describe more specific actions or attitudes; and, more generally on the<br />
language of fourth-century public honors, Veligianni-Terzi (1997: 165-227).<br />
58 Whitehead (1983: 62, emphasis retained). Similarly, Hedrick (1999: 422-3, catalogued at 434-5) notes<br />
that the incidence of the disclosure formula OPWS AN FILOTIMWNTAI (“so that [others] engage in the<br />
pursuit of timē”) is heavily concentrated in inscriptions dated to around the mid-fourth century. Of 40<br />
occurrences in the corpus of Athenian honorific decrees, he tallies, 29 date to the fourth century, and 16<br />
come from the 330’s. Cf. Whitehead (1983: 63-4).<br />
59 See further Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 284-91).<br />
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any ‘wage’ provided. 60 While wealthy citizens on trial frequently cited their public<br />
works in the hopes of receiving favorable treatment from a jury, an informal reward of<br />
this kind was at best irregularly awarded and hence could not be counted on. By contrast,<br />
civic honors voted by the dēmos and by deme assemblies had become symbolic<br />
cornerstones of the community. 61 To reject the pursuit of civic honor was thus to reject<br />
the symbolic foundations of citizenship and the city itself; it was to deny the very ethos of<br />
a democratic citizen.<br />
We can now begin to see why the aforementioned rhetorical shift from presenting<br />
dōrodokia in terms of logos to casting it in terms of ethos and pathos appeared, crucially,<br />
at this point in the democracy. To examine this trend further, let us take a look at the<br />
most famous case of dōrodokia in Athenian history, the Harpalus Affair. In 324,<br />
Alexander was only just returning from India and finally disciplining various corrupt<br />
officials who had been overseeing affairs for him in Greece and Persia. Harpalus was<br />
one such official infamous for rampant corruption and extortion while treasurer at<br />
Babylon. Upon Alexander’s return, Harpalus fled with 5,000 talents of silver to Athens,<br />
where he had been granted citizenship and where he hoped to find sympathy among the<br />
60 Hence the reciprocal exchange of philotimia and communal charis became standardized and formalized<br />
at this time: see especially Hakkarainen (1997: 14-19).<br />
61 On this point, Demosthenes is particularly vehement in his prosecution of Leptines for proposing a law in<br />
355 to abolish the awarding of ateleia, or exemption from taxes in return for services to the city (Dem. 20).<br />
As the orator warns, to eliminate such an honor would effectively discourage anyone from wanting to<br />
benefit the city (Dem. 20.5). His argument is predicated on the notion that citizens assumed that one good<br />
turn would merit another from the people (cf. Dem. 20.151), and that civic honors for services rendered<br />
were a mark of pistis, or good faith, in the reciprocal relations between private individual and public<br />
community. To revoke previously granted honors would thus render all civic honors a)pi/stouj or<br />
“untrustworthy” (Dem. 20.124). This would have been catastrophic for the dēmos, Demosthenes intones,<br />
because it would have removed the one factor that made civic honors in a democracy more valuable than<br />
those in an oligarchy or tyranny: public authorization of the honors (Dem. 20.15-17). Without such<br />
publicly authorized honors, Athens might very well become another Pydna, a city supposedly betrayed by<br />
traitorous citizens who had been bribed by Philip with none other than dwreiai/, that is, the very ‘honors’<br />
which a democratic polis usually bestowed on its citizens. Cf. von Reden (1995a: 98-9) on public<br />
dwreiai/.<br />
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city’s anti-Macedonian leaders. Though initially forbidden to enter the city with a<br />
sizeable number of troops, he was later granted entry as a suppliant. Immediately, there<br />
arrived envoys from Alexander’s mother and Antipater, the viceroy of Greece,<br />
demanding that Harpalus return the treasure he had stolen (Hyp. 5.8; Diod. 17.108.7). In<br />
response, Demosthenes proposed that Harpalus be held in jail and the treasure be placed<br />
in the Acropolis for safe-keeping until official word from Alexander arrived (Din. 1.70,<br />
89, 90; [Plut.] X. Or. 846b). The people agreed and decided that Harpalus’ money—<br />
which the Macedonian claimed totaled 700 talents (Hyp. 5.9-10; [Plut.] X.Or. 846b)—<br />
would be taken to the Acropolis the following day. The next day, Demosthenes departed<br />
for Olympia on a political embassy; upon his return, Harpalus escaped from prison, and<br />
the Athenians discovered much to their dismay that only 350 talents remained in the<br />
Acropolis. 62<br />
It was assumed that Harpalus had used the missing 350 talents to bribe his way to<br />
freedom; most of the city’s leaders were consequently under suspicion. This was a truly<br />
grave offense, for the Athenians could not have imagined that Alexander would be happy<br />
that they had let escape a former official who had stolen a tremendous sum from the<br />
King. The city panicked amid a growing number of accusations of treason and plots<br />
against the people (Ath. 8.341f-342). Most of the suspicion focused on Demosthenes,<br />
62 The Harpalus Affair cannot properly be understood without reference to the larger political context of<br />
Alexander’s return from India, at which time the king decreed that all Greek poleis accept the return of<br />
their exiles and mercenaries—displaced groups whose presence posed a direct threat to Alexander (cf. Hyp.<br />
5.18-19). Though the Exiles Decree loomed large in the background of the Harpalus Affair—in particular<br />
Athens, wishing to retain Samos rather than have the island’s exiled population return, sought to appease<br />
Alexander perhaps by getting rid of his antagonist Demosthenes—this political background does not play<br />
any discernible role in how the prosecution condemned Demosthenes. In other words, it is in itself<br />
significant that the specific, compelling arguments used to convict Demosthenes refer only to this second<br />
narrative of dōrodokia qua treason and not at all to Demosthenes’ adversarial relations with Alexander.<br />
Moreover, it is not at all clear that Demosthenes’ role in the Harpalus Affair would have placed Athens in<br />
any more precarious role vis. Alexander: as Dinarchus reports, Alexander never even asked that Harpalus’<br />
money be returned (Din. 1.68). On the historical and political context, see further Badian (1961), Sealey<br />
(1993: 212-15), Whitehead (2000: 355-64), Worthington (2000b: 41-77).<br />
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who had played a central role at every step of the way, but others too were publicly<br />
accused, including Demosthenes’ ally Phocion and the anti-Macedonian Hyperides (Plut.<br />
Phoc. 21-22). On Demosthenes’ initiative they turned to the Areopagus to investigate the<br />
matter (e.g. Din. 1.4). After six months of investigation and deliberation, the Areopagus<br />
produced a list of ten names with ten monetary amounts: Demosthenes at the top of the<br />
list, then Demades, Aristogiton and seven others (Hyp. 5.5-7). All ten were tried for<br />
dōrodokia before a jury of 1,500 citizens: of the ten, only Demosthenes and Demades<br />
were convicted for sure; fined 50 talents, Demosthenes left the city in exile. 63<br />
We have four prosecution speeches from the trial—Hyperides’ speech against<br />
Demosthenes (Hyp. 5), and Dinarchus’ three speeches each written on behalf of one of<br />
the prosecutors against Demosthenes, Aristogiton, and Philocles (respectively, Din. 1-<br />
3)—all of which orations employ essentially the same rhetorical strategies against their<br />
opponent. 64 Indeed, this is unsurprising given that, beyond the Areopagus’ terse report<br />
(Hyp. 5.5-7), there was no evidence against the defendants. Here we will focus on<br />
Dinarchus’ speech against Demosthenes, by far the longest and best preserved of the<br />
foursome (Din. 1). As we will see, although the nature of the trial naturally focused on<br />
condemning Demosthenes, in Dinarchus’ speech the greatest threat to the city was not<br />
63 Demades’ punishment is mentioned in Din.1.29, 104. Of the other citizens on trial, Philocles was<br />
probably convicted (cf. Dem. Ep. 3.31-2); Aristogiton was acquitted (Dem. Ep. 3.37, 42), as perhaps were<br />
Hagnonides and Polyeuctus of Sphettus ([Plut.] Mor. 846c-d). This split in convictions based on the exact<br />
same evidence has only reinforced scholars’ suspicions that the Harpalus Affair was a political trial aimed<br />
at removing Demosthenes and Demades from Athens: so, for example, Worthington (1992: 58-73; 1994:<br />
308-9; 2000b: 106); cf. Badian (1961: 34-5). While this possibility cannot be ruled out, it should be noted<br />
that, although the prosecution admittedly had the same positive evidence against each defendant—i.e. the<br />
Areopagus’ report (Din. 1.113, 2.21; Hyp. 5.5-7)—the assumption that the same evidence fit the character<br />
and history of each defendant identically is erroneous. After all, forensic oratory is rife with ethical<br />
arguments which predicated the plausibility of guilt or innocence on a defendant’s character. Thus, despite<br />
the Areopagus’ report, it might have been easy to believe that Demosthenes, but not Aristogiton, say, was<br />
the kind of person who would readily be suspected of being part of a network of corruption.<br />
64 Recent commentaries on these speeches are provided in Whitehead (2000) for Hyperides and<br />
Worthington (2000b) for Dinarchus.<br />
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Demosthenes but a veritable network of corrupt statesmen. By convicting Demosthenes,<br />
Dinarchus urged, the people could preserve Athens’ honor, her laws and her constitution.<br />
The formal charge brought against Demosthenes was probably one of “taking<br />
dōra against one’s country” (kata\ th=j patri/doj), as it is this specific formulation<br />
which recurs verbatim throughout the speeches of Dinarchus and Hyperides. 65 Clearly,<br />
then, Demosthenes and the others were thought to have committed treason by taking dōra<br />
from Harpalus—a connection explicitly made at least nine times in Dinarchus’<br />
speech 66 —and the prosecution is careful to point out how Demosthenes, at least, had<br />
been implicated in betraying Thebes, too, long before he had attempted to betray his own<br />
city. 67 In a page seemingly taken from Demosthenes’ own prosecution of Aeschines,<br />
Demosthenes himself is portrayed as a traitor as much to his friends as to his city (Din.<br />
1.41), a man who was of use only to the city’s enemies for the way he consistently acted<br />
against the interests of Athens herself (Din. 1.33). In the same vein, Demosthenes is even<br />
compared to those iconic traitors of yore, the elite leaders who overthrew Olynthus (Din.<br />
1.26; cf. 2.24-5).<br />
By comparing Demosthenes to the traitors who overthrew Olynthus, Dinarchus<br />
conjures up a by now familiar paradigm of dōrodokia leading to the destruction of a city.<br />
65<br />
Cf. Harvey (1985: 108n.114). The phrase “against the country” (kata\ th=j patri/doj vel sim.) recurs<br />
eleven times in Dinarchus (Din. 1.13, 1.26, 1.60, 1.64, 1.67, 2.6, 3.18, 3.22; cf. 1.3, 1.99, 2.26), two times<br />
in Hyperides (Hyp. 5.21, 5.38). To this, add four times of “against the city” (kata\ th=j po/lewj, Din.<br />
1.29; cf. 1.4, 2.7, 3.2) and two instances of “against the constitution” (kata\ th=j politei/aj, Din. 1.3, cf.<br />
[e)pi\] th| = politei/a| k[ai\ toi=j] no/moij, Hyp. 5.2). Although Dinarchus more frequently refers to taking<br />
dōra “against your [sc. the people’s] interests” (kaq’ u(mw=n)—cf. Din. 1.11, 1.15, 1.40, 1.46, 1.47, 1.53,<br />
1.88, 1.108, 2.1, 2.3, 2.15, 2.20, 2.22, 2.23, 3.2, 3.6, 3.18; cf. Hyp. 5.40—this can easily be taken as a more<br />
personal reformulation of the actual charge. On such ‘catapolitical’ bribes, see Harvey (1985: 108-13).<br />
66<br />
Din. 1.33, 1.47, 1.64, 1.66, 1.77, 1.101 (Demades), 1.103, 1.107, 1.109. Cf. Hyp. 5.22. Demosthenes<br />
apparently admitted to receiving some funds from Harpalus as a loan to the theoric fund; crucially, the<br />
orator thus depicted these monies as taken for, not against, the city’s interests: Hyp. 5.13.<br />
67<br />
Din. 1.10, 1.15, 1.18-21, 1.24, 1.26. This was a common, if untrue, attack leveled against Demosthenes:<br />
cf. Aeschin. 3.156-7, Hyp. 5.17, 5.21 with Worthington (1992: 139-43 ad 1.10; 164-8 ad 1.21).<br />
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Given that paradigm, it is unsurprising to find that Demosthenes and his purported<br />
consorts in the Harpalus Affair did not seem to be the only problem in Athens: as<br />
Dinarchus warns, there were “many people (pollou/j) in the city taking bribes against<br />
your [sc. the people’s] interests” (kaq’ u(mw=n, Din. 1.11). Like Demosthenes before him,<br />
Dinarchus underscores how the city was endangered by a class of “leaders and<br />
demagogues” conspiring to mislead the dēmos and profit privately (oi( h(gemo/nej kai\ oi(<br />
dhmagwgoi/, Din. 1.99; cf. 2.22-3, 3.1, 3.19), and it was precisely these many others who<br />
needed to have a strong message sent to them (Din. 1.11). Hence, the conviction of<br />
Demosthenes and the rest would be a necessary, and necessarily forceful, indication that<br />
the Athenians would not tolerate traitors in their midst.<br />
Unlike Demosthenes, however, who posited that the internal threat at Olynthus<br />
was instigated by an external source (Philip), Dinarchus identifies what is essentially a<br />
wholly internal threat. Harpalus was no Philip or Alexander, and as a matter of fact this<br />
dangerous group of traitors was plotting against Alexander (and the city), not for him. 68<br />
As Dinarchus warns, there was no hope in times of danger if the city allowed widespread<br />
dōrodokia with impunity, for corrupt leaders would consistently betray the city’s interests<br />
(Din. 1.67, 1.88, 1.107, 3.10, 3.19). According to Dinarchus and Hyperides, the life of<br />
the city was thought to hang in the balance of this trial, and it was the specific culprit of<br />
widespread, domestic dōrodokia which endangered the very foundations of the city. 69<br />
68 Only once does Dinarchus suggest that Harpalus posed an external threat to the city, and this mention<br />
comes only in passing, at that (Din. 2.30). While I do not deny that Harpalus could have been involved in<br />
fomenting a revolt against Alexander—so Badian (1961)—the important point to remember is that the<br />
orators do not specifically mention this: they certainly could have imagined a scenario in which<br />
Demosthenes was plotting to endanger the polis from harm at Alexander’s hands, but they never do so.<br />
The danger is consistently viewed as coming from within the city.<br />
69 Cf. Din. 1.2, 1.31, 1.88, 1.99, 1.109, 2.1, 2.5, 2.7, 3.3; Hyp. 5.2, 5.34-5.<br />
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While dōrodokia by a foreign autocrat and domestic dōrodokia were equally<br />
perceived as threats to the life of the city, the ways in which they endangered the city<br />
were not the same. As we have seen, taking money from Philip was tantamount to<br />
subordinating the city’s interests to his interests; if Olynthus, Pydna, and a host of other<br />
Greek cities were any indication, this entailed placing the city under his control. Even if<br />
the constitution itself were not radically altered, the threat of Macedonian hegemony was<br />
still a powerful one. In the case of domestic bribery, however, the stakes were rather<br />
different. As Dinarchus and Hyperides point out repeatedly, the apparently<br />
commonplace dōrodokia of which Demosthenes was but one of many corrupt<br />
practitioners was a threat to the city insofar as it entailed contempt for the city’s honor, its<br />
laws, and its politeia, or political constitution. 70 The concern here was that elites were<br />
rejecting the symbolic foundations of Athens’ polity, in effect dishonoring the democracy<br />
by opting out of it. Accordingly, although this picture of rampant domestic dōrodokia<br />
was also thought of as treason, there were additional elements that were contributing to<br />
this conceptual frame. Let us take a closer look.<br />
Men like Demosthenes were thought to bring ill-repute, adoxia, upon the city<br />
through their corrupt actions; only by convicting Demosthenes could Athens thus hope to<br />
regain her honor (Din. 1.93; cf. 3.21). In the extant speeches of the Harpalus Affair, there<br />
are a number of permutations of this argument—that Athens lost her honor and good-<br />
standing in the Greek world because of the policies proposed by corrupt statesmen<br />
(a)doci/a|, Din. 1.31); or that, in taking Harpalus’ money, a corrupt few implicated the<br />
Athenian people as a whole in a “shameful charge” (ai)sxra=j ai)ti/aj, Din. 1.93; cf.<br />
70 Din. 1.65, 1.87, 1.113; Hyp. 5.12. Cf. Val. Max. 6.3.ext.2. Tellingly, in a rhetorical move familiar from<br />
the other contemporary narrative about dōrodokia, Dinarchus frames this overturning of the city’s<br />
institutions as a betrayal of the people’s trust (Din. 3.4).<br />
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ai)sxu/nhn, Din. 3.7)—both of which variations were relevant concerns for dōrodokia<br />
from an external source, too (e.g. Dem. 18.63; kataisxu/naj, Dem. 19.255).<br />
Yet there is a third variation that seems best to encapsulate the dishonor done the<br />
city by pervasive domestic bribery, a frame which has the added advantage of bringing<br />
together all of the elements at play in conceptualizing domestic dōrodokia as treason.<br />
Dinarchus seems to get at the heart of the matter when he posits that leaders like<br />
Demosthenes disgraced the city—literally, made it ‘base’ or ‘lowly’ (tapeinh/, Din.<br />
1.98)—by so flagrantly defying its laws. According to this condemnation, corrupt<br />
leaders who were part of a broader network of corruption were debasing the city precisely<br />
by the way they placed themselves above the law.<br />
There were two interrelated elements in this condemnation: Demosthenes and<br />
others had contempt for the laws, and they displayed a more general contempt for the<br />
values of the city. It was obvious that anybody guilty of dōrodokia had broken the law,<br />
but Dinarchus’ more damning point is that Demosthenes thought himself above the law<br />
when he broke it. So Demosthenes is contrasted with the general Timotheus, who<br />
captured over 24 cities yet willingly acquiesced to the penalty imposed upon him for<br />
taking money from the Chians and Rhodians (Din. 1.14-17, cf. 3.17). 71 Despite<br />
Timotheus’ great services to the city, Dinarchus notes, the general did not ask for pardon,<br />
but rather submitted himself to the law and the jury’s decision. By contrast,<br />
Demosthenes seemed to think himself above the law, as if his previous services for the<br />
city, incidentally far less impressive than Timotheus’, outweighed his current crime. 72 In<br />
71 On Timotheus, see further Worthington (1992: 148-57 ad 1.14). Isoc. 15.129; Din. 1.14, 31.17; Diod.<br />
16.21.4; Nep. Timoth. 3.4-5, Iphicr. 3.3; Aelian, Var. Hist. 14.3; DH Din. 677, Lys 680; [Plut.] Mor. 605f.<br />
72 Dinarchus later expands on this argument by pointing out that even the gods fairly submitted themselves<br />
to trial at Athens (Din. 1.84-7). That Demosthenes first proposed that the Areopagus investigate the<br />
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this respect, were the jurors to acquit him, Dinarchus warns, they would effectively<br />
betray justice (to\ di/kaion), favoring Demosthenes’ reputation over the honor the city<br />
would recoup by punishing him (cf. do/cai, Din. 1.27).<br />
Dinarchus similarly contrasts Demosthenes with Themistocles, Aristides, and<br />
other renowned Athenians to imply that, no matter how great Demosthenes’ reputation,<br />
or doxa, it should never be placed above that of the city. Demosthenes, in fact, is thought<br />
to have diminished the city’s own doxa by placing his own safety above that of the<br />
community (cf. a)docote/ran, Din. 1.40). In this way, Demosthenes assumed an<br />
undemocratic air, as if he considered himself somehow better than the city and the people<br />
or, worse still, somehow immune to the laws and the Areopagus’ report (Din. 1.40; cf.<br />
1.45, 87; Hyp. 5.12). 73<br />
As this last comparison suggests, Demosthenes’ symbolic contempt for the city’s<br />
laws also betokened contempt for the symbols and values of the city itself. Unlike the<br />
city’s great benefactors—men like Themistocles or Aristides who built the city’s walls<br />
and brought in the first tribute from Athens’ allies—Demosthenes refuses to give any<br />
good (agathon) to the city, watching over only his own safety and treating everything as a<br />
source of income (Din. 1.40; cf. 2.15). Accordingly, his corrupt activity, so indicative of<br />
his contempt for the city’s laws, indicates, too, a conscious refusal to perform public<br />
Harpalus Affair and then tried to escape the court’s verdict thus inflates his own unseemly arrogance<br />
(beyond that of the gods!) and denigrates the authority of the laws. See further Dem. 24.5; Aeschin. 1.4,<br />
3.6, 3.196; Din. 2.19, 3.3; and Ober (1989: 217-19) on the Athenians’ antipathy towards legal advantages<br />
for anyone, especially the wealthy.<br />
73 Pseudo-Demosthenes makes a similar point in underscoring how those who sell the interests of their<br />
country have regard for neither laws nor oaths ([Dem.] 17.13). It was readily assumed, therefore, that<br />
citizens accused of crimes like sykophancy or dōrodokia—which appeared to involve a malicious disregard<br />
for the law (cf. Dem. 19.101, 120)—considered themselves above the law. So, Demosthenes warns the<br />
jury not to let Aeschines become “greater than the masses” (mei/zw...tw=n pollw=n, Dem. 19.296), nor to<br />
pardon Theocrines, accused of sykophancy, for consciously and arrogantly casting aside the laws (Dem.<br />
58.15, 24).<br />
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works. Rather than be an engaged citizen using his money for the city’s benefit,<br />
Demosthenes moved away from the city to the Piraeus port, where he spent his time<br />
living in luxury amid the city’s misfortunes. 74 This lifestyle is instructively described as<br />
“bringing shame on the city’s doxa” (kataisxu/nwn th\n th=j po/lewj do/can, Din.<br />
1.35). What is more, the comparison to Timotheus underscores how Demosthenes then<br />
tried to pass off his corrupt profiteering as an actual benefaction in exchange for which he<br />
might escape conviction (Din. 1.17). 75<br />
Implicated in this nexus of corruption and contempt for the city’s laws, therefore,<br />
is a veritable weighing of bribes against good works. Such a weighing is familiar from<br />
the last chapter, where we saw how, for instance, the defendant of Lysias 21 weighed his<br />
public works against the charge of corruption. Demosthenes seems to go one step<br />
beyond simply not using his gains for the greater good, however, for he seems to reject<br />
the value of such a system altogether, actively preferring the corrupt currency of bribe<br />
monies to the symbolic currency of honoring, and being honored by, the city. As we saw<br />
in the previous section, the kinds of commercial dealings at the Piraeus in which<br />
Demosthenes purportedly engaged were devoid of any real civic content, for they<br />
74 trufw~n e0n toi=j th~j po&lewj kakoi=j, kai\ e0pi\ forei/ou katakomizo&menoj th_n ei0j Peiraia~<br />
o(do&n,Din. 1.36. Cf. Din. 1.69; Aeschin. 3.209; Hyp. 5.16b. Demosthenes’ location in the Piraeus had its<br />
own ideological significance of removal from the asty (city) of Athens, for it was the civic space of the<br />
Piraeus which so many foreigners, traders, and foreign cults occupied. In fact, throughout the fourth<br />
century, the Piraeus was conceptualized in just this way as some kind of other world to the city-center<br />
itself: von Reden (1995b), Roy (1998: esp. 198-201). Demosthenes’ purported allegiance to the Piraeus<br />
thus marked him as morally corrupt and not truly allied with the city itself: cf. Plato, Laws 705a-b, Dem.<br />
32.10-11, Arist. Pol. 5.1303b7-12. Here, Dinarchus’ reference to the luxurious lifestyle of Demosthenes<br />
(cf. trufw~n) also plays off of class tensions within the polis: rather than adhere to the middling,<br />
egalitarian ideology of the polis, Demosthenes flaunts and wastes his wealth. For more on the civic<br />
ideology of the ‘middling’ (metrios) citizen, see e.g. Ober (1989: esp. 257-9).<br />
75 In passing off his venality as a public service, Dinarchus says, Demosthenes “instructs” the people about<br />
what to think about his greed (peri\ th=j e(autw=n pleoneci/aj paragge/llein, Din.1.40). The verb<br />
paragge/llein is normally used of a general giving orders (LSJ. s.v. paragge/llw II) and thus regularly<br />
connotes a disparity in authority between two people. That Demosthenes so “commands” the people to<br />
reinterpret his selfish gains as public benefactions only reinforces the notion that he thinks himself above<br />
the people and the laws.<br />
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entailed the intermingling of arms-length citizens with metics or foreigners who had<br />
citizen privileges—in short, people whose interaction was not at all predicated on the<br />
content of some civic tie. Equally by living off in the Piraeus and by taking dōra,<br />
Demosthenes was thought to be devaluing the city’s symbolic economy of civic honor.<br />
In rejecting the symbolic foundations of citizenship and the city itself (Din. 1.89), he<br />
implicitly disavowed a democratic character and threatened the very ethos of the city.<br />
The purportedly corrupt activity of other public speakers, too, was conceived as a<br />
threat not just to the laws, but even to the character of the city. Dinarchus details, for<br />
example, how on at least six different occasions Demosthenes was purportedly bribed to<br />
propose actual laws or the award of honors, statues, and even citizenship (Din. 1.41-5).<br />
This list is prefaced with a telling detail, namely, that his corrupt activity as a public<br />
speaker made him “unworthy” (a)na/cion) of the city (Din. 1.41). The word a)na/cion,<br />
often used of measuring the value of two different things, picks up on the exact same<br />
symbolic measuring we have been examining: by taking dōra and cheating the system of<br />
public honors, Demosthenes proved both that he was “unworthy” of the city’s honors,<br />
that the values he privileged were clearly not those of the city. 76 By implication, to honor<br />
Demosthenes with an acquittal would be tantamount to dishonoring the city itself.<br />
76<br />
Further, a)na/cion picks up on a verb only a few lines prior: talking about rogues like Demosthenes,<br />
Dinarchus comments, “They have made the city more disreputable (a)docote/ran) than themselves, and<br />
now, convicted of taking bribes against you (dw=ra kaq’ u(mw=n), they deceive you and think it worth it<br />
(a)ciou=si a)ciou=si a)ciou=si), a)ciou=si after conduct such as this, to give you instructions (paragge/llein) on their own greed” (Din.<br />
1.40). What Demosthenes and other corrupt traitors value is first to dishonor the city (a)docote/ran) by<br />
privately gaining without giving back to the community and then to presume themselves sufficiently above<br />
the law to instruct (paragge/llein, cf. supra n.63) the people on how to esteem their public ‘works’. Their<br />
valuing of private gain (a)ciou=si) is antithetical to the city’s valuing of public outlay (a)na/cion). Such<br />
explicit evaluation of public outlay was commonplace in this period, as is clear from two formulae from<br />
contemporary honorific inscriptions, in which the dēmos provided a “worthy” (a/ )cion, etc.) reward or<br />
thanks to an official who had done his job well. Honorands were either provided “very worthy thanks” (e.g<br />
xa/ritaj...[k]ataci/aj, IG ii² 505.43 ; cf. IG ii² 423.5; restored at IG ii² 183.7, 269.10-11, 391.11-12,<br />
392.2-3, 425.13) or were to be granted “whatever good they are deemed worthy of” (a)gaqo\n o4tou a2n<br />
dokei= a1cioj ei]nai, IG ii² 360.75, 412.5, 424.11; cf. IG ii² 232.13, 235.2, Dem. 20.151). In the same vein,<br />
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On the one hand, by taking dōra to bestow honors on others, Demosthenes<br />
implicitly devalued the entire system of public honors: no longer could Athenians tell<br />
which honors were well-deserved, which earned only through bribing a public speaker. 77<br />
Such an offense was bad enough to dishonor the city, yet the gravity of the offense was<br />
compounded by the implication of an entire network of similarly corrupt citizens.<br />
Although Dinarchus does not explicitly accuse Demosthenes, in particular, of being part<br />
of just such a corrupt network, the jurors certainly might have inferred as much given<br />
Demosthenes’ purported contempt for the laws and shameful dishonoring of the city.<br />
Other orators, for instance, were more explicit on this point, describing an entire<br />
system of corruption, wherein those guilty of malpractice—including dōrodokia—would<br />
bribe public speakers not to prosecute them at their audit for public office (euthyna). So<br />
Timarchus is lambasted by Aeschines for doing damage to the city by receiving bribes<br />
from crooked public officials trying to escape audit (Aeschin. 1.106-8). Similarly,<br />
Aeschines describes how the law against receiving a crown before undergoing a euthyna<br />
was first passed in reaction to bribe-givers who were consistently getting away with<br />
crimes. Before they came up for audit, these purportedly corrupt officials would bribe a<br />
public speaker to award them a crown. According to Aeschines, after these officials<br />
received a crown from the dēmos, jurors refused to convict the officials at their audit lest<br />
Dinarchus castigates Philocles for committing dōrodokia and thereby selling the “worth” (a)ci/wma) of a<br />
public office conferred by the people (Din. 3.12).<br />
77 Compare Demosthenes’ own castigation of those who speak in the Assembly or move resolutions after<br />
being bribed (Dem. 23.146-7): that such men proclaim someone either good or bad (xrhsto\n kai\<br />
ponhro/n), not on account of his character but because of the wishes of their bribe-giver, implicitly<br />
devalues similar estimations by all public speakers. Because the Athenians cannot know which estimations<br />
are true, which are motivated by money, their entire system of public recognition is devalued, destabilized,<br />
and dethroned. For this reason, Demosthenes asserts, the “most wicked” class of men is that of bribed<br />
public speakers (ponhro/taton, Dem. 23.146). For similar accusations of bribed rhētores in this period,<br />
see Dem. 15.32, 20.132, 23.201, 24.3, 24.14-15, 24.99, 24.122, 24.123, 24.203; Aeschin. 1.106-8, 1.114-5,<br />
1.154, 2.23, 2.93, 2.144, 2.148, 2.152, 2.154-5, 2.165, 3.58, 3.66, 3.81-2, 3.85, 3.103-5, 3.113-4, 3.129.<br />
3.221, 3.237, 3.242. cf. Aeschin. 3.9.<br />
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the people be disgraced for contradicting themselves by honoring someone who later was<br />
shown to be corrupt (Aesch. 3.9). Clearly, this purported network of corruption, like<br />
Demosthenes himself, both threatened the city’s laws and devalued its symbolic economy<br />
of honors. 78<br />
On the other hand, as was noted above, Demosthenes’ activity signaled more than<br />
just a devaluing of the city’s economy of honors; it was a wholesale rejection of that<br />
economy, as well. In this light, it is helpful to return to Demosthenes’ prosecution of<br />
Aeschines to see how this exact same accusation—that Aeschines preferred Philip’s<br />
bribes to the dēmos’ honors—casts Aeschines as a traitor. Pointing out that Aeschines’<br />
bribe-taking achieved nothing for Athens, whereas the Thebans’ own refusal to take<br />
bribes gained them Philip’s favor, Demosthenes explicitly weighs the symbolic rewards<br />
of civic honors against Philip’s bribes:<br />
And what have the [Theban] ambassadors gained? Nothing at all except the satisfaction<br />
of having achieved these results for their city. Ah, but that is worth having, men of<br />
Athens; a glorious reward, if you set any store by that virtue (a)reth/) and good repute<br />
(do/ca) which Aeschines and his friends bartered for money (xrhma/twn a)pe/donto,<br />
Dem. 19.142).<br />
By taking Philip’s dōra, Aeschines manifestly did not pursue the ‘honor and good repute’<br />
offered by the polis. By contrast, Demosthenes juxtaposes his own actions with<br />
Aeschines’ to show how he, himself, acted honorably, pursuing philotimia rather than<br />
Philip’s money (Dem. 19.223). His point is an apt one, for he underscores that a<br />
conscious calculus of values led him to follow a course of truth and justice (tou= dikai/ou<br />
kai\ th=j a)lhqei/aj, Dem. 19.223, cf. 19.28); although each could certainly be pursued for<br />
its own sake, he explicitly calculated that public honor, timē (cf. timhqh/sesqai, Dem.<br />
78 In a similar blending of these two narratives, Demosthenes considered Philip, too, a threat to Athens’<br />
laws and the democracy: Dem. 6.25, 8.41-2.<br />
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19.223), would come only by abstaining from dōra. To receive money from Philip,<br />
therefore, would have entailed losing honor from the people and even rejecting the city’s<br />
values in order to benefit its enemies, as Aeschines had done. 79 It is ironic, then, that the<br />
same weighing of civic honors against monies from corruption would later prove<br />
Demosthenes’ downfall in the Harpalus Affair.<br />
Although he mentions this only in passing, it is crucial that the ultimate guarantor<br />
of trust and justice in Demosthenes’ vision of Athens was the currency of public honor<br />
and recognition. Without this glue binding elites to the straight and proper course of<br />
justice, they might have strayed onto a treasonous course, like Aeschines did, and bring<br />
the utmost ruin upon the city. Given the pronounced threat of stasis and the distrust it<br />
engendered, we can see how at this time the Athenians began to rely more heavily on<br />
both their laws and system of public honors, qua sanctions and incentives, to keep elites<br />
pursuing the community’s interests. This is one reason why contemporary accusations of<br />
dōrodokia were comprised of arguments from ethos and pathos, not logos. The<br />
opportunity for winning timē proved a powerful carrot for the wealthy, yet this<br />
inducement was necessary to help protect against their immediate defection. The<br />
prospect of winning public honor encouraged elites to act justly, in the sense of<br />
privileging the honor of the democracy, and thereby to reinforce what were then thought<br />
to be dangerously weak bonds of trust among citizens.<br />
79 Note how Demosthenes earlier accuses Aeschines of being a “noble gentleman and just (ka)gaqo\j kai\<br />
di/kaioj) to that man [sc. Philip] while a traitor to you” (Dem. 19.110). The orator’s choice of epithets here<br />
is significant, for Aeschines is thought to exhibit the civic virtue of kalokagathia, which by this period<br />
could be considered the virtue of an ideal citizen: e.g. Dem. 18.93, 278 and generally Ober (1989: 260-1).<br />
Yet in that case it is extraordinarily troubling that Aeschines is just to Philip while being a traitor to the<br />
Athenians, for he effectively pursues the civic ideals of justice and virtue but only insofar as they benefit<br />
Athens’ enemy Philip. In other words, Demosthenes here underscores how Aeschines pursues civic ideals<br />
only to the extent that they harm, not help the polis. Likewise, as we saw above, the leaders of Pydna were<br />
thought to have sought out public gifts (dwreai/) not from the city, but from Philip in exchange for<br />
betraying the city (Dem. 20.63).<br />
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It was therefore noteworthy when a citizen manifestly did not act corruptly, that<br />
is, when he was vindicated for having pursued public office—and the timē it might win<br />
him—not for the sake of gain, but for the sake of the community and its system of<br />
honors. In fact, we find this concept attested in three honorary inscriptions from the<br />
middle of the fourth century, where citizens are praised for their actions: in one, a<br />
thesmothetēs is given an olive crown for doing his job “[well,] justly, and adōrodokētōs”;<br />
in another, a judge of the Thargelia festival is honored for judging the winner of a<br />
competition in the same manner; and in the last the public speaker Phanodemos is<br />
honored and crowned for having given counsel “well, in pursuit of honor, and<br />
adōrodokētōs.” 80<br />
Although some scholars have posited that the adverb adōrodokētōs means<br />
“placing communal ahead of personal obligations,” 81 if we turn to the orators’ usage of<br />
the adverb (and cognate adjective), we find a clear indication that, as might be expected<br />
of an alpha-privative formation, the adverb simply and literally meant “not engaging in<br />
dōrodokia.” 82 What is striking about this usage is that in five of the seven passages, the<br />
adverb is used in contradistinction either to an accusation that an official had committed<br />
dōrodokia or to another person who demonstrably had committed dōrodokia (Aeschin.<br />
3.82; Dem. 19.4, 19.27, 19.232, 58.35). Of the two remaining passages, one probably has<br />
80<br />
Respectively, IG ii² 1148.4-5 (before mid-fourth century): [kalw=j kai\ d]ikai/wj kai\ a)dwr/[odokh/twj<br />
h]rcen] th\n a)rxhn; Veligianni-Terzi (1997: C8, 206). IG ii² 1153.5-7 (mid-fourth century): kalw=j ka/i\<br />
dikai/wj kai\ a)dworodokh/twj e)/krine th\n [f]ul[h\n] nika=n Qarg/h/lia; Veligianni-Terzi (1997: C12,<br />
206). IG ii² 223A12 (342): kal[w=j k]ai\ f[i]loti/mwj kai\ \ a)dwrodokh/twj; Veligianni-Terzi (1997:<br />
B5A, 207). For post-classical uses of the word, Whitehead (1993: n.68) helpfully collects the following<br />
citations: IG ii² 649.29-30, 1011.44, 1165.23-4, 1215.9, 1299.2, 1304.31, SEG xxv.112.9-10. <br />
81<br />
So Whitehead (1993: 68n.12) follows Herman (1987: 77-8) in understanding the adverb adōrodokētōs<br />
as signifying that an official had put communal obligations before the personal ones entailed in giftexchange,<br />
in other words, that one had actually abstained from gift exchange (cf. Herman [1987: 77]).<br />
Similarly, Harvey (1985: 98n.78). Veligianni-Terzi (1997: 289) rightly questions Herman’s conjecture<br />
but offers no better substitute.<br />
82<br />
Cf. Aeschin. 3.82, Dem. 18.250, 19.4, 19.27, 19.232, 19.274, 58.35.<br />
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the same nuance, namely, that the dēmos expected Callias to have an honest and<br />
adōrodokētos character, but apparently he did not on his embassy to the Persian King<br />
(Dem. 19.274). And the other, in the phrase dikai/wj kai\ a)dwrodokh/twj, might pick<br />
up on the language from a euthyna at which Demosthenes would have been prosecuted<br />
for dōrodokia but acquitted as having acted “justly and adōrokētōs” (Dem. 18.250).<br />
Based on these comparanda, it appears that the adverb adōrodokētōs on inscriptions<br />
might very well have indicated that someone had been accused, but absolved, of having<br />
committed dōrodokia.<br />
Still, while the strict meaning of the adverb adōrodokētōs might simply be “not<br />
having engaged in dōrodokia,” those inscriptions which praise an official for having<br />
acted adōrodokētōs indicate that he was rightly praised for pursuing the very honors and<br />
virtues praised by the community rather than for seeking money. Rather than take<br />
monies symbolic of treason, he had worked within the civic economy of public honors.<br />
In the first and last of these inscriptions, for instance, the honorand is later praised for<br />
acting “for the sake of honor (aretē) and [a sense of justice (dikaiosynē)] towards the<br />
dēmos.” 83 Note, too, how in the third inscription the speaker is explicitly said to be<br />
acting with philotimia. Given how at this time public officials were honored for<br />
exhibiting philotimia even when they merely discharged the duties of their office<br />
satisfactorily, we might posit that where dōrodokia—and a job unsatisfactorily done—<br />
began, philotimia ended. 84 Officials vindicated and praised for behaving adōrodokētōs<br />
83 a)reth=j e4neka kai\/[dikaiosu/nhj th=]j ei)j to\n dh=mon (IG ii² 1148.8-9, IG ii² 223A12).<br />
84 For this phenomenon, see the examples provided by Whitehead (1983: 73n.32). Note how, by the time<br />
of Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens (late 330’s to early 320’s), the Council regularly received a dōrea of a<br />
gold crown after successfully submitting its accounts: AP 46.1; Aeschin. 1.111-12, Dem. 22.36, 22.38-9;<br />
cf. Dem. 22.8-20.<br />
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were thus honored as much for discharging their duties ‘uncorruptly’ as for valuing the<br />
community’s interests and the very honors bestowed by the community.<br />
Ultimately, Demosthenes was not vindicated as having acted adōrodokētōs, but<br />
was instead convicted and fined 50 talents. A man who only seven years earlier had been<br />
crowned as one of Athens’ greatest patriots and counselors was imprisoned, though<br />
allowed to escape into exile (Plut. Dem. 26.2-5). Much of the political atmosphere at<br />
Athens had of course changed in the interim. Still, as Dinarchus’ prosecution speech<br />
suggests by connecting Demosthenes to other corrupt traitors through outright<br />
comparisons or more subtly through various tropes from contemporary narratives of<br />
dōrodokia, much of the political atmosphere was the same, as it had been since Philip’s<br />
emergence. Although Demosthenes was no Aeschines—part of a corrupt network of<br />
traitors hired out to a foreign king—he was deemed a traitor all the same, just one of a<br />
group of leading citizens who debased the city and endangered her laws through their<br />
systematic domestic corruption.<br />
That the dōrodokos became a traitor—and, specifically, a traitor working with<br />
other traitors within the city—pointed to deep rifts in the democracy during the last half<br />
of the fourth century. The fear of elite defection, which would have entailed civil war<br />
and probably constitutional change as well, was persistent; if the rest of Greece was any<br />
indication, this fear was a veritable threat at Athens. The bonds of trust between citizens<br />
were increasingly diluted as Athens tried to effect a financial recovery. So the Athenians<br />
looked to their laws and their own system of public honors as stick and carrot to induce<br />
elite members of the community to participate in the democracy. And so, Demosthenes,<br />
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like others before him, was convicted perhaps in a desperate effort to salvage the city’s<br />
honor and deter the rest of his purportedly corrupt band from further ruining the city. 85<br />
With the hindsight of history, the city’s efforts to curb elite defection from the<br />
democracy could not save the democracy itself. By the end of 323, Athens’ leaders,<br />
newly invigorated by the death of Alexander, had led the city into what would be her last<br />
war as a sovereign entity: a war on behalf of all of Greece against Alexander’s viceroy<br />
Antipater. But the Lamian War proved yet another failure, as Athens and the rest of<br />
Greece came to be completely controlled by Antipater (Diod. 18.17.3-5). 86 Meanwhile,<br />
Demosthenes, at long last recalled to the city during the lead-up to the Lamian War, fled<br />
Athens after Antipater’s victory and, pursued by the Macedonian’s men, sought refuge in<br />
a temple to Poseidon. When asked to give himself up, he stalled for time, feigning to<br />
write a letter to his relatives while really withdrawing in private to drink some poison<br />
concealed in the tip of his writing reed (Plut. Dem. 29). Though Demosthenes died a free<br />
man, his city remained under Macedonian control for centuries until the advent of the<br />
Romans.<br />
Given the warnings of the oracle at Dodona, of Dinarchus, of Hyperides and even<br />
of Demosthenes himself, it is perhaps ironic that ultimately the democracy was done in<br />
not by a crop of traitors but by a group of patriots hoping to reclaim the city’s freedom—<br />
in other words, by democrats, not dōrodokoi. In this light, the Harpalus Affair, and the<br />
indomitable specter of a political set-up which the trial brings to mind, raises important<br />
questions about the role of dōrodokia trials and accusations in the larger workings of the<br />
85 Sealey (1993: 214) notes that within just six months the Assembly had pardoned or at least partly<br />
exonerated most of the men suspected of involvement in the Harpalus Affair; by the summer, only<br />
Demosthenes for sure was still in exile.<br />
86 Lamian War: e.g. Ashton (1982) and, for the aftermath of the war in Athens, Habicht (1997: 36-66).<br />
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democracy. If the previous chapters have shown how the meaning of dōrodokia was<br />
articulated in tandem with changing conceptions of the democracy, the following<br />
chapters will examine in closer detail how such conceptual change was reflected in the<br />
law and political institutions. By investigating how these formal responses reinforced,<br />
complemented, or even contradicted informal mechanisms for regulating the behavior of<br />
politicians and citizens alike, we will uncover crucial ways in which bribery helped shape<br />
the Athenian democracy.<br />
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What to Do with the dōrodokos?<br />
Approaching Bribery and the Law at Athens<br />
We have spent the past few chapters investigating the role of the dōrodokos<br />
within Athenian public discourse: the social meaning of the space he occupied in the<br />
community, and how this meaning, along with his defining features, changed over the<br />
course of the democracy. Essentially this investigation has amounted to tracing the place<br />
of the dōrodokos within the moral community of the dēmos. As we have seen, merely<br />
describing the dōrodokos’ role within the community has entailed considering his<br />
relationship to that community: was he an insider or an outsider? Was the civic violation<br />
at the heart of his dōrodokia the transgression of someone who belonged, or did not<br />
belong, in the polity? The last chapter, for example, revealed how a purported dōrodokos<br />
like Demosthenes was considered a traitor to the city, an outsider who had made his way<br />
into the moral community of the dēmos and thereby threatened it from within.<br />
Throughout, we have investigated not simply who the dōrodokos was, but especially who<br />
was allowed to make that call in the first place.<br />
This last point is a crucial one, for descriptive claims about the moral standing of<br />
the dōrodokos—as insider (disobedient citizen), outsider (traitor), or insider desiring to<br />
become outsider (thief)—were always also implicit claims about what his moral standing<br />
would or should be going forward. If Demosthenes qua a dōrodokos was inherently a<br />
traitor, the thinking went, he would and should always be considered an outsider to the<br />
democracy. Indeed, Dinarchus comments, it was precisely those wishing ill upon the city<br />
who thought that Demosthenes should be allowed to live (and the city harmed), while<br />
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those hoping for the city’s own prosperity wished to see Demosthenes dead (Din. 1.65),<br />
thereby permanently removed from the community. To contemplate a dōrodokos like<br />
Demosthenes within the polity was thus to envision, and perhaps hope for, a polity<br />
without him.<br />
Moving our investigation of the dōrodokos forward in this way—pushing it past<br />
descriptions of the here and now and looking into what role the figure would play in the<br />
city’s future—helpfully underscores how discursive representations of dōrodokoi mapped<br />
onto public deliberation about the future of the democracy. Thinking with the dōrodokos<br />
was a way to think through the democracy. How, then, did this powerful discursive role<br />
shape the way the Athenians legislated against dōrodokia? If the Athenians always<br />
looked to the outcome of the dōra given or received, and if in instances of potential<br />
bribery they implicitly weighed in which direction their democracy should head, what<br />
kind of space did the dōrodokos occupy in their political and legal institutions? Although<br />
this claim will be fully argued in the chapters to come, already we can see how the<br />
Athenians’ specific conception of the dōrodokos could have had a profound impact not<br />
only on how dōrodokia was framed within the laws—what kind of offense was it? how<br />
was it defined?—but even on how it was punished—should the dōrodokos become an<br />
insider or an outsider?<br />
Expanding our inquiry in this way immediately raises important questions about<br />
how the Athenians created laws and for what purpose they did so. Were laws against<br />
dōrodokia strictly deterrents—legal process merely an extensive apparatus for<br />
enforcement—or was the role of law in Athenian society more broadly construed? What<br />
were the formal norms governing dōrodokia, how did these relate to informal<br />
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understandings of what constituted dōrodokia, and what was the relationship between<br />
these norms and the courts? The inherently political nature of dōrodokia also brings up<br />
tangled questions about the relationship between law and politics. In short, did the courts<br />
merely enforce norms concerning dōrodokia, or were dōrodokia suits used as deliberative<br />
moments when such political norms were contested and ultimately legitimated by a mass<br />
jury?<br />
These are all central questions that will be explored in the next few chapters, as<br />
we use the laws against dōrodokia as a case-study for understanding broader trends in the<br />
relationship between Athenian law and society. Broadly speaking, we will be attempting<br />
to trace the story of how Athenian dōrodokia legislation was created—that is, how legal<br />
innovation came about in ancient Athens—and, consequently, what role this legislation<br />
and the legal process it engendered played in Athenian society. On both counts my<br />
approach diverges from that by recent scholars working on the legal regulation of bribery,<br />
whether in the ancient Athenian setting or in more contemporary societies. This chapter<br />
outlines the theoretical framework underpinning our analysis and then put this framework<br />
to the test by examining what I argue was Athens’ first law against bribery.<br />
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Athenian Legal and Institutional Responses to Bribery:<br />
By the end of the democracy, the Athenians had developed a range of formal<br />
measures concerning dōrodokia. A series of public oaths and curses condemned those<br />
who committed dōrodokia, and at least six different legal procedures covered dōrodokia<br />
of one form or another. These included four public procedures (graphai), each most<br />
likely pertaining to a distinct law against dōrodokia: the graphē dōrōn for a general law<br />
against giving and taking dōra illicitly, as well as for making corrupt promises; the<br />
graphē dekasmou for a law against bribing judicial bodies; the graphē dōroxenias,<br />
presumably attached to a law against bribing a jury for acquittal in a citizenship trial; and<br />
an unnamed graphē for indicting public prosecutors or witnesses (synēgoroi) who had<br />
taken dōra for a public or private suit. 1 Moreover, there were two procedures for<br />
prosecuting public officials either while still in office or at the end of their term:<br />
respectively, public impeachment (eisangelia) of generals who had taken dōra while on<br />
campaign and public speakers who had spoken against the city’s interests after taking<br />
dōra; and prosecution of a public official during his regular audit (euthyna) at the end of<br />
his term. 2 In the second half of the fourth century, there was also the possibility of<br />
1 On these laws and procedures, see generally Thonissen (1875: 213-21), Lipsius (1905-15: 2.401-6),<br />
Calhoun (1913: 66-77, 117-18, 131-3), MacDowell (1978: 170-3, 183-6; 1983), MacDowell (1983a),<br />
Hansen (1991: 193-4), Kulesza (1995: 34-7), Taylor (2001: 154-7), Hashiba (2006), of which the<br />
overviews by Thonissen, Lipsius, MacDowell, and Hashiba are by far the most detailed and<br />
comprehensive. General law and graphē dōrōn: Dem. 21.113, Lipsius (1905-15: 2.401-4), MacDowell<br />
(1983a: 74-6), Hashiba (2006: 67-74). Graphē dekasmou: [Dem.] 46.26; Lipsius (1905-15: 2.402),<br />
MacDowell (1983a: 63-8), Hashiba (2006: 67-74). Graphē dōroxenias: AP 59.3; MacDowell (1983a:<br />
68-9). Unnamed graphē: mentioned in [Dem.] 46.26 as a graphē before the thesmothetai; Rubinstein<br />
(2000: 52-3).<br />
2 Eisangelia: Hyp. 4.7-8, 29; Lipsius (1905-15: 1.176-211), Hansen (1975), MacDowell (1978: 173-6;<br />
1983a: 62-3). Euthyna: AP 54.2; Lipsius (1905-15: 2.286-98), Piérart (1971), Carawan (1987). Hansen<br />
(1991: 193) argues that an apographē—or a list of money or property received as a bribe, to be<br />
confiscated—could also be employed to prosecute someone for dōrodokia. However, his one attested<br />
example, IG ii² 1631.361ff., refers to a case in which one Sopolis already owed money to the treasury<br />
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investigation (apophasis) by the Areopagus Court into an alleged instance of dōrodokia.<br />
Finally, depending on the offense and procedure used, there were three different penalties<br />
for illicitly giving and receiving dōra: outlawry or, later, disfranchisement (atimia),<br />
death, and a tenfold fine for the amount of the dōra. 3<br />
Taken as a whole, these measures exhibit two characteristics strikingly at odds<br />
with each other. There is a wide range of coverage, including a variety of offenses<br />
(illicitly giving and taking dōra, making corrupt promises) by a variety of specific agents<br />
(generals, public speakers, and political assemblies of various kinds are all singled out).<br />
Yet there is also considerable overlap in the offenses and procedures, where bribing a<br />
group of people conceivably falls under any of three different graphai, to say nothing of<br />
the possibility of investigating the offense under an apophasis or, if the offender was a<br />
public official, an eisangelia or euthyna.<br />
How do we account for such rich legal innovation? For scholars of Athenian law,<br />
this variety of reforms straightforwardly indicates a persistent anxiety in the democracy<br />
about dōrodokia. 4 They assume either that the Athenians first identified a range of<br />
(precisely the kind of property normally confiscated under an apographē); that part of his property came<br />
from bribes he received is thus purely incidental.<br />
3 Our sources give conflicting accounts of the penalties for dōrodokia; this is an intractable problem for any<br />
legal history of dōrodokia. Atimia: explicit in the law cited at Dem. 24.113; cf. And. 1.74, Aeschin. 3.232.<br />
Tenfold fine: AP 54.2, Hyp. 5.24, Din. 1.60, 2.16-17. Death: Isoc. 8.50, Aeschin. 1.86-7 for the graphē<br />
dekasmou; Din. 1.60, Hyp. 5.24 (conjectured). Of these sources, Aeschin. 3.232 lists only atimia as a<br />
penalty for the graphē dōrōn, while both Din. 1.60 and Hyp. 5.24 claim that the penalty was either death or<br />
a tenfold fine. I argue below that these last two penalties applied only at a euthyna or eisangelia procedure<br />
(although originally instead of death atimia qua outlawry was used), while, as Aeschines attests, atimia<br />
(qua disfranchisement) was the only penalty used in a graphē dōrōn suit: see note 33 below. The penalty<br />
under an apophasis could vary according to the public decree calling for the investigation: in the case of<br />
the Harpalus Affair, for example, Demosthenes was fined 50 talents after being suspected of taking 20<br />
talents in dōra (Plut. Dem. 26.2). It is unknown what the penalty was for conviction in a graphē<br />
dōroxenias, but atimia qua outlawry was likely: see Chapter Six below.<br />
4 Such a baldly functionalist view underpins the consensus scholarly view. So, for example, Strauss (1985:<br />
73) remarks, “Bribes threatened to turn an individual against the commonwealth, hence they were<br />
outlawed.” Similarly, MacDowell (1983a: 57): “It is...not surprising that some attempts were made to<br />
check corruption by legislation and prosecution.” Cf. Calhoun (1913: 67), Harvey (1985: 95), Taylor<br />
(2001: 157), Hashiba (2006: 72).<br />
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discrete offenses and later grouped them together into a comprehensive law (thereby<br />
creating overlap), or that they first identified a general offense (dōrodokia) and later re-<br />
legislated its most egregious types, perhaps with harsher penalties in a further attempt to<br />
discourage potential offenders. 5 Alternatively, it is surmised that the overlap was<br />
consciously created to increase the likelihood of prosecution; procedural flexibility would<br />
enable someone to prosecute a dōrodokos and thereby incur just the right amount of risk. 6<br />
There are considerable problems in painting a broad legal history based on such<br />
generalizations about the development of Athenian law 7 ; even if we put these to one side,<br />
however, there are still further problems with this approach. In accounting for legal<br />
innovation, these scholars have proceeded from two basic assumptions: to curb<br />
corruption, the Athenians decided to define dōrodokia in law and they thereby created<br />
legal penalties that would act as deterrents to future dōrodokoi. To my mind, both of<br />
these assumptions are incorrect.<br />
These assumptions are remarkably similar to contemporary legal scholars’<br />
discussions of the rule of law. For those scholars, the rule of law is a central goal of anti-<br />
bribery legislation: the law, and ideally only the law, is to be used to provide a definition<br />
5 Broadly, these are the approaches taken by Hashiba (2006: esp. 76) and MacDowell (1983a), respectively,<br />
who have offered the only in-depth examinations of the legal history of dōrodokia in classical Athens. Of<br />
these, only the treatment of MacDowell (1983a) is comprehensive, but its conclusions have been rightly<br />
criticized by Todd (1993: 303n.16) and especially Hashiba (2006), whose own examination is more evenhanded<br />
yet does not aim to be exhaustive.<br />
6 Demosthenes posits precisely this reason for the variety of Athenian laws on theft: Dem. 22.25-7. He has<br />
been followed by Osborne (1985), Ober (1989: 144-5), Todd (1993: 160-3); see especially Carey (2004)<br />
for the criticism that this explanation does not account for the entire Athenian legal system. As I will<br />
argue in Chapter Seven, the motivation behind procedural flexibility in dōrodokia suits potentially<br />
stemmed from the need for different authoritative bodies to be the judge in different circumstances.<br />
7 See especially Humphreys (1983: 229-31), Cantarella (1987), Cohen (1989: 91), Todd (1993: 69-70) on<br />
the various dangers of adopting an evolutionary approach in the study of Athenian law. It is puzzling, in<br />
this regard, that Hashiba (2006: 68n.27) notes the problems with making evolutionary assumptions about<br />
the development of Athenian law, yet nevertheless posits that the general law against dōrodokia (as cited in<br />
Dem. 21.113) evinces “some intellectual sophistication of legislative language.” In effect, diachronic<br />
changes in the Demosthenic law are understood as increasingly sophisticated attempts at defining<br />
dōrodokia comprehensively. I offer a different approach below.<br />
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of what is and is not socially legitimate; and the law is to provide a series of incentives<br />
and penalties that structure how political agents behave. In essence, advocates of anti-<br />
corruption reform argue, by designing the right laws and the right institutions—with<br />
clearly defined norms and stringent penalties to hold officials accountable—a polity can<br />
effectively curb the cancer of corruption. 8<br />
In response to both sets of scholars, however, it is unclear that the Athenians had<br />
such an impulse to define things systematically, let alone to use the law to do so. 9 As we<br />
have seen, the Athenian word for bribery was ‘dōrodokia’, which meant approximately<br />
“the receipt of gifts in exchange for a bad outcome” (dōra + dekomai), yet nowhere was<br />
this ‘bad outcome’ further defined. 10 Even a superficial look at Athenian laws on<br />
dōrodokia confirms this claim, for the offense of dōrodokia is never legally defined<br />
beyond the receipt of dōra resulting in some kind of ‘harm’ or ‘bad’ to the dēmos 11 ; in<br />
any case, those definitions certainly do not amount to “taking gifts [sc. in office],” as<br />
some classicists have tacitly assumed. 12 Nor is dōrodokia the only offense which the<br />
Athenians did not rigorously define. 13 If the Athenians had a more exact understanding<br />
8<br />
See recently Rose-Ackerman (1978, 1999), Klitgaard (1988), Doig (2000), della Porta and Rose-<br />
Ackerman (2002), Johnston (2005).<br />
9<br />
Note, by contrast, how the law code of Zaleucus was famous for its precision in calibrating a different<br />
penalty for each offense: Ephorus FGrH 70 F 139.<br />
10<br />
See above Chapter One.<br />
11<br />
See further MacDowell (1983: 74-6). The law against dōrodokia cited at Dem. 21.113 mentions only<br />
giving or taking “to the harm of the dēmos.” Likewise, the eisangelia against public speakers defines<br />
bribery as taking money and speaking against the interests of the Athenian dēmos (Hyp. 4.8); the graphē<br />
dekasmou simply calls the offense dōrodokia; and apophasis by the Areopagus was based on a public<br />
decree which need not define the offense more specifically than taking gifts “against the country” (kata\<br />
th=j patri/doj, e.g. Din. 1.13).<br />
12<br />
Harvey (1985), Kulesza (1995), Taylor (2001), Hashiba (2006). Harvey’s (1985: 108-13) discussion is<br />
particularly relevant here, as he seeks to differentiate ‘catapolitical’ bribery—i.e. bribery “against the<br />
community”—from other kinds of taking gifts in office. Ultimately, though, he concludes that both<br />
offenses were surely outlawed even though our legal sources consistently refer only to catapolitical bribery.<br />
I differ from his approach in saying that dōrodokia was, and was only, catapolitical bribery.<br />
13<br />
Commonly noted in our ancient sources: AP 9.2, cf. AP 35.2; Arist. Rhet. 1.1354a27-30, b11-16,<br />
1374a8; Pl. Polit. 294a10-295a7; Rhodes (1981: 162 ad AP 9.1). For a good discussion, see Harris (1988:<br />
367-70), Todd (2000a: 26-7).<br />
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of what constituted dōrodokia—which kinds of things were ‘bad’ gifts, under which<br />
specific circumstances a gift might be deemed ‘bad’, etc.—that definition is not in our<br />
record.<br />
Just as we might query scholars’ focus on the substantive aspects of dōrodokia<br />
legislation, so, too, might we cast doubt on their functionalist conclusion for why specific<br />
legal procedures or penalties were created for dōrodokia suits. As the orator Dinarchus<br />
explains in a prosecution speech against Demosthenes on the charge of dōrodokia, the<br />
laws against dōrodokia established two possible penalties. The dōrodokos was to be<br />
punished either with death, “to ensure that anyone happening to receive this punishment<br />
would be an example (para/deigma) to others,” or with a fine ten times the amount of<br />
the bribe, “so that those who commit the offense would not profit” (i3na mh\ lusitelh/sh|<br />
toi=j tou=to tolmw=si poiei=n, Din. 1.60). 14 To a degree we can readily understand both<br />
penalties as deterrents, yet it is worth pointing out that they function as deterrents in<br />
different ways. A financial penalty is thought to deter the original dōrodokos, while the<br />
death penalty is intended to deter other dōrodokoi. If Dinarchus is correct, then the death<br />
penalty was not merely a deterrent, but played a broader, one might say educative, role<br />
within the polity. 15<br />
More generally, therefore, a second reason for resisting the functionalist approach<br />
taken by scholars of ancient and modern law alike is that such an approach tends to<br />
minimize the rich variety of Athenian legislation, especially the range of penalties and<br />
procedures created. What may appear to be ‘harsher’ penalties—adopted presumably as<br />
14 Dinarchus’ testimony here is actually erroneous on two counts—on which, see note 3 above–but is<br />
helpful evidence all the same that Athenians consciously crafted different penalties for dōrodokia for<br />
different reasons.<br />
15 Recall from the Introduction, too, how the death penalty was viewed in the case of Timagoras’ dōrodokia<br />
as a means of deterring the Persian King from giving bribes (cf. Dem. 19.137).<br />
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a greater deterrent—may actually reflect new conceptions of dōrodokia, the law, or<br />
penology. Accordingly, we should ask not just why the Athenians decided to adopt<br />
formal regulations concerning dōrodokia, but especially why they enacted these<br />
particular measures with these particular penalties and procedures. In other words, what<br />
tends to get lost in approaches premised on broad generalizations about Athenian<br />
lawmaking is the tremendous social meaning legislation had for the Athenians. Certainly<br />
there was overlap in Athenian legislation on dōrodokia, but this was motivated by<br />
profound social and political considerations, as we will see, not necessarily by a<br />
conscious desire to promote the rule of law, that is, to effect strictly legal definitions of<br />
legitimate action backed by legally enforced penalties.<br />
Dinarchus’ testimony exposes an additional problem in assuming that Athenian<br />
dōrodokia legislation aimed at something similar to the modern notion of the rule of law.<br />
The rule of law presupposes a specific role for law as the ultimate arbiter of legitimate<br />
action; in a rule of law context, the polity is structured by, specifically, legal norms, and<br />
this system of norms—the law—is ideally kept separate from the contestation of political<br />
norms in deliberative, legislative bodies. Legal penalties thus should be the primary<br />
means of deterring illicit action. For classicists examining Athenian legislation on<br />
dōrodokia, all of these purposes were implicitly served by creating not only a<br />
comprehensive definition of dōrodokia within the law but also an effective system of<br />
accountability to enforce that definition.<br />
To be fair, the Athenians certainly believed in equality before the law—all<br />
citizens had equal access to the courts, and nobody was to be above the law—and the<br />
laws themselves were constantly hailed as one, if not the, central authority on communal<br />
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norms. Yet it would be misleading to conclude that, for the Athenians, ‘the law’ was a<br />
predictable, autonomous system of rules that constituted legitimate action. The<br />
Athenians did not adhere in that sense to what we might call ‘the rule of law’. 16 Athens<br />
was a legally pluralistic society: although citizens used the courts to legitimate certain<br />
actions, as we will see shortly, law did not have a monopoly on legitimacy, nor did its<br />
authority always trump that of other socially legitimate sources of authority. 17 This was<br />
particularly true with bribery, as noted by the fourth century orator Hyperides (5.24): the<br />
laws forbad profiting from public office, but the people nevertheless allowed officials to<br />
take gifts provided that doing so did not harm the dēmos. 18<br />
Like broader cultural narratives about dōrodokia, then, Athenian legislation and<br />
institutional reform actually tell us a lot more about dōrodokia than these scholars would<br />
allow. In essence, their view provides a plausible reason for some kind of legal or<br />
institutional change—dōrodokia was a ‘problem’ in society that needed to be<br />
addressed—yet fails to explain why the Athenians made the precise changes that they<br />
16 This is contra the view taken by Ostwald (1986) and Sealey (1987) and Harris (2006), on which see the<br />
succinct reply by Todd (1993: 299-300), Lanni (2006). The extent to which the Athenians developed a<br />
concept like ‘the rule of law’ has been hotly debated among ancient historians: see Ostwald (1986), Sealey<br />
(1987), Cohen (1995), Todd (1993: 299-300), Allen (2000: 168-96), Lanni (2006; forthcoming),<br />
Karayiannis and Hatzis (2008).<br />
17 Much sociolegal literature from the 1980’s is devoted to this idea of legal pluralism, a helpful overview<br />
of which is provided by Merry (1988). On legal pluralism generally, Moore (1973, 1978), Galanter (1981),<br />
and Griffiths (1986), Woodman (1998) are essential. Arthurs (1985) details how the normative order of<br />
formal law has a constitutive influence on other normative orders in society, while Felstiner, Abel, and<br />
Sarat’s description of the way divorce attorneys give counsel describes how the legal order can be<br />
constituted by the norms of other social fields, in their case professional lawyers (1980). For the relevance<br />
of legal pluralism to archaic Greek law, see Lakin (2005), Papakonstantinou (2008: esp. 143-4 n.50).<br />
Fourth-century evidence that ‘laws’ were sovereign: Aeschin. 1.4-5, 3.6, 3.169; Dem. 21. 223-5, 23.73,<br />
22.46, 24.5, 24.75-6, 24.118, 25.20-1, 57.56; Lyc. 1.3-4; Din. 3.16; Hyp. 4.5. Cf. Hansen (1975: 48; 1990:<br />
239-42), Ostwald (1986: 497), Ober (1989: 299-304). Yet the modern conception of sovereignty here is<br />
misplaced; certainly the laws were authoritative, but they were still only guides, not absolute authorities:<br />
Todd (1993: 59), Allen (2000: 176-7).<br />
18 Hyperides’ distinction has rightly become the accepted view among ancient historians since at least<br />
Harvey (1985: 108-13). I would point out, however, that we have no evidence of any law prohibiting mere<br />
profiting from office; Hyperides’ comments might instead be read as rhetorical manipulation designed to<br />
empower the jury to vote against his opponent.<br />
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did. 19 A different approach to Athenian legal and institutional reform might focus more<br />
on the differences than on the similarities among these responses: why did the Athenians<br />
develop these particular laws, with different penalties and different procedures, and why<br />
did they modify their political institutions in these particular ways? For that matter, when<br />
did the Athenians choose to create a new legal procedure, and when did they choose to<br />
reform an institution? The rest of this chapter will lay out a theoretical approach for<br />
addressing these questions; Chapter Six will put the theory to work by examining the<br />
democracy’s formal and informal responses to dōrodokia.<br />
Both Dinarchus and Hyperides press on implicit assumptions we might make<br />
about the role (and rule) of law in Athenian society. We can re-examine those<br />
assumptions by investigating how the laws against dōrodokia worked in practice—the<br />
subject of Chapter Seven. Who were the litigants, what were their underlying concerns,<br />
and what were the broader causes and consequences of dōrodokia suits? To an extent,<br />
the answers to such questions will also give us a better handle on why the Athenians<br />
drafted the particular dōrodokia legislation that they did. Further, such questions will<br />
return us to one of the central ideas that has framed this dissertation: that, in defining<br />
dōrodokia, the Athenians subtly deliberated over democracy. As the next few chapters<br />
will examine, it was in the legal space created for the dōrodokos that the Athenians could<br />
weigh whether an official, process, or policy should be aligned with dōrodokia or<br />
democracy.<br />
19 Essentially, these functionalist views focus on the direct effects of legislation, positing that Athenian<br />
legislation against dōrodokia was designed to eliminate the taking of gifts in office (vel sim.), not the<br />
indirect effects of these actions—say, the poor performance of one’s public duties or official action that<br />
went against the dēmos’ interests. On the difference between direct and indirect effects of legislation, see<br />
especially Griffiths (2003). I would maintain instead that, inasmuch as illicit exchange was the paradigm<br />
through which the Athenians understood other, distinct problems in their polity, the law gave expression to<br />
this offense, but primarily for the purpose of curbing these other problems.<br />
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Towards a Theory of Athenian Legal Innovation:<br />
If how the Athenians innovated is something of a black-box question in Greek<br />
history, how they created legal innovation is perhaps closer to a black hole. Most of the<br />
precious few testimonies we have about deliberative politics in action—Thucydidean<br />
speeches and the occasional report in other historiographers, comic parodies, as well as<br />
scattered, biased references in the orators—pertain to policymaking not legal regulation<br />
in its own right. Recently, in an attempt to explain how the Athenians innovated<br />
politically, Josiah Ober has examined the specific ways in which Athens’ political<br />
institutions aggregated the knowledge of her citizens and thereby fostered collective<br />
action and innovation. 20 Ober’s idea can be helpfully mapped onto legislation like that<br />
on dōrodokia, but we are still left with a couple key questions. First, what kinds of<br />
knowledge were considered ‘expert’, or what kinds of considerations went into drafting<br />
such legislation? Did the Athenians focus only on solving a discrete ‘problem’, or did<br />
they tailor the legislation so that the overall shape of the legal system was ideally<br />
maintained? And second, to what extent did the intended effect of this legislation shape<br />
how it was created? Did the Athenians modify, say, the legal process or penalty involved<br />
so that the law might act as more than a mere deterrent?<br />
For Ober’s framework to be readily applicable to Athenian laws on dōrodokia, we<br />
must unpack the social meaning of that legislation, in effect defining the various kinds of<br />
20 Ober (2008), the basic conclusions of which I build off of in constructing a theory of Athenian legal<br />
innovation. It should be noted that my argument does not require that the Athenians strived for efficiency<br />
in legal regulation, or what we might call legal efficacy. Still, Ober’s perceptive model will be a helpful<br />
backdrop for understanding how the Athenians strove to reach the ‘best’ policy, by whatever criteria that<br />
might be judged. Chapter Seven offers a couple different aims of Athenian laws on dōrodokia, each<br />
predicated on a different way in which the law in action was being used for broader political purposes.<br />
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‘expertise’ that went into its creation. Accordingly, this chapter outlines how the social<br />
meaning of such legislation was generated through a dialectic process involving social<br />
and legal representations of the dōrodokos. Two main points will be sketched here and<br />
argued for in greater detail in the chapters to come. First, creating new legislation on<br />
dōrodokia entailed ‘translating’ the social figure of the dōrodokos into a legal entity. The<br />
final form of that legislation was thus shaped both by the social meaning of dōrodokia—<br />
changing conceptions of the dōrodokos—and by the social meaning of law and legal<br />
process more generally. This process of translation occurred in three different ways: in<br />
the legal definition of dōrodokia, the penalty assigned to it, and the process by which it<br />
could be prosecuted. One crucial aim of this section, then, will be to abstract general<br />
principles for each area of translation. Of course, translating the dōrodokos into a legal<br />
entity implies knowing the intended effect of a law or new legal process, so our final<br />
point will concern the various functions that dōrodokia legislation played in the<br />
democracy.<br />
Our first concern is straightforward: how do we move from an action in society<br />
to its legal regulation? Some kind of abstraction of this action must occur in order to<br />
create a general legal rule applicable to a range of specific cases. In other words, an<br />
offense must be defined in the law in some way, yet doing so fixes a particular, albeit<br />
general, idea of what the offense is: both what constitutes the offense and what its<br />
broader significance is. This process of abstraction inevitably entails a kind of<br />
translation, for a fixed legal definition can never fully match up with how an offense<br />
might be described by its participants (or even by its observers). When litigants bring a<br />
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dispute to law, therefore, invariably there are ways in which legal space constrains or<br />
expands, distorts, refracts, or clarifies litigants’ narratives about an offense.<br />
Legal historians of ancient Athens have helpfully outlined a number of ways that<br />
the law in action transformed everyday experiences. 21 I focus here on three specific areas<br />
in which such translation would have occurred when a law was first drafted: defining an<br />
offense, assigning it a penalty, and choosing a process by which it could be prosecuted.<br />
For each of these areas, I would like to underscore that there were two kinds of<br />
considerations that shaped the final form of the legislation: the social meaning of an<br />
offense, viz. the way it was understood in society irrespective of any legal meaning<br />
attached to it; and the social meaning of law more generally, that is, how specific features<br />
of the law were articulated in relationship to each other, irrespective of how the offenses<br />
were commonly conceptualized in society.<br />
For Athenian laws on dōrodokia, therefore, we would expect that how dōrodokia<br />
was conceptualized in society would have at least some bearing on how it was<br />
consequently defined, punished, and prosecuted in law; yet as dōrodokia was transformed<br />
into a legal space, its precise shape may have been conditioned by other entities within<br />
that space, like how similar crimes were punished or prosecuted. These considerations<br />
amount to, respectively, exogenous and endogenous factors that affected the process of<br />
translation: the first affecting the starting point, or how dōrodokia was understood within<br />
society; the second, the end point, or how dōrodokia was incorporated into law. 22 If we<br />
21<br />
See especially Humphreys (1983, 1985), Todd (1993), Carey (1994, 2004), Johnstone (1999), Lanni<br />
(2006).<br />
22<br />
Ultimately, we should not seek to isolate completely these exogenous and endogenous factors. As recent<br />
sociolegal scholars have demonstrated, the way an offense is conceived affects how it is incorporated into<br />
law, but how it is incorporated into the law shapes, too, how it is conceived in society. In this sense, law<br />
both structures and is structured by cultural norms: Silbey (1992, 2005), Sarat and Simon (2001), Ewick<br />
and Silbey (2005), Mezey (2003), Rosen (2006).<br />
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think of these factors as endpoints on a sliding scale, then ultimately our goal here is to<br />
pinpoint the balance struck between them. At different points in time, and for different<br />
aspects of a given law, the balance will shift closer to one end or to the other; tracking<br />
these shifts for any given law will provide a framework for tracing the role of that law in<br />
society.<br />
In terms of defining an offense, Athenian laws were notorious for being<br />
substantively vague. 23 Moreover, there is little reason to think that legal definitions<br />
entailed considerable translation from common understandings of what an offense was.<br />
After all, there were no real legal professionals in Athens, so there was no institutional<br />
context by which a legal definition could be fixed, have precedent, and consequently be<br />
refined over time—traditionally the very processes by which ‘law’ becomes divorced<br />
from social realities. 24 Even when litigants referred to the legal definition of an offense,<br />
for example, they did so only informally, focusing on the spirit not the letter of the law. 25<br />
We can expect, then, that when dōrodokia was given legal expression, its definition<br />
closely matched prevailing ideas of what constituted dōrodokia.<br />
Inasmuch as Athenian litigants commonly cited legal definitions only<br />
informally—and only rarely tried to determine whether an offense in question matched its<br />
legal definition—we would expect that there would be relatively little correlation<br />
23<br />
Noted already in antiquity: AP 9.2, cf. AP 35.2; Arist. Rhet. 1.1354a27-30, b11-16, 1374a8; Pl. Polit.<br />
294a10-295a7.<br />
24<br />
Precisely because it was left to jury members to define, for themselves, which social norms applied to a<br />
particular case, rigorous legal definitions were unnecessary: see further Chapter Seven, cf. Carey (1994:<br />
178-9), Lanni (2006: 117-18). The divorcing of legal norms from social experience has been underscored<br />
in sociolegal scholarship on legal consciousness. To the extent that social actors are aware that their<br />
actions are constituted by legal norms in particular, they reframe their own experience of those actions: see<br />
especially Yngvesson (1989), Ewick and Silbey (1992, 2003), Silbey (1992: esp. 45-6).<br />
25<br />
Todd (2000a: 29-30) rightly points out that informal definition of the law, focusing on the broader<br />
meaning of a statute, not on the details of its wording, was common in Athenian courtrooms in large part<br />
because statutes were mere evidence (cf. Arist. Rhet. 1.15.2-12), not strict rules by which evidence was<br />
judged: cf. Harrison (1971: 134-5), Harris (1988: 367-70), Todd (1993: 58-60), Carey (1994: 178-9).<br />
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between changes in the wording of a law and how litigants presented their case. As we<br />
will discover in Chapter Seven, however, this was not the case with Athens’ laws on<br />
dōrodokia. There, changes in the legal definition of dōrodokia seem to have had a direct<br />
effect on how litigants conceptualized the offense. This exception needs explanation, and<br />
the same chapter will accordingly take up the question of the specific role dōrodokia<br />
legislation played.<br />
How did the Athenians assign a penalty to a particular offense? Hyperides<br />
suggests that the punishment should fit the crime (Hyp. 3.4-6), and we can understand<br />
this idea in two different ways. A punishment should meet general expectations for what<br />
kind of recompense is required for a particular crime. Officials guilty of adikion, or petty<br />
financial mismanagement, were thus liable to repay the sum in question (AP 54.2). We<br />
can readily imagine that this particular penalty ‘fit’ the crime insofar as the offense was<br />
conceptualized as a financial offense—it was investigated by financial auditors, after<br />
all—and an insignificant one at that, requiring only repayment of lost monies. In this<br />
way, both the type and magnitude of the penalty could be calibrated with how an offense<br />
was conceptualized by the Athenians.<br />
At the same time, a punishment might be calibrated to other legal punishments; in<br />
this sense, it might reflect how an offense was incorporated into law, rather than how it<br />
was conceptualized within society. Note how the magnitude of the penalty could also be<br />
measured according to other legal penalties, not necessarily to the offense itself. For<br />
instance, certain orators remark that dōrodokia was given a tenfold fine, whether opposed<br />
to the simple fine of adikion or equivalent to the tenfold fine for embezzlement, precisely<br />
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because it was such a grave offense. 26 Here it is clear that the penalty for each offense<br />
was grouped together with other similar legal offenses—similar because they were<br />
prosecuted in the same manner and applied to the same legal category of individuals (i.e.<br />
public officials or archontes)—and the grouping of offenses was thought relevant for<br />
how to assign a specific penalty for each offense. Thus, both exogenous norms about the<br />
kind of recompense demanded by a crime and endogenous norms about how other similar<br />
crimes were punished could be used to determine whether a punishment fit a crime.<br />
As we will see in the next chapter, in assigning a penalty to dōrodokia, Athenian<br />
law translated the dōrodokos from a social to a legal entity in very specific ways. He was<br />
first deemed either an ‘insider’ of or an ‘outsider’ to the moral community of the dēmos;<br />
it was then determined, also based on the way that the offense was conceptualized,<br />
whether or not he deserved to be an ‘insider’ or an ‘outsider’. These determinations were<br />
based on the kind of social figure he was. The disobedient citizen was an insider who<br />
needed to be kept out of the community; the thief was an insider who tried to become an<br />
outsider, so his punishments reflected a desire either to keep him out or to try to<br />
reintegrate him into the community; finally, the traitor was an outsider who must always<br />
remain an outsider. These assignations underpinned both the content of the laws on<br />
dōrodokia and hence the changing penalties for dōrodokia throughout the democracy.<br />
In tracing this process of translation, we have tacitly assumed that law’s role<br />
within society is to settle disputes and restore reciprocity, yet this is never a given in any<br />
society. 27 Indeed, we saw above how Dinarchus posits two different functions of law<br />
26 Din. 2.16, Hyp. 5.24; cf. AP 54.2. Din. 1.60 errs in calling the simple fine a twofold fine, but<br />
nevertheless singles out dōrodokia for the death penalty.<br />
27 Cohen (1995: 9-24) helpfully lays out recent legal anthropological work outlining, and critiquing, just<br />
such a functionalist approach to conflict and the law’s assumed role in defusing it.<br />
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when he points to divergent penalties for dōrodokia: whereas a tenfold fine might<br />
prevent an official from profiting through dōrodokia, capital punishment was intended to<br />
deter others from committing dōrodokia (Din. 1.60). Indeed, when Demosthenes relates<br />
how the Persian King stopped giving dōra after Timagoras was put to death for<br />
dōrodokia, the stringency of capital punishment appears akin to political signaling about<br />
the kind of city Athens was. 28 Punishments could certainly restore reciprocity and<br />
thereby function as deterrents, but they might also be bound up within broader processes<br />
of signification, cultural negotiation, and even education. 29<br />
Once an offense had been defined and matched with an appropriate penalty, by<br />
what criteria did the Athenians decide how it could be prosecuted? This is perhaps the<br />
least intuitive of the areas of translation we will investigate, but it will prove one of the<br />
most important when we turn to examining the role of Athenian dōrodokia legislation. It<br />
was noted above that there was considerable procedural flexibility in the laws on<br />
dōrodokia, as for a number of offenses in ancient Athens. 30 Demosthenes attests that this<br />
procedural flexibility stemmed from a desire to foster litigation: with more legal options<br />
available, litigants would choose the process that made the most sense to them (Dem.<br />
22.25-7). Although this idea does not seem common to all areas of the law, even if it<br />
were true in principle, it would still tell us little about why specific legal processes were<br />
chosen for specific offenses. After all, nowhere does Demosthenes, or any Athenian for<br />
that matter, purport that the Athenian legal system allowed maximal procedural<br />
28 Dem. 19.137. Note how in his prosecution of Demosthenes for dōrodokia, Dinarchus claims that Athens<br />
needed to kill Demosthenes in order to show the rest of the world that she would not tolerate dōrodokia<br />
from her officials: Din. 1.93, cf. 3.21.<br />
29 A point commonly noted by sociolegal scholars: e.g. Silbey (1992: 41-6), Sarat and Simon (2001: 15-<br />
21). For the broader role of punishment in Athenian society, see Allen (2000), Karayiannis and Hatzis<br />
(2007: esp. 11-12).<br />
30 See above, p.122.<br />
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flexibility, viz. every offense could be prosecuted by every process. 31 Rather, specific<br />
legal procedures had specific meanings, and I suggest that this meaning had to be<br />
matched with an offense.<br />
Prior to 399, laws were publicly displayed in a somewhat chaotic fashion around<br />
the city. Still, there was some order to this chaos, as at least the laws of Draco and Solon<br />
were grouped together in the Stoa Basileus, probably from the time of Ephialtes. 32 After<br />
399, this practice continued, but the centralized re-publication of the laws near the Stoa of<br />
the Basileus listed laws according to the magistrate who presided over the trial;<br />
moreover, many new laws were published in the area to which they applied. 33 We can<br />
detect in both practices a common inclination to group together laws belonging to the<br />
same space or domain. Whereas originally this space had been defined according to the<br />
lawgiver, in the second half of the democracy the focus was on the domain of the<br />
presiding magistrate: that is, on the domain over which he could pass authoritative<br />
(kurios) judgments.<br />
Not all judicial bodies were created equally at Athens: both functionally and<br />
symbolically, juries were distinct from the Assembly, which was distinct from the<br />
Areopagus Court. In practice this meant that different judicial bodies were differently<br />
qualified to render judgment on a particular matter. In the creation of the homicide courts<br />
31 On the contrary, by the end of the democracy we find complaints that the eisangelia process was being<br />
abused by those who were prosecuting trivial offenses like hiring flute-girls at below-market price (Hyp.<br />
4.3): see further Hyp. 1.12 with Philips (2006). That this was considered an abuse of the system strongly<br />
suggests not only that the social meaning of legal process was differentiated, but especially that such<br />
differentiated meaning played a role in which process would be matched with which offenses.<br />
32 Ostwald (1986: 410) brings out this point about the haphazard location of laws throughout the city in the<br />
fifth century. AP 7.1 says that the Solonian kyrbeis were located near the Stoa Basileus. See further<br />
Ruschenbusch (1966: 14-22).<br />
33 On the re-publication of the laws near the Stoa Basileus, see And. 1.82 and compare IG i 3 104.7-8<br />
(Draco’s homicide law); Dow (1961), Rhodes (1981: 131-5; 1991: 90-1), Clinton (1982), Ostwald (1986:<br />
513n.60, 519), Hansen (1990a). Organization according to procedure: Hansen (1991: 165) with Dem.<br />
24.20-3, Lanni (2006: 142-8), cf. [Dem.] 46.26. Laws published throughout the city: e.g. Nikophon’s law<br />
on the testers of silver coinage, SEG xxvi 72.45-6 (375/4 BCE).<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Five<br />
and courts for commercial suits (dikai emporikai), for example, the Athenians<br />
demonstrated considerable sensitivity to how the details of legal process, including who<br />
was authorized to judge a suit, needed to be calibrated to the offense in question. 34 One<br />
part of this calibration was determining which judicial body would be kurios: so the<br />
archon basileus dealt with offenses involving religious matters, while the authoritative<br />
domain of the archon polemarchos was offenses relating to war; similarly, as Athens’<br />
most hallowed body, the Areopagus consistently dealt with the gravest religious<br />
offenses. 35 These domains of authority, as we might call them, were not mere<br />
jurisdictions, but were fields of an expertise of a sort that rendered an official or judicial<br />
body kurios over a particular group of legal offenses.<br />
In creating new legislation, I suggest, the Athenians utilized this concept of<br />
domains of authority, in effect matching an offense to its relevant domain. Of course,<br />
this was never a static process: the Athenians did not simply divide up the kosmos into<br />
various domains and assign new offenses accordingly. Rather, the boundaries of various<br />
domains of authority could be contested with the result that over time domains could<br />
expand or shrink, be combined with or substituted for other domains. Ultimately, the<br />
logic of how these domains were utilized was contingent on the specific circumstances<br />
under which a law was drafted; still, as the next chapter will show, these four operations<br />
on domains recur in Athenian legislation on dōrodokia throughout the democracy.<br />
For the definition of an offense, its penalty, and the legal process by which it was<br />
prosecuted, we have seen how both exogenous and endogenous, social and legal factors<br />
shaped how a law was crafted. One final consideration, then, is the intent of the<br />
34 Thus, one defining feature of the homicide courts was that they were held in the open air supposedly in<br />
order to minimize the risk of spreading the homicide’s pollution to the jurors: Ant. 5.11, cf. AP 57.4.<br />
35 Hansen (1991: 165). Cf. AP 56-8. On the Areopagus’ domain of authority, see below, n. 80.<br />
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legislation. We have already seen that different penalties very well might imply different<br />
roles of the law in action, so it is worth outlining what these roles might be. There are<br />
two different roles that will be of importance in our investigation in Chapter Seven: an<br />
educative and a legitimating function of the law.<br />
Law and legal institutions are commonly understood as shaping communal<br />
expectations, defining or signaling norms, and enacting social rituals that tap into the<br />
collective consciousness of a polity: broadly speaking, this is law’s impact on culture<br />
and public discourse. 36 What we will be interested in here is a conscious motivation to<br />
use legislation to impact public discourse. One idea that will emerge in Chapter Seven is<br />
that the Athenians consciously matched vague legal definitions and high penalties with<br />
the proper domain of authority in order to signal publicly what constituted an<br />
unacceptable political outcome (i.e. dōrodokia). By watching dōrodokia trials, or even<br />
by simply focusing on the outcomes of the trials, Athenians could gauge better what<br />
kinds of actions were considered democratic, which were considered undemocratic or<br />
characteristic of the dōrodokos.<br />
Such an educative role for the law is itself predicated on a different, legitimating<br />
function of the law. As we will see, to the extent that the Athenians used dōrodokia trials<br />
to define which political outcomes were acceptable, they were using legal process as a<br />
legitimizing force in society. In essence, litigants unhappy with a given political result<br />
frequently called foul and brought someone to trial for dōrodokia in order to contest the<br />
legitimacy of the original result. Legal process thus opened up a political space in which<br />
the two litigants could debate not only whether a given outcome constituted dōrodokia,<br />
36 On which, see Todd (2000a), Lanni (2006, forthcoming), Papakonstantinou (2008) for the Athenian<br />
context; Silbey (1992, 2005), Sarat and Austin (2001), Mezey (2003) for contemporary law.<br />
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but even how the norms governing dōrodokia should be defined. Positing such a<br />
legitimizing role for law helps explain the relationship between how dōrodokia was<br />
defined in law and how this definition shaped the ways in which litigants framed the<br />
offense.<br />
We can test the value of the above framework by turning the rich yet tangled story<br />
of what I argue is the first Athenian law concerning dōrodokia. As we will see,<br />
uncovering the text of this law implicates a number of discrete legislative acts throughout<br />
the democracy, including changes in the law’s substance, penalty and procedure. Only<br />
by outlining this diachronic change will we be in a position to understand why the law<br />
was drafted in the first place, and why it was drafted in the form that it was. After tracing<br />
the history of this one law, we will then turn, in the next chapter, to the remaining formal<br />
measures adopted during the democracy.<br />
The Original Law against dōrodokia:<br />
The first Athenian legislation on dōrodokia probably pre-dated the democracy by<br />
nearly a century. Although we have no direct evidence that such a law existed—no<br />
record of any sixth-century trials for dōrodokia, no ascription of any such law to an early<br />
lawgiver—a few scattered clues alert us to the probability that in 594 the Athenian<br />
lawgiver Solon drafted a law forbidding public officials, especially judges, from<br />
committing dōrodokia. The text of the law comes down to us from a speech of<br />
Demosthenes, who cites the law as evidence that his opponent had committed a grave<br />
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offense in allegedly bribing the family of a recently deceased to claim that the man had<br />
been murdered by Demosthenes 37 :<br />
e0a/n tij 0Aqhnai/wn lamba/nh| para/ tinoj, h@ au0to\j didw| ~ e9te/rw|, h2<br />
diafqei/rh| tina\j e0paggello/menoj, e0pi\ bla/bh| tou~ dh/mou h@ 38 tino\j<br />
tw=n politw~n tro/pw| h@ mhxanh~ | h| )ntiniou~n, a1timoj e1stw kai\ pai=dej<br />
kai\ ta\ e0kei/nou.<br />
If any Athenian should receive from another, or himself should give to the other,<br />
or should he corrupt a few men by freely making promises, to the harm of the<br />
people or one of the citizens in any way whatsoever, let him and his children and<br />
property be outlawed. (Dem. 21.113)<br />
37<br />
The law as we have it was not included in the speech first published by Demosthenes, but instead was<br />
inserted later by a scholiast who conjectured which law Demosthenes had read out to the jury on the<br />
occasion of his trial. As a result, doubts about the law’s authenticity have been echoed for at least a<br />
century: Drerup (1897: 304-5), for example, assumes on Pollux’ authority that the graphē dōrōn covered<br />
only taking bribes (Pollux 8.42). Pollux is contradicted by Lex. Seg. 237 s.v. dw/rwn grafh/, which<br />
claims that the procedure could be used for both giving and taking bribes. In any case, Pollux’ neat<br />
division of procedures for giving (dekasmou) and taking (dōrōn) bribes cannot be correct if [Dem.] 46.26—<br />
which includes both—refers to the graphē dekasmou. Cf. Glotz (1904: 502-3) with refutation by Hansen<br />
(1976: 88n.25). MacDowell (1990: 43-6) has compellingly argued in favor of the law’s authenticity.<br />
38<br />
h2: h2 i)di/a| Westermann; kai\ i)di/a|: Reiske; h2 dia\: Iurinus; kai\ dia\ S vulg. With the exception of this one<br />
phrase the text of the law is otherwise certain in the manuscripts that do not omit the law. The manuscript<br />
reading e)pi\ bla/bh| tou= dh/mou kai\ dia\ tino\j tw=n politw~n clearly has to be emended: why would<br />
giving or receiving dōra “through one of the citizens” have been a necessary condition in addition to harm<br />
to the dēmos? Iurinus’ emendation only creates an odd antithesis between giving/receiving bribes “to the<br />
harm of the dēmos” and “through one of the citizens.” Reiske ingeniously suggested that dia/ conceals i)di/a|,<br />
which Westermann further changed to h2 i)di/a| tino\j tw=n politw=n. Westermann’s reading has been<br />
standard for over a century but, as I argue here, the use of the word i)di/a| creates nonsensical Greek.<br />
On purely philological grounds, both Westermann’s and Reiske’s reading are untenable. If i)di/a| is<br />
taken as an adjective modifying bla/bh|, we would need a definite article before the adjective; and to take it<br />
as an adverb, as most scholars seem to do, significantly strains the sense of the words, for we would expect<br />
that it would then modify the offense as done ‘privately’, not that it would redundantly clarify that an<br />
individual’s harm was ‘in private’. On legal grounds, too, the word is problematic, for it is unclear why an<br />
offense explicitly marked out as part of the ‘private’ sphere—as i)di/oj regularly connotes: cf. Pl. Euth. 2a;<br />
Isoc. 11.28, 32, 35; AP 59.2-3, 67.1; Dem. 18.210, 24.192-3, [Dem.] 46.26—would actually be treated as a<br />
public offense punishable under a graphē: see especially Drerup (1897: 304), who accordingly thinks the<br />
law spurious.<br />
For precisely this reason, in fact, the unparalleled phrase grafa\j i)di/aj is often excised from the<br />
law against hybris, also cited in Demosthenes’ speech against Midias. For that law as well as for yet<br />
another law cited in the same speech (cf. i)di/aj decia\j, Dem. 21.52), MacDowell (1990: 268 ad Dem.<br />
21.47) shrewdly posits that the word i)di/a| had originally been written next to these quoted laws in order to<br />
indicate that they were ‘separate’ from the rest of the speech; he posits that a later scribe incorporated the<br />
annotation into the text of each law, thus inadvertently creating textual difficulties. By the same process<br />
i)di/a| could have entered the general law against dōrodokia, as well. When combined with what came<br />
before, this addition would have created HIDIA, later misread as AIDIA or KIDIA and emended to<br />
KAIDIA, as per the manuscripts’ kai\ dia/. By excising i)di/a? |, Iurinus’emendation of kai\ to h@ is clearly<br />
correct, and we are left with a much more straightforward reading that neatly balances harm done to the<br />
dēmos and that done to individual citizens.<br />
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Buried within the text of the Demosthenic law are indications that it could not<br />
have been drafted at a single point in time; instead, various clauses point to distinct<br />
periods in time when the law was modified. For instance, the third clause, “should he<br />
corrupt a few men by freely making promises” (diafqei/rh| tina\j e0paggello/menoj),<br />
likely was not drafted before the late fifth century when the verb diafqei/rein was first<br />
used in conjunction with dōrodokia. 39 Similarly, as we saw in Chapter Two, actively<br />
giving bribes was not condemned until about the same time. 40 By contrast, the final<br />
clause on punishment, “let him and his children and property be outlawed” (a1timoj<br />
e1stw kai\ pai=dej kai\ ta\ e0kei/nou), suggests a date prior to the first half of the fifth<br />
century, for it was only during this time that atimia meant ‘outlawry’. Under the later<br />
meaning of atimia as ‘disfranchisement’, the phrase referring to the offender’s property<br />
(kai\ ta\ e0kei/nou) would have been meaningless, for only people, not property, can be<br />
‘disfranchised’ in this way. 41 This clause suggests that a kernel of an earlier law, at least<br />
as old as the first half of the fifth century, is concealed within the law transmitted by the<br />
Demosthenic corpus. 42 Given the necessarily later context for giving bribes and<br />
39 Hashiba (2006: 70n.31) following Harvey (1985: 86-7) suggests a mid-fifth-century date for this<br />
meaning of diafqei/rein, but Harvey’s argument is based entirely on a purported play on words in<br />
Herodotus 5.51, which is dated sometime between the 440’s and 420’s. In fact, this meaning of the verb is<br />
not again attested until the fourth century (e.g. Lys. 2.29, 28.9; Xen. Hell. 7.3.8), and I have already argued<br />
that the Herodotean passage need not connote bribery: see Chapter One above. Harvey (1985: 111)<br />
rightly suggests, however, that the clause containing e0pi\ bla/bh| was added later: see page 124 below.<br />
40 Cf. Kulesza (1995: 36), Hashiba (2006: 69).<br />
41 On the meaning of atimia, see Harrison (1971: 169-76), Hansen (1976: 55-6), MacDowell (1978: 73-5;<br />
1983: 74-6), Maffi (1979), Rhodes (1981: 222 ad AP 16.10), Vleminck (1981), Rainer (1986), Hall (1996:<br />
79-80). Although Thonissen (1875: 214) argues that atimia in Dem. 21.113 could actually entail<br />
confiscation, too, his interpretation has not been followed by others. In fact, Hansen (1976: 88-9) proposes<br />
either to follow Drerup in deleting kai\ ta\ e)kei/nou or to change it to oi( e)c e)kei/nou; similarly, Lipsius (1905-<br />
15: 2.401n.100) deletes the entire penalty clause. Hansen (1976: 55-6) rightly points out that the later<br />
meaning of atimia was broader than ‘disfranchisement’, for atimoi lost all civil rights and all standing<br />
under the law. Nevertheless, without any direct English translation, here and throughout I use the<br />
translation ‘disfranchisement’ to describe the later meaning of atimia.<br />
42 Cf. Hashiba (2006: 71).<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Five<br />
corrupting through promises, this earlier law probably outlawed only taking bribes;<br />
effectively, it was a law against dōrodokia.<br />
Just as important as what the law does say, what the law does not say tells us<br />
much about its legislative import and history. One curious feature of the wording of the<br />
law as we have it is that the verbs lack a direct object: the regulation forbids anyone from<br />
‘taking’ (lamba/nh|) or ‘giving’ (didw| ~) or ‘freely promising’ (e0paggello/menoj) to the<br />
detriment of the dēmos or any of the citizens, but it is unspecified what is given, taken, or<br />
promised in each case. This is less of a problem for a verb like dido/nai (give), which can<br />
be used absolutely without any expressed object, but for lamba/nein (take) and<br />
e)pagge/llesqai (promise unasked) the lack of a direct object requires explanation. 43 We<br />
might emend the text to include a direct object (e.g. ti or dw=ra), but it is not at all clear<br />
how an entire word could have dropped out of the text, nor is it clear that an object would<br />
regularly have been inferred from these verbs in context. 44 Why, then, would the<br />
Athenians have omitted an object in the wording of this law?<br />
This problem disappears if we remember that the law as we have it is actually a<br />
redrafting—and, I argue, an explicit redefinition—of an earlier law which included the<br />
older meaning of atimia. Keeping in mind that the original law would have been drafted<br />
before the mid-fifth century, the verb used to describe the offense probably would have<br />
been de/xesqai (“receive in exchange for something bad”), not lamba/nein (“take”). As<br />
43<br />
Didonai without a direct object: e.g. Hom. Il. 9.37, 24, 529, Od. 1.348, 7.35; Hes. WD 354-5. See LSJ<br />
s.v. lamba/nw II.1a,h and e)pagge/llw A.4.<br />
44<br />
So MacDowell (1990: 337 ad Dem. 21.113) is rightly dubious. Of the two alternatives, dw=ra is the<br />
more likely omission, as it was consistently used in public documents concerning dōrodokia: cf. Dem.<br />
24.150, AP 55.5, IG ii² 1183.8. Further, it is more likely that dw=ra was understood from context than that<br />
it dropped out of the text, as most critics tacitly accept in their alignment of the law against dōrodokia with<br />
the graphē dōrōn process. These scholars do not offer why dw=ra was not expressed in the original law,<br />
but see further below for reasons why the omission might make sense.<br />
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we saw in Chapter One, in the archaic period it was the verb de/xesqai which was most<br />
often used to describe illicit exchanges. Indeed, that verb lies semantically at the root of<br />
dōrodokia and was the verb par excellence in Athenian regulations against dōrodokia: it<br />
is used in the oath of the jurors, in the curse announced at the beginning of every meeting<br />
of the Assembly and Council, as well as in a phrase from the law against bribing juries. 45<br />
Significantly, in these other legal regulations and in a few scenes of archaic bribery, the<br />
verb de/xesqai is combined with, specifically, the object dw=ra. 46 The frequent<br />
conjunction of the two words meant that the omitted dw=ra could have been understood<br />
from context. Accordingly, given its antiquity and the later omission of a direct object,<br />
the original law probably read, “If someone is bribed by another...” (e0a/n tij 0Aqhnai/wn<br />
de/xhtai para/ tinoj...), without an explicit mention of dw=ra. 47<br />
If this wording is correct, the original law most likely did not include the clause<br />
e)pi\ bla/bh| tou= dh/mou h@ tino\j tw=n politw=n (“to the harm of the people or one of the<br />
citizens”), for this clause essentially repeats the meaning of de/xesqai, which already<br />
implies that damage was done by the receipt of the dōra. 48 Incidentally, the clause is<br />
necessary, and hence makes more sense, with lamba/nh| (and didw| ~); without it, the giving<br />
and taking of all gifts would have been banned under the Demosthenic law. Because<br />
45 Oath of the jurors: ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai th=j h(lia/sewj e#neka, Dem. 24.150. The public curse has not<br />
been preserved, but a parody of the curse in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae uses the same verb (cf.<br />
de/xetai, Ar. Th. 346). Law against bribing juries: dexo/menoj, [Dem.] 46.26.<br />
46 Cf. Hom. Il. 24.429, 24.434, Od. 2.186, 8.483, 9.353; Ar. Th. 346; Dem. 24.150.<br />
47 For the sake of clarity, I use the passive voice in my English translation here—“If someone is bribed by<br />
another...”—for what in Greek is properly a middle-voiced verb. A more precise translation, however,<br />
would be much more cumbersome—“If someone receives from another in an illicit way...”—and in English<br />
would seemingly require a direct object. For this meaning of de/xesqai, see Chapter One.<br />
48 I find only one instance when the verb de/xesqai is explicitly reinforced with mention of the harm done:<br />
a scholiast’s note on Demosthenes’ speech On the False Embassy. There, the scholiast explains<br />
Demosthenes’ retort that his opponent had harmed the city by speaking to the Assembly after taking dōra<br />
from the city’s enemies: a)ll’ e)ch=n soi (fhsi/) le/gein e)n a1lloij, a)ll’ ou)k e)n oi{j e1blaptej th\n po/lin<br />
dw=ra deca/menoj (scholia 371c ad Dem. 19.184, Dilts). Even here, though, the supplementary aorist<br />
participle deca/menoj suggests that the orator intended to underscore the already implicit harm of<br />
dōrodokia: “you harmed the polis by taking dōra illicitly.”<br />
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these later additions to the law needed to be limited in some way in order to define when<br />
‘receiving’ or ‘giving’ dōra was illicit, the e)pi\ bla/bh| clause—including explicit mention<br />
of harm done to either the dēmos or to an individual—most likely entered the law only at<br />
a later date.<br />
I suggest, therefore, that the original law against dōrodokia read as follows:<br />
e)a/n tij A)qhnai/wn de/xhtai para/ tinoj tro/pw| h@ mhxanh| = h| )ntiniou=n, a!timoj<br />
e!stw kai\ pai=dej kai\ ta\ e)kei/nou.<br />
If some Athenian 49 is bribed by another in any way or manner whatsoever, 50 let him and<br />
his children and his property be outlawed.<br />
Reconstructed so, this regulation was substantively vague: like a number of early<br />
Athenian laws, it essentially outlawed an offense (de/xesqai) that was nowhere explicitly<br />
defined. 51 Given that the law was probably modified at least once at a later time (to add<br />
the didw|,~ diafqei/rh|, and probably e)pi\ bla/bh| clauses), it is possible that one impetus<br />
49<br />
All other instances of the subject “some Athenian” (ti/j 0Aqhnai/wn) imply a distinction either between<br />
Athenians and foreigners or between Athenian citizens and non-citizens (metics, slaves): see, respectively,<br />
Plut. Pel. 6.5, Dem. 35.50 with plausible restoration in IG i³57.11, 227.24, 228 fr.B.9, IG ii² 229.9; the laws<br />
cited in Aeschin. 1.16, 1.19 need not imply a distinction, but their authenticity is not secure. It is this latter<br />
distinction that I think is play here: if ‘some Athenian’ committed dōrodokia, he would no longer be an<br />
Athenian. This interpretation thereby relieves of us of having to posit that a separate (unattested) law<br />
applied to metics, slaves, or foreigners, as MacDowell (1983a: 74n.19) conjectures.<br />
50<br />
Given our limited evidence, the general clause “in any way or manner whatsoever” (tro/pw| h@ mhxanh= |<br />
h) |ntiniou=n) cannot be more precisely dated, so I have tentatively included it in my reconstruction of the<br />
original law against dōrodokia. Although this precise phrase is unparalleled in extant literature and<br />
inscriptions, there are a number of similar phrases attested in the Classical period (usually in the negative,<br />
“in no way or manner whatsoever”): mh/te te/xnh| mh/te mhxanh= | mhdemi/a| (Th. 5.18.4), ou!te te/xnei ou!te<br />
mexanei= ou)demia=i (IG i³ 40.22-3), ou!te te/xnh| ou!te mhxanh| = ou)demia= | (Dem. 24.150), te/xnh| h@ mh/xanh| =<br />
h( |ntiniou=n (Dem. 59.16). More relevant comparanda can be found in various judicial oaths: mhxanh=i h2<br />
t]e/[xnh]i ou0demia=i (IG ii² 1183.8-9, dated after 340), [te/xnai h2 maxana=i ou)d]-/emia=i (IK Knidos<br />
I.221A2.30-32, c.300), and, during the Hellenistic period, o[u1te t]e/xnhi ou1te pareure/sei ou)demia=i<br />
(MDAI(I) 1979: 249-71: II side B 4.32). These last examples, all of which vow that a person will not take<br />
dōra “by any way or contrivance whatsoever,” suggest that in the law against dōrodokia the same clause<br />
limits the actual act of taking dōra, not the harm done to the dēmos: for text, see footnote 7 below. This<br />
would suggest an earlier date for the phrase, before the e)pi\ bla/bh| clause was inserted into the law, but our<br />
evidence is ultimately only suggestive and cannot be taken as conclusive either way.<br />
51<br />
Athenian laws, particularly in the archaic period, notoriously lacked rigorous legal definitions, as was<br />
commonly pointed out in the democracy: AP 9.2, cf. AP 35.2; Arist. Rhet. 1.1354a27-30, b11-16, 1374a8;<br />
Pl. Polit. 294a10-295a7; Rhodes (1981: 162 ad AP 9.1). So, for example, the law against hubris simply<br />
states, “If anyone commits hubris against another (e)a/n tij u(bri/zh| ei1j tina, Dem. 21.47)...” a vagueness<br />
considered problematic already in antiquity: Todd (2000a: 26-7), Lanni (2006: 67-8, 117-8).<br />
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for this subsequent change was to specify the meaning of de/xesqai. In fact, by assuming<br />
that the later law was an explicit redefinition of the verb de/xesqai, with only an implicit<br />
direct object, we can make sense of the fact that the verb lamba/nein, though transitive,<br />
also omitted the object when the law was redrafted. This one crucial omission thus<br />
provides us with a skeleton for reconstructing the original law against dōrodokia and<br />
some of its subsequent development.<br />
Although the law lacks any mention of procedure, the omission of dōra as a direct<br />
object also makes it likely that this original law was associated with the graphē dōrōn<br />
procedure, under which anyone who wanted could come forth and publicly prosecute an<br />
offender. 52 Given that the Athenians used the word dōra to mean only ‘gifts’—recall that<br />
they distinguished ‘gifts’ from what we call ‘bribes’ by context or semantically by the<br />
verb used (e.g. de/xesqai)—the graphē dōrōn properly regulated the receipt of gifts, not<br />
necessarily bribes per se. In other words, the graphē dōrōn defined at what point, or in<br />
what context, licit actions (the receipt of gifts even by a public official) became illicit<br />
(when there was a bad outcome).<br />
This is precisely the kind of regulation found in our original law. If that law<br />
contained the verb de/xesqai—a fair assumption, as we have seen—then it was designed<br />
to define the kinds of exchanges that were allowed in the community; that is to say, it was<br />
52 The law’s association with the graphē dōrōn is commonly assumed but is based on scant evidence:<br />
Lex.Seg. 237.3 says that the graphē dōrōn covered both active and passive bribery, as is suggested by<br />
Demosthenes’ own commentary on the law (Dem. 21.104-7), but Pollux 8.60 claims that the graphē dōrōn<br />
applied only to taking, not giving, bribes. The law itself gives no indication of procedure, and we have no<br />
secure attestation of someone prosecuted under a graphē dōrōn, but see Ant. 6.50 with discussion further<br />
below. Still, there does appear to be evidence that the law was tied to the graphē dōrōn, and precisely with<br />
the subsequent changes envisioned here. Dinarchus 2.16-17 claims that “the first law givers” (oi( prw=toi<br />
nomoqe/tai) created the graphē dōrōn with a penalty of a tenfold fine. The phrase is a hapax—usually<br />
orators refer to the ‘first lawgiver’, i.e. Solon, on which see Hansen (1989: 80), Johnstone (1999: 25-33)—<br />
but it can be explained by assuming that Dinarchus is combining two different legislative acts: the initial<br />
creation of the graphē dōrōn by Solon and the subsequent addition of a monetary penalty by later<br />
nomothetai. Cf. Hansen (1989: 91) and see below.<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Five<br />
a law designed to regulate dōra. 53 After all, de/xesqai is a marked verb which connotes<br />
not a general kind of action (like ‘give’ or ‘take’ or ‘promise’), but a specific kind of<br />
exchange (i.e. illicit). When it was combined with the noun dōra to form the offense<br />
dōrodokia, it explicitly marked those dōra as illicit by indicating that their receipt<br />
resulted in a bad outcome. It is important to note, moreover, that this meaning of<br />
de/xesqai was never coupled with other nouns to form new compound words: for the<br />
Athenians only dōra could be marked as received in an illicit way. 54 Insofar as the<br />
original law against dōrodokia regulated exactly what we might expect was covered<br />
under the graphē dōrōn, both the law and the graphē dōrōn process were probably<br />
coupled from the law’s original drafting.<br />
Thus far we have identified substantive changes in what the original law against<br />
dōrodokia regulated, but linking the law to the graphē dōrōn in this way implicates still<br />
further change with regard to the penalty and procedure mandated by the law. Here it<br />
will be sufficient to identify that there was legal change; in the next chapter we will<br />
examine the significance of these changes. The only penalty mentioned in the law is<br />
atimia—‘outlawry’, later interpreted as disfranchisement—yet by the second half of the<br />
fourth century, sources indicate that the penalty for dōrodokia under the graphē dōrōn<br />
could be atimia or, as is more often cited, payment of a fine ten times the amount of the<br />
bribe. 55 Some of these sources also mention that death, not atimia, was a possible<br />
53 Although less straight-forward, this point holds for the later law, as well. The Demosthenic law defined<br />
when dōra became illicit to take, give, or promise unasked; it was a law about gifts, not bribes per se.<br />
54 dw=ra + de/xesqai as intended to change the mind of someone else: early examples in Hom. Il.24.434<br />
with scholiast, Hom.Hym. Herm. 549, Sappho fr. 1.22 (Page), Ar. Av. 937; cf. Harvey (1985: 83). That<br />
dōrodokia was the only noun formed from this meaning of the verb de/xesqai is illustrated by the peculiar<br />
morphological classes of compounds ending in –dokia: see further Chapter One.<br />
55 Only Aeschin. 3.232 explicitly confirms that atimia was a penalty in a graphē dōrōn. Note how in two<br />
late-fifth-century sources, atimia qua disfranchisement is used with regard to those convicted of dōrodokia:<br />
And. 1.74 (400, although the reference might refer to atimoi in 405, when the relevant decree was passed)<br />
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punishment. 56 Despite such contemporary accounts, these additional penalties have no<br />
clear place in the wording of the Demosthenic law. While it is certainly possible that the<br />
scholiast lopped off these additional penalties when incorporating the law into<br />
Demosthenes’ speech, we would still need to identify when they were added to the law.<br />
After all, it does not seem likely that all three penalties were simultaneously included in<br />
the initial drafting of the law.<br />
Unlike most early Athenian laws, which tend to outline both an offense and a<br />
legal process for prosecuting offenders, the Demosthenic law is silent on procedure. 57<br />
We know from other sources, however, that the graphē dōrōn entailed bringing a graphē<br />
before the thesmothetai, who comprised six of the nine archons, the most important non-<br />
military magistrates in Athens (AP 54.2). In terms of procedure, therefore, we are left<br />
with two questions: why is legal process omitted from the Demosthenic text, and was a<br />
graphē before the thesmothetai the original procedure employed when the law was first<br />
drafted?<br />
It is possible that, when the Athenian law code was revised in 409-399, because<br />
laws seemed to have been grouped together by procedure according to the magistrate<br />
who presided over the trial, some laws may have been redrafted and displayed without<br />
explicit mention of procedure in the law itself. 58 So, for instance, another speech of<br />
and Lys. 21.11, 25 (403/2). This is good evidence that the atimia stipulated in the original law was<br />
interpreted as disfranchisement by the end of the fifth century.<br />
56 Din. 1.60, Hyp. 5.24 (conjectured).<br />
57 On the procedural, as opposed to substantive, emphasis of (especially archaic) Athenian law, see Gagarin<br />
(1986: 51-97), Todd (1993: 64-7). The locus classicus for this idea is the law governing the graphē<br />
hubreōs, cited at Dem. 21.47: “If a man commits hubris (u(bri/zh|)…” and proceeds to lay out the procedure<br />
for bringing him to justice without defining what actually constituted hubris.<br />
58 Quoting the decree of Teisamenus, which ordered the revision of the laws, Andocides says that the laws<br />
were to be drafted on tablets initially and handed over to the magistrates (Andoc. 1.83); Ostwald (1986:<br />
515) plausibly takes this to mean that each magistrate received the laws that fell within his domain of<br />
authority. In that case, although the decree omits this detail, it is likely that the final publication of the laws<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Five<br />
Demosthenes preserves a ‘law’ which, in fact, is a collocation of distinct laws with the<br />
same procedure. 59 Conceivably, in the fourth century this summary grouping of laws,<br />
together with a single procedure, was displayed next to the full text of each individual<br />
law, each of which texts may not have duplicated the procedure involved. 60 In this way,<br />
when the scholiast inserted the law against dōrodokia into the Demosthenic text, his<br />
source might very well have lacked any mention of legal process.<br />
I suggest that the graphē dōrōn underwent the same legal changes as some of the<br />
other offenses collected in the ‘law’ cited at Demosthenes 46.26—all of which also called<br />
for a graphē before the thesmothetai. Some of these offenses are found in the so-called<br />
impeachment law (nomos eisangeltikos), which, though drafted around 411/0, actually<br />
reflects a much older catalogue of public wrongs. 61 Originally, a number of offenses in<br />
the nomos eisangeltikos may have been intended specifically for public officials, who<br />
were subject to a written indictment, alternately called an eisangelia or graphē. 62 Only<br />
also would have been grouped according to the presiding magistrate, although Gallia (2004: 455) rightly<br />
stresses that in fact the anagrapheis would have had some latitude in how they gathered together the laws<br />
for republication. For further background on the revision of Athenian laws at the end of the fifth century,<br />
see Hansen (1990a; 1991: 162-5), Rhodes (1991), Gallia (2004), Lanni (2006: 142-8). Papakonstantinou<br />
(2008: 61-2) points to precisely the same kind of ‘dialogue’ between statutes in the archaic law code of the<br />
Cretan city of Gortyn.<br />
59 [Dem.] 46.26, discussed in further detail below. The ‘law’ transmitted in the text combines various laws<br />
against conspiracy, bribing juries, and forming a hetaireia, each of which offenses was prosecutable by a<br />
graphē before the thesmothetai, brought by anyone who wanted. See Lavency (1964: 91ff.) on the law’s<br />
authenticity. For further compilations of this sort, see IG i 3 105, 236-41, Gallia (2004: 454-5).<br />
60 The procedure and penalty for overthrowing the dēmos, for example, were listed separately: see<br />
respectively [Dem.] 46.26 and And. 1.96.<br />
61 Note how both contain provisions against forming a hetaireia or overthrowing the dēmos: [Dem.] 46.26,<br />
Hyp. 4.8.<br />
62 The entire second clause of the nomos eisangeltikos, on treason, seems to have applied primarily to<br />
stratēgoi. Similarly, conspiring to overthrow the dēmos and trying to set up a tyranny were essentially one<br />
and the same—Demophantus’ law against tyranny contains both, after all (And. 1.96-8)—yet the real<br />
concern with tyrants was that a prominent official might try to appropriate too much power, as feared with<br />
Cylon, Solon, Pesistratus and Isagoras. I follow Ruschenbush (1968: 73-4), Carawan (1985: 117) in<br />
positing that the verb ei)sagge/llein may originally have applied to any public indictment against a<br />
magistrate, whether in office or having just completed his term: cf. AP 4.4. Because these indictments<br />
could have been presented in written form (a graphē), it is understandable that later sources use the words<br />
eisangelia and graphē interchangeably to describe denouncements of public officials.<br />
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later was this general list of offenses by magistrates compiled in the form of the nomos<br />
eisangeltikos and, crucially, turned into a series of offenses by private individuals, too,<br />
who could then be prosecuted under a graphē to the thesmothetai. 63<br />
We have only one tantalizing bit of evidence, but it suggests that the graphē<br />
dōrōn went through the same changes. In the collection of laws from Demosthenes<br />
46.26, the manuscripts read, “If anyone bribes (sundeka/zh|)...whether giving or illicitly<br />
receiving money for the purpose of dōrodokia (e)pi\ dwrodoki/a| xrh/mata didou\j h2<br />
dexo/menoj)...” The grammar is strained here, for it is untenable that the person illicitly<br />
giving money (sundeka/zh|) also illicitly received it (dexo/menoj). Possibly, though, our<br />
text conceals a reference to the original law against dōrodokia; if so, and even if not, then<br />
that law, like others collected in the same group, might have originally applied only to<br />
public officials. 64 On this view, the original procedure for the graphē dōrōn would have<br />
been a simple ‘indictment’ (whether called an eisangelia or a graphē) of a public official.<br />
At a later time, perhaps when changes to the law’s wording were made, it was turned into<br />
63 On this later compilation, see Calhoun (1913: 67-8 n.6). The thrust of my argument holds even if the<br />
original offenses governed by an eisangelia (public denouncement) were, technically, applicable to any<br />
citizen; in other words, even if the original nomoi were nowhere restricted to public officials, per se, I<br />
suggest that in actuality the motivation behind and application of them concerned only public officials until<br />
the formal codification of graphai at the end of the fifth century. Note how with Demophantus’ law in<br />
409/8 the Athenians essentially redrafted the law against overthrowing the dēmos so that it applied to<br />
anyone (cf. e)a/n tij dhmokrati/an katalu/h| th\n 0Aqh/nhsin, And. 1.96).<br />
64 Plausible restoration is impossible given the strength of the manuscript tradition, but it should be noted<br />
that the clauses about illicitly giving and receiving money only repeat the force of sundika/zh|. More telling<br />
is Pollux’ testimony that the graphē dekasmou concerned only active bribery, as the name suggests (Pollux<br />
8.42); after all, despite this testimony that a bribed juror could be prosecuted by a graphē dōrōn, we never<br />
hear of jurors, Assembly members, or Council members on trial for committing dōrodokia (pace Aeschin.<br />
1.86-7: see below). Thus, I suggest, h2 dexo/menoj could have been later added, presumably because a<br />
scholiast was thinking of the law against dōrodokia; an h1 dropped out between th\n boulh/n and e)pi\<br />
dwrodoki/a|; or the participles either in the dexo/menoj clause or in both clauses should be emended to finite<br />
verbs, e.g. di/dw|...h2 de/xhtai.<br />
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a regular graphē before the thesmothetai, by which procedure any citizen could be<br />
prosecuted. 65<br />
Having outlined all of the above changes to the law’s substantive meaning,<br />
punishment and procedure, we can finally turn to establishing its date and significance.<br />
Although we lack positive evidence either way, two aspects of the graphē dōrōn suggest<br />
that it dates back to Solon’s laws, instituted in 594/3 nearly one century before the<br />
democracy. Inasmuch as the original graphē dōron appears to have been a general<br />
regulation demarcating the illicit receipt of gifts only in broad terms, it is not likely to<br />
have been drafted in response to a specific new phenomenon, say, taking dōra from the<br />
Persians during the Persian wars. 66 Instead, it appears to have been an innovation which<br />
65 Ant. 6.49-50, dating to 419/8, may be evidence that the graphē dōrōn already existed by this time: see<br />
note 58 below. Note how, when AP 59.2 lists the graphē dōrōn among the list of graphai before the<br />
thesmothetai, there is no hint that these laws were archaic: see Rhodes (2006: 258). At any rate, it is<br />
unlikely that the original graphē dōrōn, which effectively established the accountability of magistrates,<br />
would have entailed a graphē before the thesmothetai. All other public indictments of officials came<br />
before the Areopagus, and there is no reason to think that dōrodokia would have been singled out as an<br />
exception to this rule, particularly given the fact that the thesmothetai were, themselves, prime magistrates<br />
who might be suspected of dōrodokia. On the institution of public accountability, see further below.<br />
66 As recently conjectured by Hashiba (2006: 72-3), who is forced to posit a date for the graphē dōrōn only<br />
after the 480’s based on the (erroneous) assumption that such legislation was forged from “a strict attitude<br />
towards bribery” (2006: 72) and constituted “a condemnation of bribery from a standpoint representing the<br />
public interests of the polis” (2006: 72n.42). As we have seen, however, Athenian condemnations of<br />
dōrodokia need not entail a “strict attitude” towards taking dōra in office, and it only begs the question to<br />
claim that legislation on dōrodokia represented the public interests of the polis. Even if we do follow<br />
Hashiba’s dating, however, his (admittedly conjectural) argument on the contents of the first law on<br />
dōrodokia is nonetheless purely associative. Precisely because our sources on dōrodokia in the first half of<br />
the fifth century happen to refer to taking dōra from the Persians and ‘Medizing’, he argues that the<br />
original law against dōrodokia outlawed taking dōra from the Mede (2006: 73). As David Lewis (1979)<br />
points out, however, this fear of bribe-induced Medizing probably reflects late—not early—fifth-century<br />
bias, for there is no secure evidence of Persian gold actually entering into Greek relations until the second<br />
half the fifth century.<br />
Even so, to make his case, Hashiba adduces two examples: in 480, Lycides and his family were<br />
stoned to death because Lycides had proposed that the Athenians vote on surrendering to the Persian King<br />
(Hdt. 9.5), and perhaps in 461 Arthmius of Zelea was decreed an enemy of the people for allegedly<br />
conveying gold from the Persian King to Sparta (Aeschin. 3.258; Dem. 9.42, 19.271; Din. 2.24-5; Aristides<br />
1.310 Dindorff; cf. Thuc. 1.109; Diod. 11.74.5). While these examples “support the proposition that in the<br />
470s and 460s the Athenians believed that bribery associated with Medism should be punished by<br />
outlawry”(72), they also suggest that at this time the Athenians were content to employ informal, extrajudicial<br />
means to do so. In other words, we need not posit the creation of a formal, legal sanction in<br />
response to dōrodokia associated with Medism.<br />
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fits better in the context of a series of large-scale reforms that essentially mapped out the<br />
entire terrain of licit and illicit actions within the community. Indeed, precisely this kind<br />
of legislation was common in the archaic period, when poleis frequently defined in law<br />
under what conditions an otherwise regular action became illicit. Solon’s regulations on<br />
who could or could not marry (F47, F48) or adopt (F49, F58) are typical in this regard.<br />
Similarly, archaic prohibitions on enslaving or hitting citizens, on killing—licit in war,<br />
illicit otherwise—as well as regulations on various kinds of property transfers, including<br />
sale, inheritance, and theft all divided basic social interactions into licit and illicit<br />
classes. 67 In Athens, at least, many of these laws date back to Solon’s extensive reforms<br />
and cohere with each other as a broad-based reorganization of social and political space<br />
within the law.<br />
The graphē dōrōn seems likely an innovation of the archaic period also because it<br />
established mere accountability, not accountability to the people, specifically. Were we<br />
to posit that the process was first implemented in the early decades of the fifth century, in<br />
those cases where it would have been applied the suit would have been heard by the elite<br />
Areopagus Council, not by the Assembly or a popular jury. 68 In this respect, the graphē<br />
dōrōn would have stood counter the trend in the early democracy of establishing the<br />
dēmos’ control over magistrates and citizens, alike. By contrast, if we look to when<br />
accountability, not public accountability, was first established, tradition holds that it was<br />
first institutionalized by the lawgiver Solon (Arist. Pol. 2.1274a15-18, 3.1281b31-4; AP<br />
9.1).<br />
67<br />
On the range of archaic Greek law, see especially Gagarin (1986: 63-77) and Papakonstantinou (2008:<br />
51-63).<br />
68<br />
Assembly and treason trials: Carawan (1987: 168-91). Properly, the Areopagus Council was a standing<br />
body of all previous archons. Prior to 487, and perhaps prior to 457, however, the only citizens eligible for<br />
the archonship were those from the highest census classes.<br />
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For these reasons, the original law against dōrodokia and the graphē dōrōn were<br />
most likely implemented by Solon, when he drafted a series of reforms in 594/3. We can<br />
hypothesize that, as a general regulation, the law might have been part of Solon’s broader<br />
plan of re-mapping the legal contours of the polis; it is significant, in this regard, that the<br />
measure fits in with a number of the lawgiver’s other legislative reforms, many of which<br />
were aimed at curbing elite abuses of power. 69 In archaic Athens, there were few public<br />
officials, and the chief magistrates, the nine archons, had both executive and judicial<br />
duties. One of Solon’s concerns, a sentiment common in archaic Greece, was that public<br />
officials were giving ‘crooked judgments’ when deciding disputes: in effect, they were<br />
being bribed to favor one party of the dispute. 70 In his poetry, Solon recognizes that<br />
judges gave both just and unjust decisions (cf. a)rxw=n a!koue kai\ di/kaia ka!dika, fr. 30<br />
West), and he subtly encourages them to change their ways from bad order (dusnomia) to<br />
goodly order (eunomia), which would “straighten out [their] crooked judgments”<br />
(eu)qu/nei de\ di/kaj skolia/j, fr. 4a.35 West). Due in no small part to dōrodokia, these<br />
actions were considered tremendously harmful to the community. As Solon laments, the<br />
city itself was being destroyed by elite citizens who were “persuaded by material goods”<br />
(xrh/masi peiqo/menoi, fr. 4a.6 West); that is to say, dōrodokia was ruining the city. 71<br />
69 Based on Solon’s introduction of the graphē (AP 9.1), ephesis (AP 9.1), eisangelia (AP 8.4) and euthyna<br />
(Arist. Pol. 1274a15-17, 1281b32-4) processes and the introduction of property qualifications for holding<br />
office (AP 7.3-4; Plut. Sol. 18). On Solon’s restraints on magistrates’ powers, see especially Humphreys<br />
(1983: 237-9; 1988: 469-70). Note how Solon claimed to have provided a proper ‘prize’ or ‘honor’ for<br />
the dēmos (ge/raj, timh=j, Sol. fr. 5.1, 5.2W).<br />
70 For the complaint of crooked judgments (sxolia\i di/kai), see also Hom. Il. 16.387, Hes. WD 219, 263-4,<br />
Theog. 45-6 and perhaps ML 8A; Gagarin (1974; 1986: 81-97), Papakonstantinou (2008: 107-12).<br />
71 Solon’s complaint is strikingly similar to Theognis’ description of how kakoi were destroying the dēmos<br />
(fqei/rousi, Theog. 45). For Theognis, this destruction was caused by judicial bribery: “[sc. the kakoi]<br />
provide unjust judgments for the sake of gain and power” (di/kaj t’ a)di/koisi didw=sin/ oi)kei/wn kerde/wn<br />
ei3neka kai\ kra/teoj, Theog. 45-6). Cf. Mülke (2002: 110), Papakonstantinou (2008: 111-12).<br />
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One of Solon’s major reforms, therefore, was to establish greater control over the<br />
judicial process and the magistrates who administered it. The lawgiver created the legal<br />
process of appeal (ephesis) to the Heliaia, which was the Assembly seated as a jury: in<br />
case a magistrate had given a seemingly unjust judgment, a citizen could appeal that<br />
decision to the popular court. Although in practice the appeals process was rarely used, it<br />
at least gave a citizen some control over the judicial process. 72 While the ephesis<br />
procedure has thus rightly been taken as a significant, if fledgling, step towards citizen<br />
control of the courts (i.e. the creation of popular juries), effectively it only corrected an<br />
abuse of power. Holding accountable the magistrates who had intentionally given<br />
crooked judgments or otherwise overstepped their bounds was a different matter<br />
altogether. Although in the fourth century Solon was perhaps erroneously credited with<br />
instituting a range of accountability procedures, it is generally assumed that the lawgiver<br />
did institute some kind of oversight for public officials, most likely scrutiny by the<br />
Areopagus Council. 73 For a process like the graphē dōrōn, the Areopagus could<br />
prosecute an official on its own undertaking or it could first assess the complaint of any<br />
willing citizen who lodged an indictment before it and then conduct the trial as needed. 74<br />
The graphē dōrōn thus complemented both the ephesis procedure and the<br />
lawgiver’s other attempts to hold magistrates accountable for misconduct in office; it<br />
72<br />
AP 9.2, Arist. Pol 2.1273b35-1274a5, 2.1274a15-18. Cf. Pl. Sol. 18.2-3. ephesis: Wilamowitz (1892:<br />
1.60), Lipsius (1905-15: 28, 954 n.2), Ruschenbusch (1965: 381-4), Harrison (1971: 72-3), Rhodes<br />
(1981: 160-2 ad AP 9.1; 2006: 255-6), Ostwald (1986: 9-12). The derivation and significance of the<br />
Heliaia are still controversial. Largely on the testimony of AP 9.1, Hansen (1975: 51-2) says that the<br />
Heliaia was a court of sworn jurors, but it was probably only a judicial session of the Assembly: Rhodes<br />
(1981: 160 ad AP 9.1), Ostwald (1986: 10-11n.29); cf. Rhodes (1979: 103-6). Rhodes (1981: 162 ad AP<br />
9.1) and Ostwald (1986: 12) rightly emphasize that we have no attestation that the ephesis was actually<br />
used in the archaic period.<br />
73<br />
See note 69 above for references. Cf. Aesch. Eum. 704-6; Isoc. 7.36-55; AP 8.4, 25.2. Areopagus and<br />
nomophylakia: Rhodes (1981: 315-17 ad AP 25.2), Ostwald (1986: 8-13), and Cawkwell (1988).<br />
74<br />
See especially AP 4.4: e)ch=n de\ tw= | a)dikoume/nw| pro\j th\n tw=n 0Areopagitw=n boulh\n ei)sagge/llein<br />
a)pofai/nonti par’ o4n a)dikei=tai no/mon. Cf. Ostwald (1986: 12-14), Carawan (1987: 188)<br />
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introduced a kind of control over an official’s judgments. 75 Because at this time<br />
magistrates like the archons regularly received dōra—court fees of a sort—for their<br />
service as adjudicators, the graphē dōrōn straightforwardly regulated the receipt of these<br />
dōra. 76 If an official had been suspected of giving a crooked judgment because of the<br />
dōra he had taken, any citizen could have lodged an indictment before the Areopagus<br />
Council. If this reconstruction is correct, then the original law against dōrodokia and the<br />
graphē dōrōn procedure were drafted by Solon primarily as recourse to the crooked<br />
judgments of corrupt magistrates.<br />
I would like to underscore two important details in this reconstruction. If we can<br />
push back the Athenian conception of the dōrodokos as a disobedient citizen to the<br />
archaic period, it is striking how readily this figure seems to have been translated into the<br />
Solonian regulation. After all, Solon’s attempt to institute some kind of check on the<br />
judicial process, whether through ephesis or the graphē dōrōn, was analogous to the ways<br />
in which the dēmos would later try to control the disobedient dōrodokos. 77 The penalty<br />
of atimia, in particular, might have implied a kind of disobedience. Frequently atimia<br />
was used as a penalty for magistrates (and citizens) who had failed to perform their civic<br />
duties satisfactorily. 78 One reason why, I suggest, is that precisely because disobedient<br />
officials could not effectively be controlled, they needed to be cast outside the moral<br />
community of the polis. Like the fifth-century dōrodokos, they were essentially insiders<br />
who were forced to become moral outsiders vis-à-vis the rest of the community.<br />
75 On this point, Humphreys (1988: 469-70) is particularly helpful.<br />
76 Archaic Greek law: Hom. Il. 18.507-8 with Gagarin (1975: 105, 109-10); Hom. h. Herm. 324; so, the<br />
judge Deioces claims that he received no profit from his judgments, implying that other judges did profit<br />
(Hdt. 1.97). In Classical Athens, certain kinds of cases regularly required court fees: Dem. 47.64, AP 59.3,<br />
Poll. 8.127; Harrison (1971: 92-4), Hansen (1991: 261).<br />
77 See above Chapter Two and especially below Chapter Six.<br />
78 Hansen (1976: 72-4) surveys the sources.<br />
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Although this point must remain mere conjecture, we can see how thinking about the law<br />
as a translation of the dōrodokos from social type to legal entity actually reveals critical<br />
nuance in the law’s broader social meaning.<br />
In terms of legal process, Solon’s choice of matching the law against dōrodokia<br />
with the graphē dōrōn process may seem counterintuitive at first glance, but it makes<br />
good sense if we think in terms of domains of authority. If the lawgiver so loathed<br />
corruption among a small group of elite citizens, why, in order to address this corruption,<br />
would he institute an indictment of elite archons before a standing body of elite former<br />
archons (the Areopagus) who may have been opposed to the interests of the people? This<br />
question is easier to answer when we note that, as Danielle Allen has perceptively<br />
illuminated, a punishment like atimia was akin to religious purification. 79 Those who had<br />
taken dōra illicitly were thought to have violated the sanctity of their office and aligned<br />
themselves against the community’s interests. By acting against the community’s<br />
interests, the dōrodokos failed to provide a proper return, in essence contaminating his<br />
civic friendship with the community. Solon’s response was to purify the community by<br />
casting the offender outside its boundaries—precisely the kind of transformation of<br />
insider into outsider as was noted above.<br />
Crucially, the body that was to judge this offense was the most hallowed political<br />
body in the archaic polis: the Areopagus Council. Throughout the archaic and classical<br />
periods the Areopagus heard cases incurring the greatest religious pollution—murder,<br />
intentional wounding, cutting down Athens’ sacred olive trees, and serious political<br />
crimes in the first part of the democracy—meaning the pollution caused by bribery fell<br />
79 Allen (2000: 209-11). On the similarities between religious purification and punishment in the Greek<br />
polis, see also Gernet (1981: 240-251, 265-7), Cantarella (1988).<br />
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under their domain of authority. 80 Inasmuch as any derelict official had offended both<br />
the gods and the community at large, it was the Areopagus that properly assessed this<br />
offense and determined the proper recompense. 81 Although the people themselves would<br />
judge the justice of a magistrate’s specific judgment in an ephesis, the Areopagus was the<br />
natural choice to restore the larger relationship of reciprocity between official and<br />
community. Thinking in terms of domains of authority, therefore, allows us to make<br />
better sense of the Solonian law in action.<br />
By probing changes in the substance, punishment, and procedure entailed in the<br />
original law on dōrodokia, we have been able to reconstruct a much richer context for the<br />
original Solonian legislation. Although a functionalist approach might explain why<br />
Solon created some legislation on dōrodokia, the significance of this legislation,<br />
including its penalty and process, has been gleaned only by uncovering the process of<br />
‘translating’ the dōrodokos into a legal entity. As we extend this legal history in the<br />
following chapter, we will find that a number of hallmarks of the democracy—including<br />
standardized public accountability and institutional bulwarks for collective action—were<br />
articulated in opposition to dōrodokia. By carving out a legal space for the dōrodokos,<br />
the Athenians established firm legal grounding for democratic politics.<br />
A number of key issues that surfaced within the Demosthenic law will be raised<br />
again in the next chapter. Solon’s concern that a single official or board might<br />
subordinate the community’s interests would trouble the Athenians for at least another<br />
80 The Areopagus’ role as protector of the laws can be understood, in part, as an outgrowth of its role in<br />
policing religious pollution. After all, the Areopagus was renowned as a hallowed body: Dem. 59.80, IG<br />
ii² 204.16-33 (decree granting Areopagus authority over certain religious sanctuaries, 352/1). Note how the<br />
penalty for most of these crimes was exile, a purging of the offender from the community: so Allen (2000:<br />
210-11).<br />
81 Archaic literature depicts corrupt judges as offensive to especially Zeus and the goddess Dikē (Justice):<br />
Hom. Il. 16.386-8, Hes. WD 250-1, 256-62, Theog. 330.<br />
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two centuries, yet how this offense would be judged, including under whose domain it<br />
fell, would only change as the democracy progressed. Indeed, as the dōrodokos was<br />
continually translated into the law, the original law itself would subsequently be revised,<br />
redefined, and reconceived.<br />
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Legal Innovation and the dōrodokos<br />
The Solonian graphē dōrōn examined in the previous chapter evinces the<br />
interrelationship between political ideas and the creation of new legal and political<br />
institutions. As we saw, Solon’s anxieties about the polity focused on the purportedly<br />
corrupt judgments that elite officials were making. The specter of the dōrodokos thus<br />
seems to have lurked beneath not just the creation of the graphē dōrōn, which explicitly<br />
dealt with dōrodokia, but other related hallmarks of his reforms, including the ephesis<br />
and eisangelia procedures, as well. This chapter extends that narrative through the<br />
democracy by tracing how the creation of legal institutions to address dōrodokia was<br />
intimately connected to broader reforms that shaped and reshaped the democracy. In<br />
short, this chapter reveals, the very institutions by which democratic values were<br />
articulated were themselves forged in opposition to dōrodokia. Just as the dōrodokos as a<br />
social type was used to think through democratic principles, the Athenians created a<br />
space for the dōrodokos qua a legal entity in order to think through democratic<br />
institutions.<br />
Decades of civil war followed Solon’s reforms until the Peisistratid tyranny took<br />
over in the mid-sixth century. Although the Peisistratids essentially retained the laws and<br />
institutions created by Solon—including the authority granted the archons and the<br />
Areopagus Council—the last years under the tyrant Hippias were particularly harsh. The<br />
Athenian people responded by driving out the Peisistratid family with Sparta’s help and,<br />
in 507, passing Cleisthenes’ reforms, thereby formally establishing rule of the dēmos, or<br />
democracy. In part as a reaction to the autocratic rule of the tyrants, two significant ideas<br />
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underpinning the democracy were that the dēmos should have power and, consequently,<br />
that no single individual should have too much power. Indeed, the previous chapter<br />
revealed how this same anxiety over a public official’s authority to make judgments<br />
binding on the community was already nascent in Solon’s reforms and the creation of the<br />
graphē dōrōn procedure.<br />
Beginning with Cleisthenes, the dēmos thus defined its authority within an<br />
increasingly broad range of political bodies and processes. All new administrative<br />
offices were part of boards of multiples of ten (at least one official from each tribe); as<br />
detailed in Chapter Two, the dēmos increasingly controlled political rewards in the city;<br />
eventually the Areopagus would be stripped of its oversight abilities; and the judgment of<br />
the people, not of some official, would be made final and authoritative in the most serious<br />
court cases. 1 Within the newly established democracy, however, there was increasing<br />
concern that officials might disregard their public charge or might act against the dēmos’<br />
interests. In effect, as the democracy progressed, there was a greater anxiety that the<br />
dōra often regularly received by officials might render them disobedient dōrodokoi.<br />
Amid these broader institutional changes, though, it would be a long time before<br />
the original law against dōrodokia was changed or before the dōrodokos would again<br />
crop up in the law. Over the course of the next century, up through the first few decades<br />
of the democracy, the Athenians instead created a series of informal, extra-legal measures<br />
concerning dōrodokia. At the same time as the dēmos was defining its own political<br />
authority within various institutional bodies, clauses on the illicit receipt of dōra were<br />
added to a variety of public oaths and curses in conjunction with the performance of<br />
1 For an overview of those institutional changes, see especially Ostwald (1986: esp. 77-83), Ober (1989:<br />
68-82), Hansen (1991: 34-6), and Chapter Two.<br />
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political duties. Taken as a whole, these informal measures reflect a clear anxiety over<br />
the role of the individual in the polity, and they sought to define that role clearly within a<br />
specific political domain.<br />
When Solon instituted his reforms, he made the archons swear an oath to the gods<br />
that they would perform their public duties “according to the laws” (kata\ tou/j no/mouj),<br />
that is, the new laws enacted by the lawgiver; if they did break one of his laws, they<br />
swore to set up a golden statue. 2 The phrase “according to the laws” recurs in a variety of<br />
public oaths that were created over the course of the next century, including the bouleutic<br />
and heliastic oaths for the Council and jurors, respectively. In these latter two cases, at<br />
least, the punishment for counseling or judging contrary to the law was more severe:<br />
destruction to an offender, his family and home. 3 Similarly, the Athenians enacted a<br />
public curse, to be pronounced before every session of the Assembly and Council, which<br />
vowed the same destruction on all traitors and enemies of the state. 4 Although the dating<br />
of these oaths and curses is controversial, the archon’s oath is certainly Solonian, the<br />
2 AP 7.1, 55.5, Plat. Phaedr. 235d8-e1, Plut. Sol. 25.2, Pollux 8.86, Suida s.v. xrush= ei)kw/n on the archons’<br />
oath. There is some discrepancy in our sources as to whether or not this was to be a golden statue in<br />
Athens (AP 7.1, 55.5; Pollux 8.86) or a life-size golden statue in Delphi (Plut. Sol. 25.2), or a statue in each<br />
of Athens, Delphi, and Olympia (Suida). Yet it seems clear enough that Plutarch’s account has been<br />
marred by confusion over Socrates’ comment in the Phaedrus, that he would, like the archons, set up a lifesize<br />
golden statue in Delphi. As Sandys (1912: 25 ad AP 7.1) rightly argues, the account of the Athenaiōn<br />
Politeia is preferable here. It is, after all, highly unlikely that an offender would be granted what was an<br />
exceptional honor of setting up a (life-size!) statue of himself, an honor usually granted only to athletes and<br />
other benefactors: see Doming Gygax (forthcoming, esp. 161-2). Conceivably, the statue would have been<br />
a small representation of an offended deity, like the bronze Zanes of Zeus set up at Olympia by athletes<br />
who had been bribed (cf. Paus. 5.21.3-17); but this interpretation cannot be pressed given the strength of<br />
AP’s testimony that the statue be of a man (a)ndria/nta, AP 7.1, 55.5). Still, assuming an affinity to the<br />
Zanes at Olympia might explain why the Suida remarks that offending archons set up a statue at Olympia<br />
too.<br />
3 Oath of the Council (bouleutic oath): cf. Lys. 31.1, [Dem.] 59.4, with kata\ tou/j no/mouj at Xen. Mem.<br />
1.1.18; Rhodes (2007: 12-13). Oath of the jurors (heliastic oath): see Dem. 24.149-51, with kata\ tou/j<br />
no/mouj explicitly attributed to ‘the lawgiver’ (i.e. Solon) at Aeschin. 3.6; for further discussion, see<br />
especially Fränkel (1878: 453-4). Punishment: Andoc. 1.31, Dem. 24.151, Connor (1985).<br />
4 Andoc. 1.31, Dem. 19.70-71, 20.107, 23.97, Lyc. 1.31; cf. Din. 2.16. Although the text of the curse has<br />
not been preserved, it is thought to have been closely parodied in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae (331-<br />
51). For a reconstruction of the curse, see Rhodes (1972: 36-7).<br />
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heliastic oath and curse in the Assembly probably so, while the bouleutic oath seems to<br />
date to 502/1 in the beginning of the democracy. What is clear is that these public<br />
declarations were enacted in the sixth century and continued to be modified through at<br />
least the fifth century. 5<br />
Significantly for our purposes, by the middle of the fifth century these oaths and<br />
curses came to include clauses outlawing dōrodokia, as well. Again, more precise dating<br />
is impossible, but the following additions seem to have been made. The archon’s oath<br />
definitely incorporated a clause “not to take dōra for the sake of one’s office” (dw=ra mh\<br />
lh/yesqai th=j a)rxh=j e3neka, AP 55.5, cf. Pollux 8.86), probably sometime between the<br />
founding of the democracy and the establishment of the people’s courts by the mid-fifth<br />
century. 6 We find similar language attested for the heliastic oath: “I will not take dōra<br />
illicitly in exchange for my vote in the Heliaia” (ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai th=j h(lia/sewj<br />
e#neka, Dem. 24.150). 7 Further, the public curse at meetings of the Assembly and Council<br />
5 Archon’s oath: AP 7.1 is explicit that the oath first sworn by the archons after Solon was the same oath<br />
sworn in his own time in the latter part of the fourth century, but this cannot be, given that still different<br />
oaths are recorded in AP 55.5 (cf. Pollux 8.86) and AP 56.2. Public curse: see Rhodes (1972: 36-7) for<br />
discussion. Bouleutic oath: Rhodes (2007: 13); one notable change was the addition of a clause referring<br />
to the amnesty of 403/2 (Andoc. 1.91).<br />
6 That this clause is an addition to the archon’s oath is clear from the fact that both Aristotle and Plutarch<br />
attest that the original Solonian oath forbad simply breaking his laws: AP 7.1, Plut. Sol. 25.2; cf. Bonner<br />
and Smith (1930: 1.169) and contra Rhodes (1981: 621 ad AP 55.5), who feels compelled to choose<br />
between the two versions cited in AP. Hashiba (2006: 76) suggests that the addition could have been made<br />
at the time of Solon, but when? Solon left Athens shortly after enacting his reforms (AP 11.1, Plut. Sol.<br />
25.4, cf. Hdt. 1.29.2), and our sources insist that he made no changes after his laws had been passed (AP<br />
11.1, Plut. Sol. 25.4). Similarly, the Peisistratids were not known as legal innovators, so it unlikely that<br />
they would have modified the oath. This makes the addition a product of the democracy. The terminus<br />
ante quem is when the authority of the archons was significantly reduced during the democracy. This<br />
would have come not with the establishment of the selection of archons by lot in 487—as most scholars<br />
assume—but with the creation of the people’s courts around the time of Ephialtes’ reforms. As Badian<br />
(1971: 9-17) reminds, the “quality” of the archons was not affected by the institution of the lot; by contrast,<br />
after the creation of the people’s courts, the archons lost much of their authority in judging cases.<br />
7 This clause is preserved only in a version of the heliastic oath which was inserted by a scholiast into a<br />
speech of Demosthenes (24.149-51): on this oath, see Fränkel (1878), Drerup (1897: 256-64), Bonner and<br />
Smith (1938: 152-6), Hansen (1991: 182-3), Mirhady (2007). A number of the clauses in that speech have<br />
been considered spurious—so Fränkel (1878: 465-6), Lipsius (1905-15: 1.151-2)—and the authenticity of<br />
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appears to have condemned a long list of impeachable offenses, including committing<br />
dōrodokia and then speaking in public, and this list of offenses was incorporated into the<br />
curse as early as 480. 8 Although no source explicitly attests to a clause against dōrodokia<br />
in the bouleutic oath, such a clause is likely, if only based on analogy to other oaths and<br />
to the curse at the beginning of meetings of the Council. 9<br />
There is no reason to assume that these clauses were added simultaneously; nor<br />
should we assume that these extra-legal measures are straightforward indications either<br />
the clause on dōrodokia was not accepted by Westermann (1858-9), Fränkel (1878: 465-6) and subsequent<br />
critics: recently, Hansen (1991: 182), Mirhady (2007).<br />
Although I disagree with complete authenticity of the oath presented in Demosthenes, as argued<br />
by Drerup (1897: 256-64), I concur with Drerup (1897: 257) and Harrison (1971: 48), contra the<br />
orthodox view taken by Fränkel and his followers, that the clause on dōrodokia is authentic. As Fränkel<br />
(1878: 457, 465-6) admits, this is precisely the kind of clause we would expect to find in the heliastic<br />
oath—one reason that he inserts into the oath that jurors would vote “with neither malice nor favor” (ou1te<br />
xari/tou e3nek’ ou1t’ e2xqraj), borrowed from an oath taken by members of the deme of Halimus as they<br />
voted on the citizenship of members of the deme (Dem. 57.63). Yet, as Drerup (1897: 257) rightly points<br />
out, we need not import a new phrase, particularly when we have striking comparanda for the language<br />
used. Drerup (1897: 257) adduces two examples: an oath taken by the euthynoi of the deme Myrrhinus—<br />
ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai ou1t’ au)to\j e)gw\] ou1t[e] a1[l]loj v e)moi\ ou)-/[de\ a1]ll ?e ? ei)do/toj e) ?mo[u= mhxanh=i<br />
h2 t]e/[xnh]i ou0demia=i (IG ii² 1183.8-9, dated after 340)—and a judicial oath from Kalymnos—ou)de\ dw=ra<br />
e1labon ta=j di/kaj tau/taj e3[neken par’ ou)deno\j]/[o]u1te au)to\j e)gw\ ou1te a2loj ou1te a1lla e)mi\n<br />
[te/xnai h2 maxana=i ou)d]-/emia=i (IK Knidos I.221A2.30-32, around 300). To these we can add another<br />
judicial oath, from Klazomenae: kai\ dw=ra ou)k e1-/labon ou)de\ lh/yomai tw=[n d]ikw=n e3neken ou1te au)to\j<br />
e)gw\ ou1te a1l-/loj e)moi\ ou1te a!llh{i} o[u1te t]e/xnhi ou1te pareure/sei ou)demia=i (MDAI(I) 1979: 249-71:<br />
II side B 4.32); the same phrase is repeated later in the inscription from Klazomenae in regard to giving<br />
dōra as well (4.49-51). On the strength of these comparanda, the oath of the Amphictyonian Council has<br />
plausibly been restored as follows: ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai ou1te auto\j e)gw/, ou1te]/ a1lloj e)moi (FD iii<br />
4.278 col B12). Cf. IG xii² 207.9-10.<br />
What is puzzling about the wording of the clause on dōrodokia is that it seems to conflate two<br />
phrases which are normally not found together. ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai th=j h(lia/sewj e#neka contains both<br />
ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai—a straightforward phrase found also in the Myrrhinus oath, the Amphictyonic oath,<br />
and elsewhere (cf. mhde\ dw=ra decei=sqai mhde/poka, IG ii² 1126.11)—and e#neka plus a noun, a phrase<br />
which repeats the force of dw=ra de/xesqai and is thus otherwise used only in conjunction with the verb<br />
lamba/nein, not de/xesqai, as in the archon’s oath and the oaths from Kalymnos and Klazomenae. Perhaps<br />
in a redrafting like the one proposed above for the original law against dōrodokia, the oath itself was<br />
modified, without changing the verb, to specify the meaning of de/comai.<br />
8 The reconstruction of the curse at Rhodes (1972: 37) accurately records the sense of this clause as “takes<br />
bribes to speak against the interests of Athens.” But it should be noted that the phrase, “against the<br />
interests of Athens,” taken from Dinarchus (1.47, 2.16), was most likely a product of the fourth century, as<br />
we saw in Chapter Four. Indeed, the actual curse appears to have included the verb de/xesqai, as suggested<br />
by Aristophanes’ parody of the curse in the Thesmophoriazousae (cf. de/xetai, Ar. Th. 346). If so, the<br />
clause seems clearly modeled off the original law against dōrodokia. We cannot know when the addition<br />
was added, except that it pre-dates Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae (411/0).<br />
9 Rhodes (1972: 12-13).<br />
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that dōrodokia was prevalent in the early democracy or that informal measures were<br />
required because of the Athenians’ inability to regulate political agents through more<br />
formal means. 10 Yet a common impulse might nevertheless lie behind the emendations to<br />
these oaths and curses, all of which were adopted possibly within as narrow a timeframe<br />
as the first few decades of the democracy. Indeed, the clauses on dōrodokia might very<br />
well have been the means by which the dēmos transformed its political bodies into<br />
institutions of, explicitly, a democracy. As I argue, these clauses are illuminated when<br />
taken as a whole and placed in conjunction with the clauses on following the city’s laws,<br />
for both clauses indicate a desire to mark out the kinds of behaviors that the community<br />
expected of its political agents. In this sense, they simultaneously define a political<br />
space—a domain of authority—and located individuals’ actions within that<br />
depersonalized space.<br />
The inclusion of clauses on acting lawfully signaled that political agents in a<br />
variety of political bodies were bound by the laws in what they could or could not do.<br />
Archons, for example, had specific jurisdictions based on areas of substantive law and<br />
were not allowed to prosecute citizens or, later, to conduct trials outside these limits. The<br />
clause in the archons’ oath on performing the duties of office “in accordance with the<br />
laws” (kata\ tou\j no/mouj) defined the boundaries of a space in which their actions were<br />
expressly legal and hence in accordance with the good ordering of the city’s laws.<br />
10 The conclusions reached by Kahrstedt (1936: 64) and Hashiba (2006: 75), respectively. Hashiba (2006:<br />
75) concludes that the creation of an extra-legal measure like the archon’s oath is an indication that a<br />
formal, legal measure would have been ineffective. Cf. Faraone (2002: 84-5). That the Athenians did not<br />
enact any formal measures, however, only begs the question that dōrodokia was a tremendous problem.<br />
Hashiba’s interpretation presumes, moreover, that in the face of such a problem, the Athenians simply<br />
would have assumed that no formal resolution could be attained and left the matter at that. Yet the<br />
Athenians did make a number of similar institutional changes within a short time of when Hashiba claims<br />
they were unable to: notably, Ephialtes’ reforms, on which see below.<br />
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This legally defined space, i.e. one marked out by ‘the laws’ constituted what I<br />
am calling a domain of authority. In analogous fashion, the inclusion of clauses on<br />
dōrodokia in public pronouncements like the archons’ oath signaled that, while<br />
performing their duties within their proper domain of authority, magistrates were not to<br />
act contrary to the community’s interests. Even if an archon had prosecuted someone<br />
within his own domain, it would have been untenable if his actions in prosecuting or<br />
judging the case conflicted with the community’s interests, especially if these actions had<br />
been motivated by dōra illicitly received. The oath sworn thus promised that a public<br />
official would act only within that political space.<br />
Moreover, because this was a legally not socially defined space, the oath signaled<br />
an early step towards removing the official’s actions from the world of social exchange<br />
relationships. Instead, with the oaths, officials like the archons grounded their actions in<br />
some de-personalized externality: the laws of the community. So these oaths both<br />
defined domains of authority and thereby indicated that magistrates’ actions should be<br />
grounded in those de-personalized domains. The de-personalized externality on which<br />
political actions were based was itself defined by the community’s interests. It was de-<br />
personalized precisely because it privileged civic relations with the community over<br />
social relations with individuals.<br />
We find one of these oaths in play during the Persian Wars, when in 480 the<br />
Persian general Mardonius sent a herald to Salamis to address the Athenian Council and<br />
encourage them to make peace with the King after the battle of Salamis (Hdt. 9.3-5).<br />
After listening to the herald, one Lycides suggested that Mardonius’ offer be put before<br />
the Assembly. Those at the Council meeting, and even those who later heard about it,<br />
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were so enraged by Lycides’ recommendation that they stoned him to death; when the<br />
Athenian women heard what had happened, they went on their own bidding to Lycides’<br />
home and stoned to death his wife and children (Hdt. 9.5). 11 It is likely that Lycides’<br />
contemporaries suspected him of dōrodokia, as Herodotus’ account suggests (cf.<br />
dedegme/noj xrh/mata, Hdt. 9.5). 12 Certainly Lycides acted legally in offering his<br />
counsel, but the very idea of considering surrender to the King was manifestly against the<br />
community’s interests. As per the curse pronounced before every meeting of the<br />
Council, the Athenians responded by bringing destruction upon both Lycides and his<br />
family.<br />
Our main source for this episode presents the Athenians’ reaction—spontaneous,<br />
collective action—as an essentially informal, extra-legal response to Lycides’ purportedly<br />
corrupt counsel, just the sort of response we might expect was demanded by the public<br />
curse. 13 Herodotus’ narrative emphasizes, in particular, the role of hearsay as a preface to<br />
action. It was hearsay and gossip that gathered together community members so that they<br />
could act as a collective whole in combating and controlling the threat posed by Lycides<br />
11 On this episode, see Asheri (1977: 176-9 ad Hdt. 9.5) and Flower and Marincola (2002: 107-8 ad Hdt.<br />
9.5). The story of Lycides is also preserved in Demosthenes, although that passing mention speaks of a<br />
certain Cyrsilus, who before the battle of Salamis (not afterwards, as in Herodotus) suggested that the<br />
Athenians submit to the Persian King. He was subsequently stoned to death for his recommendation. Cf.<br />
Lyc. 1.122, Cic. Off. 3.48 with Verrall (1909) and Allen (2000: 143-5) for further discussion.<br />
12 Ultimately, Herodotus professes ignorance over the real reasons for Lycides’ actions. He presents the<br />
two options using ei)/te dh\...ei)/te kai\...., a phrase which elsewhere in the Histories expresses a difference in<br />
motivation, whether external (ei)/te dh\...) or internal (ei)/te kai\...): Hdt. 1.19, 1.191, 8.54. In all three<br />
examples, both options appear to be equally likely. That said, Herodotus’ conjunction of this episode with<br />
the Thebans’ advice to Mardonius that he bribe the leaders of various Greek poleis was probably not his<br />
own invention, for he himself records that Mardonius did not listen to the Thebans’ suggestion (Hdt. 9.3).<br />
Instead, both Lycides’ purported bribe and the purported conversation between the Thebans and Mardonius<br />
seem to rflect contemporary perceptions of what had happened: cf. Verrall (1909), Hohti (1976: 71),<br />
Nouhaud (1982: 167).<br />
13 In fact, Lycurgus’ version of the story has the Council members explicitly remove their crowns—<br />
thereby acting as citizens, not magistrates—before stoning Lycides (Lyc. 1.122). Allen (2000: 144-5)<br />
notes the ways in which Lycides’ stoning inverted standard procedures for punishment, but these inversions<br />
are perhaps better understood not simply as exceptions made during wartime, but as informal actions by the<br />
dēmos as a whole which need not have followed more formal procedures.<br />
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and his counsel. The Athenians outside the Council meeting eventually “got wind of”<br />
Lycides’ recommendation and immediately stoned him to death (cf. w(j e)pu/qonto, Hdt.<br />
9.5), and there was such an uproar (qoru/bou) in Salamis over Lycides that, after the<br />
women finally heard about what had happened (punqa/nontai to\ gino/menon, Hdt. 9.5),<br />
they too took action, marching to Lycides’ home and stoning his wife and children to<br />
death.<br />
Significantly, Herodotus uses military metaphors to describe the women’s actions,<br />
as each woman “ordered on” the next (diakeleusame/nh, Hdt. 9.5), and they approached<br />
the home “at their own command” (au)tokele/ej, Hdt. 9.5). As subtly conveyed by these<br />
metaphors, the stoning of Lycides and his family was a concerted, informal response by<br />
the entire community, a response which, like an army marching against an enemy, aimed<br />
to contain a threat to the city. As with a formal trial or decree of the Assembly, the<br />
community came together, heard a report, and collectively pronounced judgment on the<br />
offender. 14 In this way, Lycides’ apparently untenable counsel was replaced by public<br />
speech, then collective action by the people as a whole; in casting Lycides’ actions as<br />
outside the Council’s domain of authority, the people effectively replicated the kinds of<br />
action permissible within that domain. It is worth pointing out that such permissible<br />
actions were manifestly democratic modes of politics.<br />
14 Note how, in Lycurgus’ account, the Assembly was thought to have taken the formal step of passing a<br />
public decree about Lycides (Lyc. 1.122). But such a decree, if in fact it existed—cf. Habicht (1961: 21-<br />
2)—would have been drafted only after the fact, as even Lycurgus’ account suggests: Flower and<br />
Marincola (2002: 108 ad Hdt. 9.5.2). Herodotus might preserve an oblique hint of this mirroring of formal<br />
action in his report that, when the Athenians heard about Lycides’ proposal, they “stood around” him and<br />
stoned him to death (perista/ntej, Hdt. 9.5). Such a scene certainly recalls the public nature of archaic<br />
court trials, like that represented on the shield of Achilles, where crowds stood around the litigants and<br />
judges: Hom. Il. 18.502-3, Hes. WD 29. But, as Asheri (1977: 177 ad Hdt. 9.5.6-9) notes, Herodotus’<br />
precise wording might be a reference to trials in Classical Athens, as well, where at least in the fourth<br />
century “those standing around” a trial (oi( periesthko/tej) were frequently invoked by litigants as a<br />
critical part of the trial itself: Lanni (1997). Likewise, the qo/ruboj that rose up in the city might suggest<br />
the “din” of the crowd often invoked by speakers in court, on which see especially Bers (1985).<br />
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Tellingly, the punishment established by these public oaths and curses resembled<br />
the penalty of outlawry set up by the original law against dōrodokia. The destruction<br />
called for in public pronouncements was a licit form of community violence against an<br />
offender and his home, just as any violence against someone who was ‘outlawed’ was an<br />
explicitly sanctioned response without consequence or pollution. 15 Like atimia, to curse<br />
and stone an offender was a way to remove a pollution threatening the city like a foreign<br />
enemy. 16 By removing that enemy ‘outsider’, the community reasserted the physical and<br />
symbolic boundaries of the Council’s domain. Yet unlike atimia, a kind of expulsion<br />
which essentially admitted the community’s inability to control a pollution, stoning was a<br />
way to contain a threat; it proved that the dēmos could control an offender. 17 Whereas<br />
outlawry left the offender’s fate in his own hands, stoning took control of the offender’s<br />
life. Both processes thus functioned analogously, but in the newly established democracy<br />
it was political oaths and curses that symbolically heralded the dēmos’ authority to<br />
control its public officials, the dōrodokos in particular.<br />
Even though a citizen like Lycides may have been suspected of dōrodokia, we<br />
need not assume that clauses on dōrodokia were added to public oaths specifically<br />
because dōrodokia was prevalent or because the Athenians were actually concerned that<br />
each and every one of these political bodies was in danger of being corrupted through<br />
15 Asheri’s (1977: 176-9 ad Hdt. 9.5) discussion is particularly insightful on this point; see also Cantarella<br />
(1988). Similarly, that contemporary archons swore to set up a gold statue if they took bribes was also a<br />
way to mitigate pollution. Note how Olympic athletes and judges, too, swore an oath to Zeus Horkios that<br />
they would not do any wrong: Paus. 5.24.4 with Perry (2007). An offender set up a golden statute of Zeus<br />
as a votive offering in honor of the offended deity (Paus. 5.21).<br />
16 As suggested by Herodotus’ military metaphors, which paint a picture of the Athenian women marching<br />
against an enemy. Note how, according to Lycurgus, Lycides’ recommendation was tantamount to<br />
betraying the city (prodido/nai th\n po/lin, Lyc. 1.122). Cantarella (1991: 84-7) helpfully underscores<br />
how the act of stoning reinforced the boundaries of the community while configuring an offender as an<br />
outsider. For the contiguities between stoning and religious purification, see further Gernet (1981: 265-6),<br />
Allen (2000: 205-6) and especially Cantarella (1988; 1991: 80-4).<br />
17 On this crucial difference, Allen (2000: 209-11) is foundational. Cf. Gernet (1981: esp. 265-7)<br />
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dōrodokia. Instead, we can see how clauses on dōrodokia functioned as a broad means<br />
for the dēmos to regulate the actions of individuals in the public realm. As specific<br />
political bodies like the Council of 500, the Assembly, and the Heliaia were created or<br />
became newly significant, their proper domain of authority was defined through a<br />
political oath, and the contours of the domain were asserted whenever the community<br />
took action against someone who had broken the oath. Through configuring a legal space<br />
for the dōrodokos, the Athenians thereby articulated the political space of the democracy.<br />
Crucially, as suggested by the addition of clauses on dōrodokia, their members<br />
effectively swore that that space would be inherently de-personalized to a degree: it<br />
would be grounded in the community’s, not some individual’s interests. Inasmuch as<br />
dōrodokia was a ready explanation for how an individual like Lycides could have<br />
misjudged these interests, such clauses were also a powerful way for the dēmos to assert<br />
control over its political agents. In this respect, the addition of these clauses fits in well<br />
with other measures in the early democracy which aimed to assert and enforce the<br />
political authority of the dēmos.<br />
The clauses on dōrodokia in public oaths and curses were thus an extension of<br />
Solon’s earlier legislative efforts to make public officials more accountable. Both sets of<br />
measures stipulated that the judgments of individual political agents on the greater good<br />
of the community could be subjected to re-evaluation by a political body with authority<br />
within that particular domain. In the case of the graphē dōrōn, whether or not a<br />
magistrate was deemed to have taken dōra illicitly depended in large part on how the<br />
Areopagus Council assessed the final outcome of his actions; in the case of public oaths<br />
and curses, it was the community as a whole that evaluated the judgments of individual<br />
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political agents. These clauses shifted the focus from accountability in general to<br />
accountability to the dēmos as a whole. As such, they indicate that the Athenians were<br />
especially concerned about actively enforcing their political authority so that officials<br />
consistently complied and acted not simply for themselves, but especially for some<br />
greater good. Further, both measures seem to have configured the dōrodokos in the same<br />
way as an insider who must be cast out of the moral community of the polis. In short,<br />
these early attempts at implementing the democratic hallmark of public accountability<br />
were forged through a desire to rectify the disobedience of the dōrodokos.<br />
This shift from general accountability to informal public accountability was<br />
formalized with Ephialtes’ reforms in 462/1. Although the substance of these reforms is<br />
still a bit murky, Ephialtes almost surely transferred the procedures for holding officials<br />
accountable—the euthyna and probably the eisangelia process as well—from the<br />
Areopagus to the Council of 500 and the jury courts for the former, the Assembly for the<br />
latter. 18 To be sure, these reforms do not seem to have been ‘about’ dōrodokia per se.<br />
Still, the next chapter will illuminate the important role dōrodokia did play in<br />
contemporary public debates about the substance of the reforms. We can note here that<br />
with the reforms the jury courts and Assembly became the new authoritative domains for<br />
judging dōrodokia by public officials. Yet it would take a while before such public<br />
accountability became standardized; as we will now see, the standardization of<br />
institutions for public accountability emerged from the very ways in which the Athenians<br />
articulated a space for addressing new kind of dōrodokia.<br />
18 For an overview of Ephialtes’ reforms, see especially Humphreys (1983: 242-7), Ober (1989: 77-8),<br />
Hansen (1991: 36-7), and see Chapter Seven below. More detailed examinations can be found in Hignett<br />
(1952: 193-213), Wallace (1974; 1985: 83-7), Ostwald (1986: 30-42), Carawan (1987), Raaflaub (2007).<br />
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So it was that in the years after Ephialtes’ reforms, the euthyna process was<br />
adapted to address fears about a new kind of dōrodokia involving tribute payments which<br />
had recently been transferred to the Treasury of Athena at Athens. 19 This new kind of<br />
dōrodokia came to be framed in the law not just as an act of bad decision-making, but<br />
especially as a kind of financial mismanagement. Within the context of this shift in<br />
practices, the Athenians modified the penalties, not the formal processes, concerning<br />
dōrodokia. Indeed, the last chapter noted that by the fourth century the graphē dōrōn<br />
procedure had three penalties: the original Solonian punishment of atimia (though by<br />
then envisioned as ‘disfranchisement’, not ‘outlawry’), death, and a fine of ten times the<br />
amount of dōra received. Yet these last two penalties are securely attested only long<br />
after Ephialtes’ reforms: respectively, in 424 when Eurymedon was fined (Thuc. 4.56.3)<br />
and in either 394/3 or 393/2, when Onomasas and perhaps other members of Epicrates’<br />
embassy to the Persian King were condemned to death (Lys. 27.3). 20 As will be clear,<br />
these penalties actually suggest divergent approaches to dealing with the dōrodokos:<br />
whereas the law was ‘updated’ to address new concerns, the resultant legal and<br />
institutional changes forced the Athenians to rethink how they conceptualized dōrodokia.<br />
19<br />
Ar. Eq. 66, 69, 403, 802, 830-5, 996, V. 669-77, Nu. 591; [And.] 4.30-1; Lys. 19.52 with Thuc. 6.12.2,<br />
6.15.2.<br />
20<br />
The use of the death penalty or some monetary fine is attested for some dōrodokia trials prior to the<br />
420’s, but not securely. Following Herodotus, Miltiades had to pay a fine probably for a charge of apatē,<br />
not dōrodokia (Hdt. 6.136). Aristides was reportedly convicted of dōrodokia and fined, but already in<br />
antiquity Plutarch doubted the story on the basis that only Craterus mentions the trial yet provides no<br />
evidence for it (Plut. Arist. 26.2-5). The anticipated penalty for Cimon’s trial was apparently death (cf.<br />
qanatikh\n di/khn, Plut. Per. 10.6), but see further Chapter Seven below. Callias’ purported conviction and<br />
fine at a euthyna for taking dōra from the Persian King (449/8) have long been thought spurious: debated<br />
in AE 129-51, 487-95, Robertson (1980: 77-8), Meister (1982), Badian (1987), Piccirilli (1989). The<br />
hellēnotamiai were probably tried for embezzlement, not dōrodokia—the word xrhma/twn, not dw/rwn, is<br />
used to describe the offense (Ant. 5.69)—when nine of them were put to death sometime in the 450’s or<br />
440’s (Ant. 5.69-71). Pericles was fined and deposed on the Argolid expedition in 430, but his case also<br />
included charges of embezzlement: Thuc. 2.65.3, Plat. Gorg. 516A.<br />
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We can trace the origin of a monetary fine for dōrodokia in the development of<br />
institutions for public accountability in the half-century after Ephialtes’ reforms.<br />
Specifically, two different authorities—the boards for examining the conduct (euthynoi)<br />
and accounting (logistai) of officials—were combined with increasing regularity through<br />
the end of the century. After the transfer of the Delian League treasury from Delos to<br />
Athens in 454/3, we find a range of institutional changes that reflect the Athenians’ new<br />
concern that the influx of tribute payment to Athens needed to be monitored closely.<br />
Probably in 454/3 the board of thirty logistai, or accountants, was created to oversee the<br />
finances of the imperial tribute. 21 So, from 454/3 we find the logistai, selected by lot<br />
from the Athenian citizen body, examining the accounts of the hellēnotamiai in charge of<br />
collecting the tribute for the treasury of Athena. Yet the jurisdiction of these logistai only<br />
grew in subsequent decades. By the 430’s, we find them calculating monies due to other<br />
treasuries, as well as examining the accounts of generals and of the sacred treasurers of<br />
Athena and other gods. 22 Already in the 420’s, the auditing duties of the logistai were<br />
synonymous with the euthyna process. 23<br />
21 Cf. IG i³ 259=ATL i.1.1-4, IG i³ 260=ATL i.2.1, IG i³ 261=ATL i.3.1, all dated between 454/3 and 452/1.<br />
Certainty is impossible in dating the institution of the logistai, but our epigraphic sources seem to suggest<br />
454/3, with the transfer of the Delian League treasury. As recent scholars rightly emphasize, logistai are<br />
not attested prior to this time, and for a few decades thereafter they are found only in conjunction with<br />
imperial revenues: cf. Piérart (1971: 564-5), Hashiba (2006: 66n.19-20). Other scholars have assumed,<br />
largely based on the later collaboration of euthynoi and logistai, that logistai of some sort were created with<br />
Ephialtes’ reforms as part of the euthyna process: see, for example, Hignett (1952: 204), Carawan (1987:<br />
190). But what would have prompted Ephialtes to create financial accountants for euthynai? No such<br />
financial overseers had existed prior to his reforms, and the financial accounts of Cimon (and others) never<br />
even seemed to be at issue. Moreover, the assumed pairing of euthynoi and logistai overlooks the ad hoc<br />
nature of both boards prior to the 430’s: see above for euthynoi and below for logistai.<br />
22 Hellēnotamiai: IG i³ 52=ML 58.A6; IG i³ 369=ML 72.2. Treasuries of other gods: IG i³ 52=ML 58.A7-<br />
9. Other officials: IG i³ 52=ML 58.A24-9; IG i³ 369=ML 72 (passim). These inscriptions are all dated to<br />
433/2.<br />
23 Cf. Ar. V. 553-7, 570-1 (422BCE); Eupolis, Poleis fr. 223K (c. 420BCE). Hashiba (2006: 66) for<br />
discussion. This merging may have occurred already by the 430’s, when Pericles was charged at his<br />
euthyna with a series of crimes—embezzlement (klopē), bribery (dōra), and maladministration (adikion)—<br />
which would have entailed auditing his financial accounts: Plut. Per. 32.2 with Hashiba (2006: 66). Date:<br />
438/7, following Frost (1964); Hansen (1975) suggests 430/29.<br />
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The collaboration of logistai and euthynoi was complete as late as 410/9, when it<br />
is suggested that any willing citizen could lodge an indictment against an official (i.e. at a<br />
euthyna) in the logisth/rion or ‘workplace of the logistai’. 24 By the end of the fifth<br />
century, all public officials were subject to both financial auditing and a euthyna. 25 In<br />
other words, what began as an ad hoc board of auditors to monitor the collection of the<br />
tribute developed into a board which oversaw the conduct of the majority of public<br />
officials, its very domain of authority thus dramatically expanded.<br />
The regulation of dōrodokia seems to have played an integral role in this gradual<br />
combination of the logistai’s with the euthynoi’s domain; in other words, thinking about<br />
dōrodokia enabled the Athenians to standardize the processes of public accountability.<br />
Given that corruption involving the tribute seemed to entail both misconduct, which was<br />
usually prosecuted by euthynoi, and mismanagement of the tribute, which would have<br />
fallen under the jurisdiction of the logistai, it is worth pausing to consider how the<br />
Athenians would have incorporated into the law dōrodokia involving the tribute. As<br />
contemporary inscriptions suggest, the Athenians treated this new kind of dōrodokia as a<br />
kind of hybrid: misconduct, yet of a financial nature. So, the Clinias decree, alternately<br />
dated to 448/7 or 425/4, mandates that any Athenian or ally who “does injustice to the<br />
tribute” ([...a)dike=i peri\ to\]-n fo/ron) either should be indicted by a graphē brought<br />
before the Council, or, crucially, should be charged at a euthyna with taking dōra, with<br />
24 Lys. 20.10. Similarly, in 405, the euthynoi were said to conduct their work in the logisth/ria (And.<br />
1.78). Whether there was just one such workplace or many (as suggested by Andocides) is perhaps solved<br />
by following Wilamowitz (1893: 2.235) and Piérart (1971: 572) in assuming that there were ten logistēria,<br />
one for each tribe’s logistai. Cf. AP 48.4-5, 54.2<br />
25 As suggested by Lysias 30.4-5 (c. 400BCE). This process is described in Andoc. 1.78, AP 48.3-5. See<br />
further Carawan (1987: 207-8), Efstathiou (2007).<br />
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an expressed penalty of 10,000 drachmas. 26 What the decree omits is that it surely would<br />
have been the logistai who originally determined that ‘injustice’ had been done. In order<br />
to regulate new challenges posed by changes in Athens’ political economy, therefore, the<br />
domains of the logistai and euthynoi may have been combined—at first on an ad hoc<br />
basis, as the Clinias decree suggests, but presumably on an increasingly regular basis.<br />
Only with the combination of these two domains is it intelligible that the Clinias<br />
decree calls for a monetary penalty instead of the punishment of atimia we might expect<br />
from the original law against dōrodokia. Around the same time, in fact, we find another<br />
fine of 10,000 drachmas for the stratēgos Phormio, prosecuted in 428 likely for<br />
dōrodokia; in 424 the stratēgos Eurymedon was similarly fined for committing<br />
dōrodokia. 27 Monetary penalties like these were frequently employed at Athens for not<br />
fulfilling contractual, usually financial, obligations. 28 Within the context of tribute<br />
collection, the use of a monetary fine thus followed straightforwardly as a way of first<br />
assessing the damage done to the tribute and then exacting reciprocal payment in return,<br />
as penalty. 29 The sum of 10,000 drachmas, or 1 2/3 talents, was considerable, equivalent<br />
26<br />
[...hoi( de\ pruta/]nej e)sag[o/nton]/ e)j te\m bole\n [te\n grafe\n he/n ti]j a2g grafeta[i e2 eu)q]-/une/sqo<br />
do/ro[n muri/aisi draxm]e? =s[i h]e/kastoj (IG i³ 34=ML 46.35-7). Similarly, although the Assessment<br />
Decree (425/4) omits any mention of dōra, it also lays out a euthyna for officials, with a penalty of 10,000<br />
drachmas, in case the tribute is not paid (IG i³ 71.36-7). The dating of the Clinias decree is controversial:<br />
the discussion at ML 46 and Meritt and Wade-Gery (1962) suggest 448/7, while Mattingly (1961: 150-69)<br />
reasserts the formerly orthodox view of 425/4 or later: see AE 165-73 for discussion. Although it does not<br />
affect my argument, I follow the earlier dating of 448/7.<br />
27<br />
Thuc. 4.65.3 and Philochorus FGrH 328 F127, as recorded by schol. V ad Ar. Vesp. 240, which is itself<br />
derived from Thucydides’ account, are our only sources for Phormio’s trial; see also Roberts (1982: 115-<br />
17). It is unclear whether Eurymedon and his fellow stratēgoi were convicted at a euthyna or at an<br />
eisangelia: Philochorus is silent on the matter, and Thucydides’ testimony records only that “the Athenians<br />
in the city” (oi( e)n th| = po/lei 0Aqhnai/oi, Thuc. 4.65.3) heard the trial, a phrase which could refer to either<br />
kind of process.<br />
28<br />
Böckh (1886: 439-54), Lipsius (1905-15: 688ff.), Hall (1996: 73-8). In part, financial penalties were a<br />
way to restore and uphold reciprocity in the city—so Allen (2000: 225)—but large fines could certainly<br />
also signal the gravity of an offense: Humphreys (1988: 471).<br />
29<br />
Dinarchus is explicit on this point: the creation of a tenfold fine prevented politicians from profiting<br />
from dōrodokia (Din. 1.60).<br />
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to roughly 30 years of pay for public office: enough to be a strong deterrent to any<br />
official who might tamper with the tribute, yet probably also enough to repay, and then<br />
some, whatever sum had gone missing in the first place. 30 Accordingly, in a period when<br />
the Athenians were anxious over suspected dōrodokia involving the tribute, the<br />
employment of a monetary fine signaled that within the law the Athenians were framing<br />
this new type of dōrodokia as both misconduct and mismanagement of funds.<br />
This reconstruction must remain speculative, but it seems warranted by the actual<br />
monetary fines which were meted out in the fifth and fourth centuries. We do not know<br />
for how much Eurymedon was fined—nor do we know whether his fellow stratēgoi<br />
Sophocles and Pythodorus were likewise fined 31 —but it is significant that the fines for<br />
Phormio, the Clinias decree, the Assessment decree, and perhaps Eurymedon were for a<br />
fixed amount: 10,000 drachmas. 32 By contrast, fourth-century sources describe the<br />
30<br />
In the fifth century, Councilors were normally paid 5 obols per day (6 obols=1 drachma; 6000<br />
drachmas=1 talent). By comparison, in a public works project from the late fifth century, unskilled workers<br />
were paid 3 obols a day, skilled workers 1 drachma (cf. IG i² 373-4).<br />
31<br />
Most likely they were sentenced to death: Hansen (1975: 36 and numbers 7-9), Hamel (1998: 144)<br />
contra the standard account, which follows our sources in saying that Sophocles and Pythodorus were<br />
given the explicit punishment of exile. Thucydides’ account of the trial, followed verbatim in only this<br />
respect by Philochorus, says that Sophocles and Pythodorus were ‘punished with exile’ (fugh= | e)zhmi/wsan,<br />
Thuc. 4.65.3; cf. fugh= | zhmiwqh=nai, Philochorus FGrH 328 F127). Yet, as MacDowell (1978: 255)<br />
reminds, the Athenians used exile as an explicit punishment only for unintentional homicides and<br />
sometimes for treason trials; the majority of ‘exiles’, like those implicated in the mutilation of the Herms,<br />
were actually self-imposed, when a citizen refused to stand trial and was convicted (and often sentenced to<br />
death) in absentia.<br />
In fact, nowhere else is exile—instead of atimia—attested as a punishment for dōrodokia. When<br />
we do find ‘exile’ cropping up in dōrodokia trials, it is because a citizen voluntarily went into exile rather<br />
than stood trial. As Hansen (1975: 36) documents, sources indicate that the accused in an eisangelia was<br />
‘exiled’ when actually a capital punishment had been commuted to exile. So, for instance, although the<br />
ambassadors Andocides, Epicrates, Eubulides, and Cratinus were condemned to death in absentia (Dem.<br />
19.277-80), Philochorus says that they were punished with exile (e)fuga/deusan, Philochorus FGrH 328<br />
F149); Philocrates, too, was condemned to death in absentia (Aeschin. 2.6, cf. fuga/j, Aeschin. 3.79). Cf.<br />
Isoc. 16.45, Xen. Hell. 5.4.19, Aeschin. 3.171, Lyc. 1.93. It should be noted that Thucydides may have<br />
intentionally masked the agency involved in the exile of Sophocles and Pythodorus in order to reinforce his<br />
point that the arrogance of the dēmos was once again at fault (cf. Thuc. 4.65.4).<br />
32<br />
Phormio’s fine is reported as 100 mnae, which is equivalent to 10,000 drachmas. Although it does not<br />
significantly affect my argument, I suspect that, given the identical fines of the Clinias and Assessment<br />
decrees, Phormio’s penalty was a fixed amount, not a tenfold fine. Androtion writes simply that Phormio<br />
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penalty in a euthyna not as a fixed amount, but as a variable amount equal to ten times<br />
the dōra received. 33 This discrepancy can be explained if we posit that, as monetary fines<br />
shifted from being laid down in an ad hoc manner, as in the Clinias and Assessment<br />
decrees, to being more regular, the amount of the penalty also became standardized as a<br />
tenfold fine.<br />
Such standardization may have arisen through the regularity of procedure<br />
characteristic of euthynai at the end of the fifth century; in other words, formal changes in<br />
the euthyna process may have led to the fixed penalty of a tenfold fine for dōrodokia. 34<br />
Like the ad hoc use of monetary penalties for dōra suits, even after Ephialtes’ reforms, an<br />
official underwent a euthyna only if a formal indictment had been lodged against him,<br />
whether by a willing citizen or by a euthynos. 35 By the turn of the century, however, all<br />
magistrates had to undergo a euthyna, whether or not they had been suspected of any<br />
owed 100 mnae from his euthyna (FGrH 324 F8), but it is unknown for what reason he was fined: cf.<br />
Jacoby ad loc.<br />
33 When later sources indicate a monetary penalty for dōrodokia, they seem to refer to a euthyna process, in<br />
which a tenfold fine was used exclusively for the charges of dōrodokia and, crucially, embezzlement<br />
(klopē): AP 54.2; Din. 1.60, Hyp. 5.24 with MacDowell (1990: 337 ad Dem. 21.113). Din. 2.16 and Hyp.<br />
5.24 juxtapose a tenfold fine for bribery and a simple fine for other a)dikh/mata; Din. 1.60 erroneously calls<br />
the simple fine a twofold fine but likewise singles out the punishment for bribery as a tenfold fine or death.<br />
Two clues indicate that this juxtaposition signaled a euthyna in particular. First, all three sources mention<br />
a)dikh/mata, which might refer to the obscure a)diki/ou for which logistai could convict an official and<br />
punish him with a simple fine (AP 54.2); indeed, juxtaposing the penalty for dōrodokia with other ‘crimes’<br />
makes little sense outside the context of other crimes prosecuted at a euthyna. Second, that these<br />
a)dikh/mata refer to the logistai is itself clear from Dinarchus’ calling them “the other crimes concerning<br />
the lo/goj of money” (Din. 1.60). My view is not affected by the fact that Hyperides distinguishes<br />
between dōrodokia by private individuals and that by public officials; this distinction need not imply that<br />
his subsequent contrast of punishments is for the same two categories. As I read the passage, he merely<br />
sets up two different contrasts (private individuals/public individuals; dōrodokia/other crimes at a euthyna),<br />
albeit confusingly, by using the same verb (a)dike/w).<br />
34 Dinarchus 2.16 writes that the “first lawgivers” (prw=toi nomoqe/tai) created a tenfold fine when the<br />
graphē dōrōn was first created. As noted above, the phrase is a hapax, so it is likely that Dinarchus refers<br />
here to two different phases in the history of the graphē dōrōn: creation by the ‘first lawgiver’ (Solon), and<br />
creation of a tenfold fine by the ‘first lawgivers’ (i.e. the first nomothetai in 403/2 or perhaps in 399 with<br />
the completion of the codification of the laws).<br />
35 Note how in public inscriptions the verb eu)qu/nesqai (‘to undergo a euthyna’, lit. ‘to correct’) continued<br />
to imply some kind of accusation until the end of the fifth century. Only in the beginning of the fourth<br />
century did it cease to be used this way: Piérart (1971: 548-9, 558).<br />
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wrong. Initially, this regularization of euthynai was due most likely to the influence of the<br />
logistai, whose auditing process had been automatic from the beginning. As the<br />
logistai’s domain increased, more magistrates would have had to submit their accounts at<br />
the end of their term; greater collaboration of logistai and euthynoi would have increased<br />
the number of officials subject to an automatic euthyna. In 403/2, this combination of<br />
domains was formally instituted, as all officials were to undergo both financial<br />
accounting and a euthyna. 36<br />
With regular euthynai, there would have been no need for a decree, like the<br />
Clinias or Assessment decree, to spell out that an official needed to be prosecuted and<br />
fined at his euthyna for corruption involving the tribute. Indeed, with regular euthynai, a<br />
single fine of 10,000 drachmas would no longer have been a suitable punishment for all<br />
cases of dōrodokia—what if an official had committed dōrodokia of a financial nature,<br />
yet not involving the collection of the tribute?—in which case we might expect to find a<br />
switch to a tenfold fine. 37<br />
Because Eurymedon was merely fined, he could later serve as stratēgos in the<br />
Decelean War (Thuc. 7.16.2); Phormio, too, was allowed to serve as stratēgos again after<br />
his fine had been absolved. 38 By contrast, we do not hear of Sophocles and Pythodorus<br />
again. In this way, the creation of a monetary penalty forced a critical issue upon the<br />
36 At the same time, the Athenians created an official period of three days after the examining of an<br />
official’s financial accounts, during which time a citizen could register a complaint to be taken up by the<br />
euthynoi: AP 48.4. This time-period, calibrated to the logistai’s duties, served as an official space during<br />
which accusations of misconduct could be heard by the euthynoi. As such, it marked the formal<br />
combination of authoritative domains.<br />
37 This reconstruction need not conflict with the testimony of Dinarchus, who remarks that the ‘first<br />
lawgivers’ established the graphē dōrōn with a tenfold fine (2.16). After all, Solon, who is usually called<br />
the ‘first lawgiver’ could have created the graphē dōrōn, while later nomothetai could have added a tenfold<br />
fine. Cf. Hansen (1989: 91n.90).<br />
38 Androtion FGrH 324 F8; cf. Paus. 1.23.10. Androtion records that the dēmos paid Phormio’s fine for<br />
him so that he would be eligible to serve as stratēgos again, but for whatever reason (perhaps death) he<br />
never actually became stratēgos afterwards.<br />
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Athenians about what to do with the dōrodokos man. Should they make him atimos, in<br />
effect casting him out of the community in self-imposed exile like Sophocles and<br />
Pythodorus? Or should they fine him and allow him to be reintegrated into the<br />
community, like Eurymedon or Phormio before him? The divergent penalties for the four<br />
stratēgoi reveal a deep rift in how Athenians were conceptualizing and regulating<br />
dōrodokia at the start of the Peloponnesian War. In effect, disobedient officials who<br />
disregarded the political authority of the dēmos might still be cast out of the community,<br />
their pollution cleansed through expulsion; but a new kind of corrupt official, one who<br />
had committed what amounted to a financial crime, was allowed to stay if he could pay<br />
his fine and thereby mend his damaged relationship with the community.<br />
It is attractive to align this legal conception of the dōrodokos with the incipient<br />
conceptualization of the dōrodokos as a thief, traced in Chapter Three above. After all,<br />
the thieving dōrodokos was somebody who began inside the city’s moral community but<br />
wished to move outside of it by stealing and thereby harming the community. If such a<br />
thief could be punished, might his desire to leave the moral community be corrected?<br />
Ultimately, we have no evidence either way on how, if at all, the social conceptions and<br />
legal expressions of the dōrodokos were connected in this period. But if my suggestion is<br />
correct, one reason why the dōrodokos might have been allowed to stay in the community<br />
via a monetary penalty instead of atimia was that he was defined by a new emergent<br />
conception of dōrodokia.<br />
Certainly, these divergent approaches to accountability—expulsion versus<br />
reintegration—had already characterized the eisangelia procedure for prosecuting<br />
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officials guilty of the most serious offenses. 39 But if the Athenians had long since<br />
recognized that, while some such public officials were best cast out of the community,<br />
others were best left in it, in the last quarter of the fifth century only specific kinds of<br />
dōrodokia became, in the same way, redeemable offenses. Dōrodokia was a relatively<br />
late addition to the nomos eisangeltikos: the two clauses prohibiting stratēgoi from<br />
taking dōra and rhētores from taking money and speaking against the people’s interests<br />
both date to the late fifth century. 40 As far as we can tell, prior to this time the only<br />
penalty for dōrodokia was atimia under the Solonian law against dōrodokia. In the next<br />
section we will examine the significance of including these particular offenses in the<br />
codification of the nomos eisangeltikos in 411/10. For now, it is enough to note that<br />
around the same time that the Clinias and Assessment decrees first called for a monetary<br />
fine, the Athenians modified which offenses were prosecutable under an eisangelia so<br />
that dōrodokia, too, might receive a monetary penalty under an eisangelia procedure.<br />
Crucially, the kinds of dōrodokia that received a monetary fine in this way were those<br />
committed by the most vital political agents in Athens: generals and public speakers.<br />
The development of a monetary fine for dōrodokia—first an ad hoc penalty, but<br />
later a standardized tenfold fine—signaled how, amid the exigencies of the<br />
Peloponnesian War, the Athenians were reluctant to expel certain corrupt magistrates,<br />
39<br />
Fines are attested for early major public trials—e.g. Phrynichus (Hdt. 6.21.2) and Miltiades (Hdt.<br />
6.136.1)—but there is still debate on whether or not these were eisangeliai. No procedural details are<br />
mentioned for Phrynichus’ trial, although Herodotus does say that ‘the Athenians’ were the who ones who<br />
fined him. Likewise, I side with Hansen (1975: 69) in thinking Miltiades’ trial an eisangelia, but see<br />
Rhodes (1979: 104-5).<br />
40<br />
Respectively, dw=ra lamba/nh|, Lex. Cant. s.v. ei)saggeli/a and r(h/twr w2n mh\ le/gh| ta\ a1rista tw| =<br />
dh/mw| tw= | 0Aqhnai/wn xrh/mata lamba/nwn, Hyp. 4.8. The clause on stratēgoi is part of a longer list of<br />
crimes including betray an allied city (e)a/n ti/j po/lin tina\ prodw= |, Hyp. 4.8), which could have been<br />
added only after Athens acquired an empire: Hansen (1975: 17). We can thus plausibly date the clause on<br />
dōrodokia to the last quarter of the fifth century: Carawan (1987: 173-6). Similarly, the word rhētor, as<br />
used to describe public speakers, came into use only in the mid-fifth century.<br />
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though they had done so since the original Solonian law against dōrodokia. Yet the<br />
debate on what to do with the dōrodokos seems to have cut both ways, for the opposite<br />
concern, to ensure that other corrupt officials were really expelled forever, seems to have<br />
led to the creation of the death penalty for dōrodokia at a euthyna. 41 We can date this<br />
change to after 403, and it is tempting to place it during the revision of the laws<br />
completed in 399. 42 By this time atimia had developed into a different kind of penalty—<br />
one that less directly expelled a threat from the community (he was disfranchised, not<br />
necessarily exiled). Capital punishment, by contrast, would have secured the expulsion of<br />
the dōrodokos from the community, whether through outright death or voluntary lifelong<br />
exile. 43<br />
In sum, the emergence of a new kind of dōrodokia involving tribute collection<br />
resulted in a new penalty—a monetary fine—which gradually became a standard,<br />
alternate penalty for any case of dōrodokia. The penalty of expulsion, whether outlawry<br />
or later death, continued to be used as a penalty for public officials. As practice clearly<br />
indicated, however, there were considerable implications for these divergent penalties.<br />
The Athenians were no longer judging whether the reciprocal relationship between an<br />
official and the community had been severed; they were judging whether it had been<br />
41 So, Din. 1.60 explicitly differentiates between the rationales behind the two penalties. On his view, the<br />
death penalty was intended to make an example out of an offender. I would underscore that the example<br />
being made was that the dōrodokos should be cast out of the community, in effect, that his actions<br />
constituted those that belonged ‘outside’ the community.<br />
42 The defendant of Lysias 21, dated to 403, in a dōrodokia trial at a euthyna, asks simply that he not be<br />
disfranchised or pay a fine, without any mention of death (e.g. Lys. 21.25). In the fourth century, a series<br />
of dōrodokia trials resulted in capital punishment, but these were all at eisangeliai, so they are<br />
inconclusive, though perhaps suggestive, of the penalty at a euthyna: see further below, n. 70. Note how<br />
Plato groups together dōrodokia with a standard list of other crimes for which the Thirty had been wellknown<br />
(Rep. 9.575b), and which in the fourth century took the death penalty (so Xen. Mem. 1.2.62; cf. Plat.<br />
Gorg. 508e).<br />
43 In this respect, the development of capital punishment for dōrodokia, which often resulted in voluntary<br />
lifelong exile, could have been loosely intended to replicate what atimia qua outlawry had accomplished.<br />
The ‘harshness’ of the penalty need not have been at issue, pace MacDowell (1983a: 75-6; 1990: 337)<br />
though see Xen. Mem. 1.2.62.<br />
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severed beyond repair. Although the dōrodokos had misjudged and acted against the<br />
greater good, would he do so again if given another opportunity to serve as an official?<br />
Though he had wanted to act as if outside the moral community, could he somehow be<br />
redeemed as an insider again? As the Athenians slowly came to realize, the answer to<br />
this question hinged, in part, on whether or not they would continue to be offered dōra<br />
again. It takes two to commit dōrodokia, and how the Athenians came to address bribe-<br />
givers will be the subject of the next section.<br />
The Rise of the Bribe-Giver: Individuals and the Public Sphere:<br />
The legal and institutional changes detailed in the previous section carved out a<br />
specific place for the figure of the dōrodokos. All of these measures focused on the illicit<br />
receipt of dōra—that is, on the bribe-taker, not the bribe-giver—and the only Athenians<br />
whose conduct was regulated by the law were, specifically, those citizens invested with<br />
the honor of public office. 44 Though initially an elite figure, like an archon subject to an<br />
archaic graphē dōrōn process, in the democracy the dōrodokos came to be configured as<br />
an everyman, whether an elite stratēgos like Eurymedon or a councilman like Lycides.<br />
In this respect, the Athenians seemed to fear that any citizen involved in politics might<br />
become dōrodokos, someone corrupted to act or advocate against the community’s<br />
interests. The informal and formal measures adopted at Athens thus aimed to restore<br />
reciprocity after a purportedly corrupt official had failed to provide a proper return to the<br />
community. By the end of the fifth century, however, there was a clear conceptual<br />
division over how to restore this reciprocity. Earlier efforts had emphasized expulsion<br />
from the community via outlawry or, later, death. But with the introduction of monetary<br />
44 Thalheim (1902: 339-45; 1906: 304-9), Hansen (1975: 51-3), Carawan (1987: 173).<br />
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fines for dōrodokia towards the end of the fifth century, bribe-takers could also be<br />
reintegrated into the polity.<br />
As the Athenians began to rethink what to do about the dōrodokos, they also<br />
began to rethink who he was in the first place. Chapter Two surveyed the rise of the so-<br />
called New Politicians in the second half of the fifth century: citizens whose political<br />
authority was based more on their rhetorical abilities than on family wealth or prestige.<br />
Individuals like Cleon and Hyperbolus acquired pre-eminent standing because they could<br />
persuade the masses through their command of rhetoric. Yet this new style of politics<br />
was not without its critics. In the Wasps and Knights Aristophanes decried how<br />
politicians like Cleon were effectively corrupting the political process, whether through<br />
outright persuasion or, more dangerously, through promises and services to the dēmos.<br />
And, indeed, as we saw in Chapter Two, in the second half of the fifth century the<br />
Athenians began to condemn giving as much as taking dōra illicitly.<br />
Aristophanes’ criticisms are emblematic of an acute anxiety attending the rise of<br />
the New Politicians, namely, that political institutions were changing, and not for the<br />
better. Contemporary critics of the democracy blamed the fickleness of the masses for<br />
unjust court decisions, like the execution of the Arginusae generals; poor collective<br />
decisions, like the Sicilian Expedition, which was thought fueled more by the Assembly’s<br />
desires than by any prudent deliberation; and unfair policies that disproportionately<br />
burdened elites, while the masses enjoyed the fruits of their labor. 45 In each case, the<br />
45 For an overview of these concerns, see Chapters Two and Three. Courts: AP 34.1, Diod. 13.102.5.<br />
Assembly: Ober (1998: 104-20, esp. 114-18). The vulnerability of the dēmos to make poor collective<br />
decisions at the end of the fifth century is also borne out by the creation of a procedure for illegal proposals,<br />
or graphē paranomōn, and the distinction between public decrees (psēphismata) and laws (nomoi) which<br />
were forged through the complex process of nomothesia: Hansen (1974) on graphē paranomōn, Harrison<br />
(1955), MacDowell (1975), Rhodes (1985), Hansen (1999: 168-9) on nomothesia. Economy: Recall that,<br />
beginning in the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians began to levy the eisphora, or war-time tax on the elite:<br />
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deliberative process of collective institutions resulted in poor decisions, and within this<br />
context of general institutional failure, dōrodokia was increasingly suspected.<br />
In many respects, this was a new concern for the democracy. In the first half of<br />
the century, the threat of corruption of individual officials was chiefly mitigated by the<br />
large size of political bodies: boards of magistrates came in multiples of ten, juries<br />
numbered in the hundreds, and assemblies in the thousands, so the potential damage done<br />
by a single corrupt individual was limited. Yet, despite their apparently unassailable size,<br />
the growing importance of the jury courts and Assembly as arenas for acquiring political<br />
authority made them all the more vulnerable to corruption. Especially as the<br />
Peloponnesian War progressed and political outcomes worsened, it was here, in these<br />
larger political bodies, that critics like Aristophanes feared dōrodokia was taking root.<br />
We might relegate these fears to only a specific group of Athenians who were<br />
generally critical of what Athens’ polity had become, but it is striking how these new<br />
anxieties over democracy were attended (and often preceded) by legal expressions of a<br />
new concern about dōrodokia. In the second half of the century, the Athenians began to<br />
shift their focus in law from how a public official might be corrupted to how a single<br />
individual, like a Cleon, might corrupt an entire political body through persuasion and, it<br />
was suspected, dōrodokia. 46 Shifting from bribe-takers to bribe-givers, the legal image of<br />
the dōrodokos broadened to include essentially private individuals who came into contact<br />
cf. Thuc. 3.19.1, Lys. 21.3, Diod. 13.47.7, 13.52.5, 13.64.4 and generally Christ (2006: 156-62, esp. 161-2)<br />
on the increasing economic obligations of the elite during the fifth-century democracy.<br />
46 Scholars commonly note the improbability that large groups of people, whether on juries or at an<br />
Assembly, were bribed: e.g. Staveley (1972: 113), Taylor (2007: 325, 329-30). Even despite this<br />
improbability, however, the Athenians readily assumed that large groups were, in fact, being bribed: cf.<br />
[Xen.] Ath. Pol. 3.7; Thuc. 6. 13.1; Lys. 12.43-4, 29.12; Pl. Tht. 173d; Xen. Symp. 1.4; Isoc. 18.11; Dem.<br />
18.149; AP 27.5. More importantly, by positing that bribery of large groups was infrequent in actuality,<br />
these scholars obfuscate the role this assumption played in the workings of the democracy: however<br />
unfounded, it shifted in part how the Athenians regulated dōrodokia.<br />
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with political institutions like assemblies, lawcourts, and executive boards. 47 Unlike<br />
public officials, who were regularly held accountable by the end of the fifth century,<br />
these private individuals could engage with the polity yet seemingly evade accountability.<br />
This section will trace how the legal and institutional changes from the end of the fifth<br />
century onward reflected a revised understanding of the dōrodokos. As we will see,<br />
focusing on both bribe-givers and bribe-takers, that is both outsiders and insiders at once,<br />
mirrored how the dōrodokos himself was conceived as simultaneously inside and outside<br />
the moral community of the dēmos. Institutional reform was thus articulated in response<br />
to the dōrodokos.<br />
In the previous section we saw how, by 411, the eisangelia procedure came to be<br />
used for a number of new offenses, including dōrodokia: specific kinds of dōrodokia,<br />
meaning specific kinds of dōrodokoi, were thus singled out for legal action. Crucially,<br />
some of these new dōrodokoi were not public officials. On the one hand, it is<br />
straightforward enough that the treason clause of the nomos eisangeltikos was expanded<br />
to include a provision against taking dōra (cf. dw=ra lamba/nh|, Lex. Cant. s.v.<br />
ei)saggeli/a). As discussed earlier, this clause would have been used primarily to<br />
prosecute stratēgoi or other top military officials who were elected to control whole<br />
armies, particularly as it was incorporated into a clause on the actions of stratēgoi. On<br />
the other hand, it is remarkable that the conduct of rhētores, who were not magistrates,<br />
was regulated in the same way: they were forbidden to “take money and speak against<br />
the interests of the Athenian people” (r(h/twr w2n mh\ le/gh| ta\ a1rista tw| = dh/mw| tw= |<br />
47 As Wallace (2006) rightly describes, one general feature of the Athenian democracy was that ‘private’<br />
conduct was defined as essentially anything that did not harm the community or another individual. I<br />
would add, moreover, that this specific demarcation of private and public was something that developed<br />
over time. This section outlines one crucial step in that development.<br />
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0Aqhnai/wn xrh/mata lamba/nwn, Hyp. 4.8). 48 Certainly the nomos eisangeltikos also<br />
prohibited public speakers from making false promises to the Athenian people; what is<br />
exceptional about the clause on dōrodokia is that it regulated the conduct of these private<br />
individuals even before they entered the public sphere. 49 Any money or dōra they may<br />
have taken for proposing a specific decree, say, became illicit the moment that their<br />
decree was deemed against the interests of the dēmos. 50<br />
To be sure, the inclusion of rhētores in the nomos eisangeltikos was but one of a<br />
few different ways the Athenians began to formalize the role of public speakers in the<br />
democracy during this period. 51 What these formal regulations reveal is that, as the<br />
Athenians began to police the contact individuals had with political institutions, they did<br />
so by refashioning regulations on the conduct of public officials. 52 So, around the same<br />
time that the nomos eisangeltikos was formalized and expanded to include rhētores, a<br />
number of its clauses were redrafted as separate laws applicable to private individuals<br />
48<br />
When Hyperides refers to this law later, he adds that rhētores were to be prosecuted for speaking against<br />
the dēmos’ interests, afer taking money “and gifts from those acting against the dēmos,” (dwrea\j para\<br />
tw=n ta)nanti/a pratto/ntwn tw| = dh/mw|, Hyp. 4.39). The additions does not substantively change the<br />
meaning of the clause; accordingly, throughout this section I will refer only to the first part of the clause.<br />
49<br />
Cf. e)a/n tij to\n dh=mon u(posxo/menoj e)capath/sh|, Dem. 49.67. See also the clauses cited in<br />
Demosthenes’ speech Against Leptines (Dem. 20. 100, 135) with discussion at Hansen (1975: 13-14) and<br />
Hesk (2000: 51-7). In 489, Miltiades was prosecuted most likely for deceiving the dēmos (cf. Hdt. 6.136):<br />
Harrison (1971: 54), Hansen (1975: 69), MacDowell (1978: 179), Rhodes (1979: 105), Hesk (2000: 52).<br />
The process may have been an eisangelia, as Hansen (1975: 69) argues, but cf. Rhodes (1979: 104-5) and<br />
Hesk (2000: 51-2).<br />
50<br />
Recall that public speakers often received some kind of fee for proposing decrees or honors: see further<br />
Chapter Two and Jackson (1919). Again, therefore, the question of dōrodokia was intimately connected to<br />
the performance of these speakers, whether their actions benefited or harmed the community.<br />
51<br />
Two other measures included the graphē paranomōn procedure—under which a public speaker could be<br />
prosecuted for proposing a decree against the city’s interests—and a special kind of dokimasia, or public<br />
scrutiny, for those citizens who had spoken in a public assembly yet had not been qualified to do so.<br />
Hansen (1974) is fundamental on the graphē paranomōn. I agree with his dating of the institution to the<br />
last quarter of the fifth century (cf. Andoc. 1.17, 22). The locus classicus for the dokimasia rhētorōn is<br />
Aeschines’ prosecution of Timarchus (Aeschines 1): see further Lipsius (1905-15: 2.278-82).<br />
52<br />
Although the dokimasia rhētōrōn came essentially after, not before, someone had acted in a ‘public’<br />
capacity, its criteria for evaluating citizens were similar to that in a regular dokimasia. Aeschines 1.27-32<br />
explains how public speakers could not have committed a military offense nor have been cruel to their<br />
parents, among other things. Both of these criteria held for the scrutiny of magistrates, as well (cf. AP<br />
55.3). Similarly, the graphē paranomōn established a legal standard for holding speakers accountable, just<br />
like in a euthyna.<br />
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through the graphē procedure. We hear of a graphē prodosias, which presumably would<br />
have replicated at least part of the treason clause of the nomos eisangeltikos yet, unlike<br />
that law, applied to any citizen and was not restricted to military officials like stratēgoi. 53<br />
Further, there are striking similarities between the nomos eisangeltikos and the list<br />
of contemporary graphai cited in pseudo-Demosthenes’ second speech Against<br />
Stephanus ([Dem.] 46.26). 54 The text is perhaps corrupt, but the list of graphai includes<br />
the offenses of conspiracy and forming a faction to overturn the dēmos: “If anyone ever<br />
conspires...or sets up a faction for the overturn of the dēmos...” (e)a/n tij sunisth=tai...h2<br />
e(tairei/an sunisth| sunisth|<br />
sunisth| = = = = e)pi e)pi\ e)pi<br />
\\ \ katalu/sei katalu/sei tou= dh/mou dh/mou, dh/mou<br />
[Dem.] 46.26). 55 This last offense<br />
appears to be a conflation of the first clause of the nomos eisangeltikos, which prohibited<br />
“joining together for the overturn of the dēmos or forming a faction” (suni/h| suni/h| suni/h| poi poi e) e)pi e) pi pi\ pi\\<br />
\<br />
katalu/sei katalu/sei tou= tou= dh/mou dh/mou h2 e(tairiko\n sunaga/gh|, Hyp. 4.8). 56 Although the original fear<br />
concerned public officials—namely, that a prominent official might become a tyrant and<br />
overthrow the democracy—the creation of a graphē for this same offense clearly<br />
53<br />
I do not press this point too far, for we have no other attestations of the existence or use of the graphē<br />
prodosias outside of a series of graphai listed in Pollux 8.40, although compare Xen. Hell. 1.7.22. Hansen<br />
(1975: 49) accepts it as genuine; Lipsius (1905-15: 2.262) is dubious.<br />
54<br />
We cannot know the date of this compilation with any great specificity, aside from that it pre-dates the<br />
second speech Against Stephanus (351 BCE). MacDowell (1983a: 66-7), followed by Hashiba (2006:<br />
64n.11), dates it to shortly after 409 BCE, but this is based on a mistaken understanding that the<br />
compilation is, in fact, (only) the specific law governing the graphē dekasmou: see further below. The use<br />
of the word dōrodokia suggests a date sometime after the mid-fifth century, while the concerns about<br />
conspiracy, hetaireiai and judicial bribery suggest a late fifth-century date. Although it does not affect my<br />
argument significantly, I find it not implausible that, with the exception of the graphē dekasmou, some or<br />
all of the compilation might date to the first decades of the fourth century.<br />
55<br />
We earlier noted one potential corruption in the manuscript in a different section of the law. For this<br />
section, Thalheim deletes e)pi\ katalu/sei tou= dh/mou and transposes sunisth=tai so that it immediately<br />
precedes h2 e(tairei/an: “If anyone ever...is joined together [in a faction] or forms a faction...” Gernet<br />
(1957: 185), with lukewarm approval by MacDowell (1983a: 66), deletes the entire clause. There is,<br />
however, no reason to delete the clause, for it was particularly significant amid the oligarchic revolutions of<br />
the late fifth century: it recurs, for instance, in Demophantus’ decree of 410 (cf. dhmokrati/an katalu/h|,<br />
Andoc. 1.96).<br />
56<br />
This phrase should perhaps be emended to read sunisth| = for suni/h|: cf. e)pi\ katalu/sei tou= dh/mou<br />
sunistame/nouj, AP 8.4; sunistame/nouj e)pi\ katalu/sei th=j politei/aj, AP 25.3.<br />
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expanded the scope of who was subject to prosecution. 57 It did so, tellingly, by framing<br />
the problem in terms of hetaireiai, which were essentially private associations wielding<br />
public power through their members’ involvement in political processes. Again, by<br />
modeling the clause in Demosthenes’ law on the nomos eisangeltikos, the Athenians<br />
turned to regulations on public officials to create a procedure governing the conduct of<br />
private citizens.<br />
Crucially, the Athenians changed the original law against dōrodokia, as well, so<br />
that the actions of ordinary citizens came under its purview. Like the compilation of<br />
offenses drawn from the nomos eisangeltikos, in fact, the graphē dōrōn seems to have<br />
pertained initially only to public officials and to have been redrafted later to apply to<br />
ordinary citizens, too. Precise dating is impossible, but this new graphē dōrōn may have<br />
been formalized by 419. 58 Around the same time, the law was also expanded to include<br />
the offenses of active bribery and corruption by freely making promises to others, again<br />
to the detriment of the dēmos or one of the citizens (cf. h@ au0to\j didw| ~ e9te/rw|, h2<br />
diafqei/rh| tina\j e0paggello/menoj, Dem. 21.113). The impetus for both changes may<br />
have been the same: to create a formal procedure that regulated how private citizens<br />
interfaced with the public sphere.<br />
Moreover, the expansion of the law’s scope appears intimately connected to its<br />
redefinition. As the previous chapter argued, the wording of the original offense was<br />
changed from “receives illicitly” (de/xhtai) to “receives...to the harm of the people or<br />
one of the citizens” (lamba/nh|...e0pi\ bla/bh| tou~ dh/mou h@ tino\j tw=n politw~n, Dem.<br />
57 Cf. Hansen (1975: 49), Rhodes (1981: 156 ad AP 8.4).<br />
58 As argued above in the first section of this chapter. For the dating of this change, Ant. 6.49-50 describes<br />
a case from 419/8, in which holders of a bribe, private citizens, were purportedly brought to trial and<br />
convicted. It is unclear which legal procedure was employed at their trial, but it is likely to have been the<br />
graphē dōrōn.<br />
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21.113). Contemporary testimony suggests that this change occurred in the late fifth<br />
century: it was then that the Athenians were particularly concerned about “harm to the<br />
dēmos” and, consequently, that they framed dōrodokia as a crime against the dēmos’<br />
interests, just as we saw in the nomos eisangeltikos. 59 Yet dōrodokia was simultaneously<br />
redefined as giving or taking “to the harm of one of the citizens,” as well. To that extent,<br />
changing the law’s wording was integral for expanding its scope to cover the actions of<br />
private individuals.<br />
Even if we conservatively date these legal changes to the half-century between<br />
425 and 375, it is nevertheless striking that, in clarifying the law’s definition of<br />
dōrodokia, the Athenians effectively shifted its focus from public officials to ordinary<br />
citizens, particularly those coming into contact with political institutions. Indeed,<br />
Demosthenes cites the law against dōrodokia in order to condemn his opponent Midias<br />
for allegedly bribing the family of a recently deceased to claim that Demosthenes had<br />
murdered their son (Dem. 21.104-7). Even though Midias was a well-known rhētor in<br />
his own right, his bribing of Demosthenes’ enemies seemingly had little to do with his<br />
public role as rhētor. The new legal definition of dōrodokia expanded the law’s scope so<br />
that it could regulate how non-officials like Demosthenes’ opponent interfaced with the<br />
public sphere.<br />
59<br />
Cf. r(h/twr w2n mh\ le/gh| ta\ a1rista tw| = dh/mw| tw= | 0Aqhnai/wn xrh/mata lamba/nwn, Hyp. 4.8. The<br />
phrase e0pi\ bla/bh| tou~ dh/mou h@ tino\j tw=n politw~n is paralleled in both Thucydides’ account of the<br />
debates concerning the constitution of the 400 in 411 (e)pi\ bla/bh| th=j po/lewj kai\ tw=n politw=n, Thuc.<br />
8.72.1) and in Aristophanes’ parody of the curse pronounced at meetings of the Assembly in Council (cf.<br />
e)pi\ bla/bh| tini\/ th= | tw=n gunaikw=n, Th. 337-8); cf. e)pi\] | bla/bei te=i 0Aqen[ai/on, IG i³ 38.6-7 (447/6).<br />
Note, too, how in a speech probably dated to just after 403/2, a defendant claims that he never “took bribes<br />
to the detriment of the polis” (e)pi\ de\ tw= | th=j po/lewj kakw= |…dwrodokoi/hn, Lys. 21.22). Cf. e)pi\ toi=j<br />
u(mete/roij dwrodokou=nti, Lys. 29.11; kakw=j e)poi/ei th\n po/lin, Isoc. 16.42. This frame was formulaic<br />
by the mid-fourth century: cf. Pl. Euthyphr. 13c, Isoc. 8.72, X. Mem. 2.3.19, D. 24.204, IG ii² 1258.5-6,<br />
10-11 and Chapter Four above.<br />
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Nowhere was this impulse more explicit than in the creation of the graphē<br />
dekasmou, a procedure for prosecuting anyone who “bribe[d] the Heliaia or any of the<br />
courts in Athens or the Council by giving money for the purpose of dōrodokia”<br />
(sundeka/zh| th\n h(liai/an h2 tw=n dikasthri/wn ti tw=n 0Aqh/nhsin h2 th\n boulh\n e)pi\<br />
dwrodoki/a| xrh/mata didou/j, [Dem.] 46.26). 60 The penalty was death. 61 The wording<br />
of the law, with one of the earliest attested uses of the compound dōrodokia, suggests a<br />
date in the second half of the fifth century. 62 Other scholars have dated it (shortly) after<br />
409 on the strength of the Athēnaiōn Politeia, which records that active bribery (to\<br />
deka/zein) began at this time, when the stratēgos Anytus was acquitted at an eisangelia on<br />
a charge of treason after bribing the jury. 63 But we cannot take the AP literally here:<br />
already a couple decades before Anytus was stratēgos, the Old Oligarch remarks that<br />
much business in the Assembly and Council was conducted “through money” (a)po\<br />
xrhma/twn, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 3.3), and he suggests that juries may already have been<br />
bribed—at the very least, the word for bribing collective bodies already existed. 64 Nor<br />
60<br />
Following Wolf’s emendation of the coddices’ sundika/zh| to sundeka/zh|, a common manuscript error:<br />
cf. [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 3.7.<br />
61<br />
Isoc. 8.50, Aeschin. 1.86-7. Aeschines claims that both the person who bribed (e)de/kaze) and the juror<br />
who was bribed (e)deka/zeto) were subject to the same penalty of death, as fixed by the law (1.87), but<br />
nowhere else is this formal penalty attested for bribed jurors. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how the<br />
Athenians could have enforced such a law, given that jurors voted secretly. I am inclined to think, contra<br />
MacDowell (1983a: 66-7), that the punishment for a bribed juror was fabricated to help support Aeschines’<br />
claim that it is unreasonable to expect witnesses to come forth and claim that they had hired Aeschines’<br />
opponent Timarchus for prostitution.<br />
62<br />
This is a loose estimate, given that the word dwrodoki/a is not attested until the early fourth century<br />
(Andoc. 4.30). That said, dwrodoke/w appears in the last third of the fifth century: Hdt. 6.82; Cratinus frr.<br />
128, 244K; Ar. Eq. 66, 802, 834 and compare dwrodokisti/ at Ar. Eq. 996 and dwrodo/koisin at Ar. Eq.<br />
403.<br />
63<br />
AP 27.5, Diod. 13.64.6, Plut. Cor. 14.6, Schol. Aeschin. 1.87, Harpocration s.v. deka/zwn, 86.7. Hashiba<br />
(2006: 64n.11), following MacDowell (1983a: 66-7), dates it to 409, while Calhoun (1913: 67) and<br />
Bonner and Smith (1938: 2.10-11) date it to 404/3 or later. For the charge and procedure: Hansen (1975:<br />
number 65) helpfully collects the sources. Despite the fact that Lex. Seg. 236.6 describes the process as a<br />
euthyna—cf. ta\j eu)qu/naj didou\j th=j e)n Pu/lh| strathgi/aj—given the dēmos’ involvement in the trial<br />
(Diod. 13.64.6), I follow Hansen’s assignment to his list of eisangeliai.<br />
64<br />
Note how he claims that, if juries were smaller, it would be easier to bribe them (r(a|/dion e1stai pro\j<br />
o)li/gouj dikasta\j kai\ sundeka/sai, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 3.7), not that juries would be bribable only if they<br />
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should we forget the suspected corruption in the prosecution and acquittal of Cimon.<br />
What the AP might mean is that the legally defined practice of dekazein, whence the<br />
name graphē dekasmou, was “first made public by Anytus” (prw/tou katadei/cantoj<br />
0Anu/tou, AP 27.5). In other words, Anytus was acquitted at his eisangelia and was<br />
publicly rumored to have bribed the jury, yet presumably never was prosecuted for it. 65<br />
Following the AP, we should therefore date the institution of the graphē dekasmou to<br />
sometime between the 440’s and 409, probably closer to Anytus’ trial in 409.<br />
Little attention has been paid to the other graphai cited alongside the graphē<br />
dekasmou, but these laws actually provide crucial context for understanding the import of<br />
the legislation. After all, why would the Athenians group together laws on conspiring,<br />
bribing jurors, forming a political faction, and taking bribes for being a public prosecutor<br />
or witness? 66 The conjunction of conspiracy and bribery suggests that all of these<br />
offenses entailed concerted corruption of one form or another: groups of citizens, who<br />
were not magistrates, coming together to affect the outcomes of political processes. To<br />
be sure, at this time the hetaireiai, or political clubs, were a major force in Athenian<br />
politics in large part because they could pack the Assembly to help sway the dēmos’<br />
opinion. So, too, were their members suspected of helping each other out in court by<br />
providing false testimony or by “joining in bribing” the jury, as the verb sundeka/zein<br />
were smaller. Likewise, when in a speech dated to 403, Isocrates remarks that one Xenotimus was known<br />
to have bribed juries, his reference to dekazein makes it clear that the practice was already quite familiar in<br />
Athens (Isoc. 18.11). Both uses of the verb dekazein strongly suggest that Anytus did not develop a<br />
particular method of ‘tenning’ a jury: Calhoun (1913: 66-7), and recall from Chapter One that the folk<br />
derivation of dekazein from dekas (“ten”) has little grounding in reality.<br />
65 On this meaning of the verb katadei/knumi, see also Hdt. 1.163, 4.42. Similarly, the friends of Ergocles<br />
were rumored to have gone around saying that they had bribed 2100 jurors during his trial (Lys. 29.12).<br />
Ergocles was nevertheless convicted and sentenced to death.<br />
66 Accordingly, Thalheim’s emendations, discussed above, effectively remove the first clause on<br />
conspiracy. Similarly, Gernet (1957: 185) goes so far as to delete the clause on setting up a hetaireia to<br />
overthrow the dēmos—presumably because it has nothing to do with judicial bribery, and MacDowell takes<br />
issue with “why the Boule is added to the list of courts” (1983a: 66-7, quote on 66).<br />
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properly means. 67 Just as a lone public speaker might corrupt the Assembly by making<br />
promises unasked, groups of private citizens, too, could work together to corrupt larger<br />
political bodies, especially those with judicial functions. 68<br />
The emphasis on judicial bodies was critical, for one of the underlying reasons for<br />
these legislative changes was that citizens and officials, alike, were escaping<br />
accountability for their actions. Clearly this fear underpinned the graphē which targeted<br />
synēgoroi—whether public prosecutors or witnesses, it is unclear which the law intends<br />
here—suspected of taking money for the sake of a judicial suit (e)pi\ tai=j di/kaij, [Dem.]<br />
46.26). Contemporary sources, as well, describe how officials might use the courts to<br />
avoid going to trial. In one case, dated to 419, a defendant describes how, during his<br />
tenure in the Council, he discovered maladministration among various boards of financial<br />
officials. When he tried to bring this wrongdoing to light, they banded together and<br />
bribed one of his enemies to bring a suit against him (Ant. 6.49-50). Although the<br />
officials were in the meantime found guilty, as were the people with whom they had<br />
deposited the dōra (Ant. 6.50), the blatant misuse of the courts was troubling.<br />
Read against the backdrop of the numerous setbacks of the Peloponnesian War<br />
and the oligarchic revolutions of 411/10 and 404, this flurry of legal changes reveals a<br />
persistent anxiety that political institutions were being corrupted en masse. Still more<br />
troubling, therefore, was that dōrodokia could be associated with the most pernicious<br />
breakdown of political institutions: the circumventing of public accountability. Certainly<br />
political agents—public officials like stratēgoi or dēmarchs, jurors and councilmen—<br />
67<br />
On the political influence of the hetaireiai, Calhoun (1913) is still essential. Cf. Thuc. 8.54.4, Plato Tht.<br />
173d, [Dem.] 54.31-7.<br />
68<br />
Calhoun (1913: 40-96, esp. 66-76) persuasively sets forth the evidence for the interconnection of<br />
hetaireiai and dōrodokia involving the courts. See further Rubinstein (2000: 198-212).<br />
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continued to be suspected of dōrodokia; but, increasingly, so were individuals outside the<br />
public sphere blamed for bribing them. What began as a fear that individuals within a<br />
political body were making poor judgments about the community’s interests shifted to<br />
include the concern that individuals outside a political body were illicitly influencing the<br />
entire body in order to effect poor judgments about the community’s interests. Many of<br />
these poor judgments concerned the accountability of public officials and, towards the<br />
end of the century, the accountability of private citizens entering into the public sphere.<br />
As before, with this series of legal changes there continued to be divergent views<br />
on what to do with the dōrodokos: once the dēmos had passed its judgment on him,<br />
should he be expelled from or reintegrated into the community? Should his ‘insider’ or<br />
his ‘outsider’ status prevail? In the case of the graphē dekasmou, the Athenians<br />
displayed little tolerance for individuals who corrupted the judicial process; with an<br />
automatic death penalty, it expelled from the community forever those found guilty. 69 By<br />
contrast, no comparable penalty existed when non-magistrates were prosecuted under the<br />
graphē dōrōn: the only punishments for that procedure seem to have been the penalty of<br />
atimia qua disfranchisement or a tenfold fine (Aeschin. 3.232, Din. 2.16).<br />
It is all the more striking, therefore, that of the seven known prosecutions of<br />
ambassadors and public speakers suspected of dōrodokia in the fourth century not one<br />
used the graphē dōrōn process. Instead, all seven trials employed the eisangelia process,<br />
and every conviction resulted in the death penalty. 70 Our evidence is doubtless limited<br />
69 Whether or not they were always prosecuted is another matter altogether. Isocrates decries how the<br />
politicians who corrupted (diafqei=rai) the most people the most obviously (fanerw/tata) were elected to<br />
the stratēgia (Isoc. 8.50). Similarly, Aeschines reports that it was common to hear accusations that people<br />
had bribed juries (Aeschin. 1.86), one reason behind the exceptional citizen registration process ordered by<br />
Demophilus’ decree in 346/5: see further below.<br />
70 The cases were against Andocides, Epicrates, Eubulides, and Cratinus (392/1); Timagoras (367);<br />
Callistratus (361/0); Philocrates (343); and Euxenippus (330-24). Additionally, the stratēgoi Ergocles<br />
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and biased towards preserving only the most serious court cases. Nevertheless, in<br />
practice, if not in law, during the fourth century the Athenians apparently preferred to<br />
expel permanently, rather than to reintegrate, rhētores whose actions threatened to<br />
corrupt a political body via outright bribes or bad policy suggestions. 71 Framing this<br />
phenomenon in terms of insiders and outsiders might tell us why: it was exactly at this<br />
time that the dēmos was unwilling to tolerate any ‘outsider’-like behavior resembling the<br />
oligarchic Thirty. Better to expel that threat permanently than to reintegrate someone<br />
who truly wished to remain outside the moral community.<br />
In this respect, there are three concurrent trends that I think we can tie together in<br />
this series of legal innovations. First, the shift from bribe-taking to bribe-giving can be<br />
framed in terms of the expansion of the law’s scope from public officials to regular<br />
citizens interacting with the public sphere. Through dōrodokia regulations, which were<br />
modeled off of prior dōrodokia laws and which focused on how individuals could<br />
interface with the public sphere, the Athenians in fact expanded the domain of the<br />
‘public’. But in that case, note how the bribe-givers who had formerly been ‘outside’ the<br />
public sphere now were ‘insiders’ just like the officials they corrupted. At the very fringe<br />
of this expanded public sphere, therefore, we find that the dōrodokos was not simply<br />
‘inside’ or ‘outside’ the community; he was somehow both at once, precisely like the<br />
(389) and Timotheus (356/5 or 355/4) were convicted probably of dōrodokia; Timotheus was nearly<br />
sentenced to death, but was fined instead. The sources for each are catalogued, respectively, in Hansen<br />
(1975: numbers 69-72, 82, 87, 109, 124). These trials are emblematic of a larger gravitation towards the<br />
eisangelia over the euthyna process when prosecuting public officials in the fourth century. Hansen (1975:<br />
75-9).<br />
71 Outside the Harpalus Affair, the only attested example of a fine for dōrodokia in the fourth century is for<br />
Timotheus’ eisangelia in 356/5, on a charge of treason and dōrodokia: Hansen (1975: number 101)<br />
collects the sources. Timotheus was prosecuted together with two other stratēgoi from that year:<br />
Iphicrates on a charge of treason and Menestheus for embezzlement, numbers 100 and 102 respectively in<br />
Hansen (1975); both were acquitted. Upon Timotheus’ conviction, the death penalty was originally<br />
proposed (Nep. Iph. 3.3), but a fine was eventually imposed instead (Isoc. 15.129, Din. 1.14, 3.17). Even<br />
here, though, the extraordinary sum of the fine—100 talents, reportedly—forced Timotheus into exile, in<br />
effect creating the same permanent expulsion as capital punishment (Plut. Mor. 605F).<br />
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figure of thief we encountered in Chapter Three. By linking up these three shifts in this<br />
way, we thus find that shifting conceptions of the dōrodokos transformed, in turn, how<br />
the Athenians thought about the legal space in which he worked.<br />
One noteworthy feature of the above legal changes is that they introduced a<br />
stricter legal definition of dōrodokia, usually a clause to the effect of “against the public<br />
interest.” It was argued in the previous chapter that, although the Solonian law for the<br />
graphē dōrōn nowhere defined the crime of dōrodokia, it was later redefined with the<br />
inclusion of “to the harm of the dēmos or any citizen” (e0pi\ bla/bh| tou~ dh/mou h@ tino\j<br />
tw=n politw~n, Dem. 21.113). Similarly, the law for the graphē dekasmou specified that<br />
one was not allowed to “give money unto dōrodokia” (e)pi\ dwrodoki/a| xrh/mata<br />
didou/j, [Dem.] 46.26), and the nomos eisangeltikos prohibited public speakers from<br />
taking money and speaking “against the dēmos’ interests” (mh\ le/gh| ta\ a1rista tw| =<br />
dh/mw, Hyp. 4.8). In the case of the graphē dōrōn, this redefinition seems to have been<br />
intimately tied to expanding the scope of the procedure, but the same cannot be said for<br />
the other procedures. Why, then, the broader interest in more clearly defining what<br />
dōrodokia was?<br />
As a result of these stricter definitions in the law, litigants had a clearer guide in<br />
demonstrating when or if dōrodokia had occurred, namely, by showing whether or not<br />
the public (or some private) interest had been harmed. There was a symbolic reason, too,<br />
for framing this definition with respect to the dēmos’ interests. In committing dōrodokia,<br />
a citizen had either misjudged the greater good or was seeking to avoid being held<br />
accountable to that standard. This, it was thought, lay at the root of institutional<br />
breakdown in the late fifth century. By clarifying the legal definition of dōrodokia, the<br />
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Athenians reaffirmed which political domains should make those judgments in the first<br />
place: this specific norm was to be authorized by a jury court, not by the dōrodokos. As<br />
we will investigate in greater detail in the next chapter, one reason for including more<br />
precise definitions of dōrodokia at this time may have been to allow a jury—and, in an<br />
eisangelia, the dēmos—to reauthorize the precise communal norms which had been<br />
thought misjudged or evaded by the dōrodokos.<br />
Subsequent formal measures similarly reasserted the proper authority of a<br />
political body whose domain contained some political norm in the community. If a<br />
dōrodokos had misestimated what constituted harm to the dēmos, or if he had tried to use<br />
dōrodokia to escape judgment by the community, these later measures ensured that the<br />
community had another chance to pass judgment or to be the proper arbiters of what was<br />
and was not harmful to the dēmos. Here, though, it is crucial that so many of these<br />
measures were predicated on the threat posed by veritable networks of corruption, just<br />
like the ones we examined in Chapter Four.<br />
So, in one trial a certain Euxennipus claimed that he had been left off the citizen<br />
registry—and others had been illegally voted onto it—because of corruption involving a<br />
local official and his friends. 72 Whereas the graphē dōrōn originally had focused on the<br />
corruption of individual agents and only much later came to cover the individuals who<br />
corrupted entire political bodies, the networks of corruption envisioned by Euxenippus<br />
and others in the final decades of the democracy posed a new challenge. Both insiders<br />
and outsiders were potentially already corrupt and working in concert. In response, the<br />
Athenians continued to affirm a proper institutional structure, as they had done by giving<br />
72 The speech for Euxitheus’ case was written by Demosthenes (Dem. 57) and is discussed most fully by<br />
Haussoullier (1979: 41-51), Whitehead (1986: esp. 293-301). For purported corruption involving the<br />
dēmarch Eubulides, see Dem. 57.26, 58-61. Eubulides’ father and corruption: Dem. 57.26, 60-1.<br />
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jurors a stricter legal definition with which to guide their judgment on dōrodokia suits.<br />
But they did so either by essentially repeating the process, thereby reasserting the<br />
authority of a particular political body within a particular domain, or by changing what<br />
had been deemed a thoroughly corrupt process—i.e. switching domains.<br />
One instance of repeating the process involved the dokimasia procedure at which<br />
Euxenippus had experienced problems. As Euxenippus’ testimony suggests, Athenian<br />
anxieties over the corruption of political bodies only continued in the fourth century, and<br />
were not limited to the main political organs of the polis; on the contrary, the corruption<br />
of local bodies was just as serious a concern. For Euxenippus was not the only one to<br />
call foul at a local assembly. There were numerous contemporary fears that the<br />
dokimasia process was not working correctly. 73 By 346/5, there was such a pervasive<br />
belief in, and anger at, corruption of the citizen registration processes that the Athenians<br />
voted to hold an extraordinary registration, in which every citizen of every deme would<br />
have his citizenship reviewed and voted on by his fellow demesmen. 74 This was an<br />
exceptional measure, to be sure, yet it is testament to the twin beliefs that dōrodokia had<br />
corrupted a number of individual outcomes and that the solution was to repeat the<br />
73 On corruption at the deme level, see further Haussoullier (1979: 45-6), Whitehead (1986: 291-301, esp.<br />
292-3). So, Aeschines accuses Timarchus of being bribed to drop the citizenship case of someone who was<br />
in fact from a different deme (Aeschin. 1.114-15). Contemporary comedies joke about how readily the<br />
residents of Potamos accepted illegally registered citizens into their community or how often slaves<br />
suddenly became full-fledged citizens in the deme of Sounion. Potamos: Harpoc. s.v. Potamo/j. Sounion:<br />
Anaxandrides fr. 4.3-4: polloi\ de\ nu=n me/n ei)sin ou)k e)leu/qeroi,/ ei)j au!rion de\ Souniei=j (“many are<br />
slaves today, but tomorrow they are Sounians”). In one case, dated between 336 and 324, it was claimed<br />
that a public slave, Agasikles, had bribed his way into the citizen ranks; on that occasion, the prosecution<br />
harped on his Scythian heritage, a particularly potent claim in the wake of Macedonian influence at Athens.<br />
Agasikles: Hyp. 4.3, Din. frr. 7.1-2; cf. Harpoc. s.v. skafhfo/roi and Harpoc. and Suda s.v.<br />
prometrhth/j. For further details on this trial, including its dating and the circumstances surrounding it,<br />
see below and number 115 in Hansen’s catalogue (1975: 105).<br />
74 The diapsēphesis of 346/5 was proposed by Demophilus, who was known for his public accusations of<br />
corruption during the citizen enrollment procedures: cf. Aeschin. 1.86. On Demophilus’ decree and the<br />
diapsēphesis of 346/5, see Haussoullier (1979: 38-55), Whitehead (1986: 104-9). Citizen anger against<br />
those who had corrupted the dokimasia process is reported in Dem. 57.49: see further Haussoullier (1979:<br />
40-1).<br />
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process. The local bodies whose domain included enrollment decisions were still deemed<br />
authoritative, but they were given another chance to make the right judgments.<br />
Like the diapsēphisis of 346/5, which repeated the dokimasia for all Athenian<br />
residents, the Athenians created the graphē dōroxenias procedure, which gave a jury<br />
court a second chance to authorize the justice of a resident’s claim to citizenship. The<br />
procedure was used “if someone secured an acquittal at a citizenship trial (graphē xenias)<br />
by giving dōra” (dwroceni/aj a1n tij dw=ra dou\ \j a)pofu/gh| th\n ceni/an, AP 59.3). 75<br />
More telling are the comments of Hyperides, who adds that any citizen could bring forth<br />
a graphē dōroxenias suit if it seemed that someone’s acquittal at a citizenship trial had<br />
been unjust (e0a\n mh\ dokw=si dikai/wj to\ prw=ton a)popefeuge/nai, Hyp. Fr. 28.2<br />
Blass=Harpocration s.v. dwroceni/a). One seemingly peculiar aspect of the procedure is<br />
how little it differed from a graphē xenias: both were jury trials held before the<br />
thesmothetai, and, as Hyperides’ comment suggests, both hinged on whether or not the<br />
defendant was a citizen. In effect, the graphē dōroxenias was a safeguard against an<br />
unjust acquittal at a graphē xenias, a new opportunity for a new jury to cast the correct<br />
judgment on someone’s citizenship status. Again, a jury still was the proper domain for<br />
deciding disputes over citizenship; it simply needed an occasional second chance to reach<br />
the right outcome. Although we have no indication of what the penalty in such a<br />
procedure would have been, we can tentatively conjecture that it would have been atimia,<br />
or permanent expulsion from the community. 76 If this hypothesis is correct, then in the<br />
75 The AP’s testimony is our only indication of what the law governing the graphē dōroxenias may have<br />
stated. During the citizen registration process, if someone’s candidacy for citizenship was questioned, he<br />
underwent a graphē xenias before a jury who would then determine whether or not he met the requirements<br />
of citizenship. On the citizenship enrollment procedure and the graphē xenias, see especially Haussoullier<br />
(1979: 15-19), Whitehead (1986: 97-109), Robertson (2000).<br />
76 On the one hand, the penalty probably was not public enslavement, as it was for a graphē xenias (Dem.<br />
24.131). Even if the graphē dōroxenias were intended solely to correct the prior acquittal, having an<br />
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case of citizenship trials, too, the Athenians expelled from their community those<br />
elements which were corrupting the political process.<br />
Both the extraordinary diapsēphisis of 346/5 and the graphē dōroxenias represent<br />
attempts to reassert the authority of proper, uncorrupted political domains through<br />
repeating a formal process. Yet if an entire body had been thoroughly corrupted, it was<br />
conceivable that repeating the process would only result in the same, unjust outcome. In<br />
such instances, the Athenians may have had little choice but to change the process<br />
entirely, hence switching a process from one domain to another. One is reminded, for<br />
instance, of Ephialtes’ reforms and the suspected corruption of the Areopagus at the time.<br />
There is a similar explanation in the AP about judging patterns for the robe used in the<br />
quadrennial Great Panathenaia procession: originally the Council had judged these<br />
matters, but because they had shown favoritism (kataxari/zesqai), jurisdiction was<br />
transferred to a jury court selected by lot (AP 49.3). 77 In the 350’s all eisangeliai before<br />
the Assembly began to be held in front of a jury court instead. 78 While this last change<br />
was due most likely to economic considerations—particularly amid the Social Wars, it<br />
was cheaper for the Athenians to fund a day’s worth of court cases rather than an<br />
identical penalty for both the dōroxenia and xenia procedures would have effectively created an incentive<br />
for non-Athenians to try to bribe the jury! With the same penalty for losing a xenia trial as for being<br />
convicted of bribing the jury in a xenia trial, nothing would have been lost, and everything could have been<br />
gained, by at least attempting to bribe the jury. On the other hand, the punishment probably could not have<br />
been death, for what then would have distinguished the graphē dōroxenias from the graphē dekasmou,<br />
which already had the death penalty? Indeed, positing a different penalty is a good reason for the creation<br />
of the graphē dōroxenias in the first place. Given the gravity of the offense, atimia in the sense of<br />
outlawry, is our most sensible option.<br />
77 What the AP intends here is a matter of debate. The phrase ta\ paradei/gmata kai\ to\n pe/plon<br />
(“public works and the robe”) was emended by Blass to refer to just the peplos (ta\ paradei/gmata ei)j<br />
to\n pe/plon); Rhodes (1981: 568-9 ad loc) follows Blass, albeit with caution. Wilamowitz (1893: 1.212-<br />
13), on the other hand, follows the manuscripts in positing that these decisions involved public works in<br />
general. What is important for our purposes is simply that some change was made in the fourth century,<br />
and that the AP, at least, attributed this change to dōrodokia.<br />
78 Hansen (1975: esp. 53-5), Rhodes (1979: 108); cf. Thalheim (1902: 351-2), Lipsius (1905-15: 1.191-<br />
2).<br />
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Assembly meeting—here too concerns about dōrodokia may have played a role in the<br />
decision. 79<br />
Perhaps our best example of a new process designed to circumvent some of the<br />
institutional corruption thought to be plaguing the democracy in the fourth century is the<br />
apophasis procedure for suspected acts of treason and corruption. This procedure<br />
entailed an investigation, preliminary report and verdict by the Areopagus, followed by a<br />
final verdict and punishment by a jury, with the prosecution led by publicly elected<br />
prosecutors. 80 We can date its creation to the mid 340’s, exactly the same time that there<br />
were a number of trials for judicial dōrodokia (Aeschin. 1.86) and fears that ‘traitors’<br />
were destroying the city. To be sure, part of the impetus for the change lay in<br />
contemporary constitutional debates, which focused on the Areopagus’ ancestral<br />
authority as “guardian of the laws.” 81 But it is worth considering what need the Athenians<br />
had for these debates at this particular time. Amid fears of widespread institutional<br />
corruption, I suggest, the Athenians looked to restore the Areopagus’ authority as<br />
‘guardian of the laws’ precisely because they believed the laws were being contravened<br />
on a systematic basis.<br />
The details of the apophasis procedure support this interpretation. It is telling,<br />
after all, that unlike the preliminary judgments of officials, which simply established that<br />
a certain case was worthy of trial before a jury, in an apophasis the Areopagus also<br />
passed a preliminary verdict on guilt or innocence in drafting its report. It was up to the<br />
79 Financing: Hansen (1975: 55; 1991: 159). Dōrodokia: Isocrates laments how the constitution had been<br />
corrupted by his time (cf. diefqarme/nhj, Isoc. 7.15), and for this reason he advocates a return to the<br />
Solonian constitution with a prominent Areopagus, but his reference might be to an imbalance of power,<br />
not active corruption.<br />
80 On the apophasis, see MacDowell (1978: 190-1), Wallace (1989: 113-18), Hansen (1991: 292-4), Todd<br />
(1993: 115).<br />
81 Carawan (1985: 138-40).<br />
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jury to accept or reject the Areopagus’ verdict, but prosecutors were sure to point out how<br />
just and true the Areopagus’ report must be. So, in the Harpalus Affair, prosecutors<br />
continually referred back to the Areopagus’ verdict as their (sole) evidence that<br />
Demosthenes and others were guilty; for them, the verdict of the Areopagus was<br />
unimpeachable, and the dōrodokoi represented a threat to that very authority. 82<br />
So the fourth-century legal focus on dōrodokia of large groups of citizens and of<br />
large political bodies went hand-in-hand with the nascent political narrative depicting the<br />
dōrodokos as a traitor. At the same time, the impetus for asserting the authority of<br />
discrete political domains to legitimate communal norms was an old one: as we have<br />
seen, that aspect of dōrodokia legislation was constant from the Solonian graphē dōrōn<br />
onwards. Within the law, at least, we might say that the dōrodokos represented a<br />
consistent threat to the way the community established value. This included a threat not<br />
only to what was and was not in the community’s interests, but even to who in the<br />
community was authorized to make that evaluation in the first place.<br />
The threat of the dōrodokos at this time was considerable. He was thought<br />
capable of corrupting an entire political body, in effect forcing the Athenians to reassert<br />
the authority of one political body or to switch domains to another one altogether. Just as<br />
he was traitorously positioned to overturn the democracy, the dōrodokos overturned the<br />
very sources of political authority in the city, as well. Switching domains as the<br />
Athenians often did in the fourth century in response to suspected corruption thus<br />
reflected a particular conception of the dōrodokos qua a traitor to the community.<br />
Crucially, then, underpinning institutional reform throughout the fourth century was the<br />
82 Carawan (1985: 136-7). Note how frequently the prosecutors weigh the upstanding nature and justice of<br />
the Areopagus’ report against the corruption and injustice of the defendants: Din. 1.45, 1.87, 2.1, 2.2, 2.6-<br />
7, 3.7; Hyp. 5 fr.3.5-7.<br />
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figure of the dōrodokos. At the same time as they articulated new conceptions of the<br />
democracy through legal and institutional reforms, the Athenians created new legal<br />
spaces for the dōrodokos. In this sense, we might say that dōrodokia was itself legislated<br />
against in the shadows of democracy.<br />
In tracing a gradual shift in focus from individual to institutional corruption, we<br />
have uncovered profound questions about how these laws functioned within the broader<br />
context of Athenian society and polity. In essence, if in this chapter we have identified<br />
the democracy’s concern to match specific domains with the authorization of specific<br />
political norms, then we have opened up the broader question of how the law and legal<br />
process were used to frame, contest, and legitimate public discourse. It is to this highly<br />
political role of the courts to which the next chapter turns. With this final piece in place,<br />
we will at last be in a position to evaluate the role of dōrodokia in the classical Athenian<br />
democracy.<br />
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Athenian dōrodokia Legislation in Practice:<br />
Civic Education, Legitimization, and the Athenian Democracy<br />
Understanding the relationship between law and society is about much more than<br />
mere statues or legal norms; it is about how these norms are intertwined with legal<br />
practices, as well. Norm and practice, law in the books and the law in action, are always<br />
in a dialectical relationship: a norm establishes a practice that is then taken to be<br />
indicative of the norm itself and used to underpin various other practices that establish<br />
that norm. 1 Whereas the previous chapter examined how the legal norms regulating<br />
dōrodokia changed over time, this chapter will locate those norms within the twin<br />
contexts of the law and political institutions in action. We are thus building on the<br />
argument we have been developing, namely, that the Athenians articulated the hallmarks<br />
of their democracy in opposition to the figure of the dōrodokos. Here we will see how,<br />
within the legal space created for the dōrodokos, the Athenians devised ways to learn<br />
about, debate, and ultimately legitimate the practice of democratic politics. Tracing this<br />
story will help us see more clearly how Athenian laws on, and institutional changes<br />
concerning, dōrodokia might have shaped public discourse more generally and the way<br />
individual Athenians practiced politics, specifically.<br />
Necessarily this kind of dialectical investigation entails moving past thinking<br />
about the law merely as a deterrent and opens up the question of the broader effects of<br />
dōrodokia legislation on Athenian society and polity. After all, the moment we begin to<br />
1 For a thought-provoking look at legal regulation in ancient Athens from the perspective of a legal<br />
anthropologist, see Comaroff (2002). The idea that legal rules are constitutive of and constituted by local<br />
practices underpins recent cultural approaches to the law: see Silbey (1992, 2005), Sarat and Austin<br />
(2001), Ewick and Silbey (2003), Mezey (2003). Allen (2000) fruitfully applies many of these ideas to her<br />
study of Athenian punishment; see also Papakonstantinou (2007) on archaic Greek law.<br />
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ask who was most affected by a legal or institutional change—and above all how they<br />
were affected—we begin to see that, within the context of Athenian society, these legal<br />
and institutional changes had dramatically different effects. Whereas changes in the law<br />
primarily affected elite citizens, for they were most liable to prosecution for dōrodokia—<br />
whether receiving or giving bribes—institutional changes, which tended to affect the<br />
masses who served on political bodies, were not punitive. Moreover, whereas<br />
institutional reforms focused on eliminating certain kinds of relationships—e.g. close ties<br />
among jurors or between juror and litigant—legal regulations focused only on<br />
eliminating certain kinds of gifts and were effectively silent on the social relationships<br />
leveraged in politics. Understanding the purpose of such social differentiation will thus<br />
be one key aim of this chapter.<br />
Asking who was affected by Athenian legislation on dōrodokia and how<br />
implicates the further question of why these particular Athenians were affected in this<br />
particular way: in other words, we are faced with the intended role of law in society.<br />
This chapter will focus on two related roles—what we might term law’s educational and<br />
legitimating roles—each of which strengthened the democracy in a different way.<br />
Changes to Athens’ political institutions and to her laws on dōrodokia aimed in part to<br />
educate citizens by instilling within them proper democratic values and making them<br />
aware of the prevailing political norms on dōrodokia. Yet anti-dōrodokia laws in<br />
particular opened up a political space wherein the norms themselves could be contested<br />
and re-established by the proper authoritative body. In this sense, dōrodokia suits in<br />
action served as a means of legitimizing specific political outcomes, political players, and<br />
even political practices. Certainly the law’s ability to act as a deterrent continued<br />
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throughout the democracy, but underscoring its educational and legitimizing roles places<br />
into focus how, even if the laws themselves were ineffective deterrents, the legal<br />
regulation of dōrodokia, those laws in action, could nevertheless strengthen the<br />
democracy in important ways.<br />
One hallmark of the democracy was the elaborate sortition process by which<br />
jurors and, later, magistrates were selected for service. 2 Originally, jurors were assigned<br />
by lot for the full year of their jury service to a single jury panel which reported to a<br />
particular court. 3 Probably in the late fifth century this system was changed so that each<br />
panel was randomly assigned by an allotment machine (klērōtērion) to a court each<br />
morning. 4 Around 380, this process was complicated yet again: the klērōtēria were used<br />
to determine at random which jurors would be selected for jury service that morning,<br />
before each juror then drew his court assignment at random. 5 In the second half of the<br />
fourth century, moreover, the Athenians began to select at random the location of the<br />
courtroom over which each magistrate would preside. 6 Similarly, around 370-362, the<br />
selection of magistrates, too, came to employ the klērōtēria used in the allotment of<br />
jurors to courts. Previously, for the minor magistracies, each deme had been allotted<br />
specific offices to fill in a central lottery using clay tokens in the Theseion, and each<br />
2 On this process, see Dow (1939), Kroll (1972), Staveley (1972: 47-57, 61ff.), MacDowell (1978: 36-40),<br />
Rhodes (1981: 697-735), Boegehold (1984), Bers (2000), Demont (2003); cf. Taylor (2007) on the election<br />
and sortition of magistrates. Selection by lot was later viewed as a cornerstone of the democracy: Hdt.<br />
3.80, Aristot. Pol. 1274a5, 1294b7-9: Headlam (1933: 4-12, 19-26), Badian (1971: 9), Ober (1989: 76-<br />
7). Whether viewed as a pro-democratic or, more likely, a pro-elite instrument used to reduce elite<br />
competition for office by ensuring broad representation and even distribution—so Carawan (1987: 207-8)<br />
and Demont (2003: 40)—sortition was essential for including a more diverse range of citizens in the<br />
workings of the polity: Taylor (2007).<br />
3 Ar. V. 242-4, 303-5, 1107-9, MacDowell (1983: 64).<br />
4 The first mention of the klērōtērion probably dates to Aristophanes’ Geras (assigned to 410 BCE): see<br />
Boegehold (1984: 24). The next mention of the sortition machines in our sources dates to around 391 BCE<br />
with Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazousae (cf. klhrw/sw, Ec. 682).<br />
5 MacDowell (1978: 36-40) provides a helpful summary of the sources and process. See further Kroll<br />
(1939), Bers (2000).<br />
6 Implicit from AP 63.5.<br />
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office was then filled by a lottery process in the deme. 7 When the klērōtēria came to be<br />
used for this selection process, the entire process was centralized, as sortition for each<br />
office was performed in the Theseion. 8<br />
Needless to say, the klērōtērion procedure for jury selection was considerably<br />
more complicated than has been suggested by this cursory overview. In his Constitution<br />
of Athens Aristotle spends four chapters—out of a total sixty-nine—describing the<br />
allotment procedure for jurors (AP 63-6). Each juror had a personalized box-wood ticket<br />
(pinakion) with his name, his father’s name, his deme, and a letter of the alphabet A-K<br />
(AP 63.4). On the morning of a court day, jurors filed by tribe into one of ten holding<br />
rooms and deposited their pinakion into a chest inscribed with a matching letter A-K on it<br />
(AP 64.1). From there in each room an affixer was appointed at random to draw ten<br />
pinakia, one from each chest, and affix those pinakia to the klērōtērion (AP 64.1-2). The<br />
archon then drew lots of white and black copper dice, the white number corresponding to<br />
the number of jurymen required. As the dice were slotted into the klērōtērion, they fell<br />
next to pinakia affixed to the machine. If a white die fell next to a pinakion, that juror<br />
would serve on a jury (AP 64.2-3). Each selected juror then drew from an urn an acorn<br />
also inscribed with a letter and entered a second holding room, where he was given a<br />
7 Demont (2003: 44) posits that a still earlier procedure—selection of magistrates using white and black<br />
beans—was in effect for most of the fifth century. Other magistracies, like the archonship, were always<br />
allotted by tribes. The lottery process using clay tokens is described at length in Lang (1959), Staveley<br />
(1972: 70-2), and Whitehead (1986: 280-7), although Whitehead (1986: 286) rightly underscores that it<br />
was a potentially (very) short-lived process.<br />
A plausible reconstruction of the sortition process at the Theseion is as follows. Rectangular clay<br />
allotment tokens were painted with the abbreviation of the name of a tribe on one side and then cut in half<br />
with a jigsaw cut so that one half could be re-fitted only with its original matching half. The two halves<br />
were then placed into different piles. For one pile, the abbreviation of a deme within that tribe was written<br />
on the reverse of every token; for the other pile, either a blank or the abbreviation of a magistracy was<br />
inscribed in the lower portion of the token. In this way, only the exact number of magistracies needed was<br />
inscribed on the tokens. When the tokens were reassembled, demes were matched with either a magistracy<br />
or nothing. On these clay tokens, see further Thompson (1951).<br />
8 So AP 62.1. Cf. Staveley (1972: 48-51, 69-72). For the date of this change, see Kroll (1972), Whitehead<br />
(1986: 287-90).<br />
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colored staff that matched the color of a lintel on the doorway to the court where he<br />
would serve; this court also had a letter matching the acorn he was given (AP 64.4-65.2).<br />
Matching letters, randomization, colored lintels, colored wands and acorns: the purpose<br />
of most of these changes, according to Aristotle and numerous scholars since? To<br />
prevent corruption. 9<br />
Some recent scholars have rightly questioned Aristotle’s judgment here, however,<br />
by claiming that it is unlikely that dōrodokia was the sole, or even primary, motivation<br />
for institutional change. 10 After all, it is difficult to imagine how, even in the late fifth<br />
century, a litigant could successfully rig the system by assembling and bribing enough<br />
jurors to secure a favorable outcome. Because jury panels were randomly assigned to<br />
courts at the beginning of each morning, a litigant would have had to bribe a critical mass<br />
of jurors in each panel to ensure the outcome of his trial. The only feasible way this<br />
could have happened—and recall that, despite the implausibility of judicial bribery, the<br />
Athenians strongly suspected that it did occur—was if the jurors, themselves, were<br />
banding together into groups. This was a concern not so much about bribery—money<br />
exchanged for votes—as about collusion; the relationship at issue was that between<br />
jurors, not between some outside bribe-giver and the jury. Indeed, the other offenses<br />
grouped together with the graphē dekasmou, like the prohibitions against conspiracy or<br />
9 AP 64.2 (ticket-drawer chosen by lot to prevent mischief), 64.4 (drawing of acorns prevents packing of<br />
jury panels), 65.1 (colored sticks and lintels prevent juror from purposely going into the wrong jury court),<br />
66.2 (men chosen by lot to work the water clock to prevent dishonest arrangements), cf. AP 66.1 (archons<br />
assigned to courts by lot to prevent prior knowledge of assignment). Cf. Eubulus fr. 74 K on the sale of<br />
jury allotments. AP is followed in the main by Staveley (1972: 61ff.), MacDowell (1973: 35-40), Rhodes<br />
(1981: ad loc), Todd (1993: 87).<br />
10 Taylor (2007), Bers (2000). In particular, as Bers (2000) points out, if the sole purpose was to prevent<br />
corruption, the Athenians could have achieved that goal with a less complex, less timely process. For the<br />
allotment of magistrates, too, Whitehead (1986: 290) notes that AP’s attribution of the change to fears of<br />
corruption “may be open to doubt.”<br />
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forming a political faction to overthrow the democracy, point in the direction that a<br />
concerted group of political agents was helping to corrupt the judicial process. 11<br />
On this view, as judicial outcomes like Anytus’ trial in 409 ran counter to the<br />
dēmos’ expectations, they were blamed on a kind of dōrodokia that signaled a<br />
problematic relationship to the community. As with other accusations of dōrodokia, I<br />
would add, what was troubling was the idea that single individuals could have<br />
relationships with such far-reaching influence; the media used to negotiate those<br />
relationships—whether drachmas, favors, or other—was thus incidental.<br />
The Athenians’ response was twofold: first, to atomize jurors so that they could<br />
not self-assemble into large voting blocks; and then to ritualize the allotment process<br />
through an increasingly complex series of steps in order to remind jurors of the very<br />
authority they held as dikasts. Note how the sortition process first broke up jurors by<br />
tribe, then by letter groups, precisely the two categories that previously would have been<br />
most easily exploited for collusion. Then, after atomizing jurors, the process transformed<br />
them from citizens into jurors. Like other rituals in the Athenian polis, civic and<br />
otherwise, one purpose of transforming the citizens into this civic category of jurors was<br />
to foster a new solidarity among participants qua dicasts, one thus drawn along public not<br />
private lines. 12<br />
As more steps of the allotment procedure became randomized, they also became<br />
invested with greater social significance, creating greater separation between ordinary<br />
11 See discussion above, Chapter Six.<br />
12 Connor (1987) and Osborne (1994) on, respectively, religious and civic rituals in the democracy. Bers<br />
(2000) also underscores the ritual aspects of the sortition process, but ultimately claims that the process was<br />
meant to assuage non-jurors of the number and probity of jurors selected (2000: esp. 557-8). By contrast, I<br />
would point to the very real significance that the ritual could have for the participating jurors, themselves.<br />
A similar process of identity (trans)formation can be found in the swearing of the dicastic oath, on which<br />
see Chapter Six above.<br />
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citizen and authoritative juror: hence the involvement of more jurors in executing the<br />
selection process, or the use of more props (pinakia, colored staffs) to dramatize the<br />
jurors’ roles. The implementation of the lot at each step of the way may very well have<br />
been a reminder of the profoundly religious character of the jurors’ office, as signaled by<br />
the oath of the heliasts sworn by all potential jurors each year. 13 Inasmuch as the new,<br />
more complicated allotment process was a kind of civic ritual, it is perhaps unsurprising<br />
that the Athenians soon extended it to the selection of magistrates, as well.<br />
The changes to the jury allotment procedures thus may have been geared more<br />
towards both preventing jurors from self-assembling into blocks of voters and inculcating<br />
a sense of civic identity than from preventing an external agent from bribing a jury en<br />
masse. The difference is crucial. While the Athenians turned to the law to regulate how<br />
an outsider could interface with a political body like a jury, they left the regulation of<br />
jurors’ behavior to informal means like the heliastic oath or the process of allotment. No<br />
doubt this distinction was partly necessary if the Athenians were to maintain secret ballot<br />
voting in court cases. But one significant sociological consequence of these policies was<br />
that elites would have been disproportionately punished in courts of law—whether for<br />
giving or taking bribes—whereas the masses who sat on juries would have been<br />
controlled through non-punitive measures. 14<br />
What seems at first glance to have been an elaborate system set up to prevent<br />
corruption appears, on closer examination, to have served a very different purpose,<br />
indeed. What I suggest is that in both cases the desire to locate jurors or magistrates<br />
13 So Bers (2000: 558-9) helpfully carves a middle path through the ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ interpretations<br />
of the lot, on which see, for example, Headlam (1933: 4-17), Demont (2003: 39-50).<br />
14 On the social composition of juries, see Markle (1985). Taylor (2007) convincingly shows that<br />
magistrates selected by lot were more likely to be drawn from a broader socio-economic and geographical<br />
range than those elected.<br />
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within an explicitly political space—one stripped of the content of personal relations and<br />
imbued instead with civic meaning and identity—led the Athenians to devise an<br />
increasingly elaborate selection procedure. This procedure amounted to nothing less than<br />
a civic ritual that simultaneously removed jurors from their social relations qua neighbors<br />
or philoi from the same tribe and promoted a common civic identity qua jurors or public<br />
officials. It focused on the relationships, not the dōra, in dōrodokia. Perhaps as a result,<br />
it performed less of a regulatory and more of an educational role. As with the swearing<br />
of the heliastic oath, the use of the lot throughout the ritual signaled the sanctity of the<br />
position the jurors and officials took on. 15 The ritual itself educated its participants in the<br />
very ways in which they should perform their duties: participation of all, with<br />
impartiality, for the benefit of the community, with added honor for oneself.<br />
Whereas legal regulations might be viewed as punitive measures meant to correct<br />
a wrong, the institutional changes made to the jury and magistrate allotment procedures<br />
signaled a desire to educate participants in how to perform a public role—that is, they<br />
focused on preventing the wrong from happening in the first place. To that extent we<br />
might helpfully connect this educative function with the prevailing conception of the<br />
dōrodokos at the time of the bulk of these changes: he was a thief, an insider looking to<br />
become an outsider, but who might nevertheless be reintegrated into the community as an<br />
insider. Again, if the Athenians were concerned about dōrodokia in the selection of<br />
jurors or magistrates, they were focused more on these figures’ relation to the community<br />
rather than, specifically, on the dōra they might receive. In order to mend that<br />
relationship to the community, the Athenians used civic rituals to foster a more civic-<br />
oriented character.<br />
15 Cf. Headlam (1933: 4-12), Bers (2000: 558-9), Demont (2003: 50-51).<br />
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Mass Education, Elite exempla, and the Legitimation of Political Norms in the Courts:<br />
It was noted above that the elaborate sortition of jurors and magistrates would<br />
have affected primarily the masses, while it was primarily elite citizens who would have<br />
been prosecuted for dōrodokia of whatever type. In other words, it would have been<br />
mainly the masses who were so ‘educated’ by the sortition procedures in the fourth<br />
century, whereas elites would have been punished by the law. Did legal regulation of<br />
elite behavior through Athenian laws on dōrodokia have any such educative function? In<br />
this section, I will argue that it did, but not as a means of educating someone who had<br />
already taken bribes; rather, much like the institutional changes outlined above, the law in<br />
action was intended to educate the citizenry as a whole. As we have traced with<br />
changing conceptions of the dōrodokos, elites were held up as negative exempla for how<br />
citizens should behave. In this way, we should think of the law in action as a valuable<br />
site of civic education at Athens; particularly when it came to dōrodokia, it opened up a<br />
unique political space for legitimizing fundamental political norms.<br />
One as yet unanswered question in our investigation of Athenian bribery is whose<br />
definition of bribery prevailed, and by what process did that definition become<br />
legitimate? This was a question of vital importance to the democracy. When a general<br />
was on campaign, if he effected some unacceptable outcome, the dēmos needed to signal<br />
the illegitimacy of that outcome, but how? There was precious little time in Assembly<br />
meetings, and the circulation of gossip was an unreliable means of signaling the<br />
legitimacy of public actions. 16 As this section will argue, the Athenians’ solution was to<br />
create a legal space wherein an outcome—or politician, or political process—could itself<br />
16 On gossip in Athens, see Hunter (1990).<br />
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stand trial; that is, the Athenians created a legal space for articulating political legitimacy.<br />
This space was a trial for dōrodokia, and it was at just such a trial that competing<br />
definitions of dōrodokia, hence competing understandings of what constituted legitimate,<br />
democratic action, might be contested.<br />
Adriaan Lanni has recently argued that the courts at Athens were used to enforce<br />
informal norms generally rather than to uphold formal, legal statutes specifically. 17<br />
Indeed, there are good historical reasons for adopting her view. Without a police force or<br />
public prosecutors, prosecution—like the enforcement of a penalty—was left largely to<br />
private initiative, whether by the victim in a private suit or by ‘whoever was willing’ in a<br />
public suit. 18 As a result, with no legal experts—no professional lawmakers, judges, or<br />
lawyers—the Athenians never imagined that the language of ‘the law’ was in any way<br />
autonomous from society. 19 The jury, composed of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of<br />
citizens who may or may not have been familiar with a given law, learned the ‘relevant’<br />
law only if one of the litigants chose to have it read aloud. Even then, the content of laws<br />
was not granted any privileged authority within the courts, as statutes were treated just<br />
like any other source of communal norms, including poetry, public decrees, or general<br />
platitudes about good or bad behavior. 20 When jurors cast their votes, they did so<br />
immediately after the litigants’ speeches, without consulting among themselves, and<br />
without any instruction from a legal expert, often without any instruction about the law.<br />
17<br />
Lanni (2006, forthcoming). See also Cohen (1991, 1995), Johnstone (1999), Allen (2000: 176-83).<br />
18<br />
Hunter (1994), Lanni (forthcoming: 2).<br />
19<br />
Carey (1994), contra Johnstone (1999); Todd (2000b).<br />
20<br />
For the significance of this, see Mirhady (1990), Allen (2000: 174-6), Lanni (2006, forthcoming). Note<br />
how Aristotle claims that a speaker’s ethos was more important than almost anything else in a speech<br />
(Rhet. 1356a).<br />
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When a defendant was brought to court, therefore, he was tried according to<br />
whatever legal and extra-legal norms his opponent thought relevant. Note how this<br />
means that his guilt or innocence in a court of law need not have hinged on whether he<br />
had violated the particular legal statute under which he had been prosecuted. Frequently,<br />
in fact, litigants made no mention of the ‘relevant’ law, and with one exception—to<br />
which we will return momentarily—there was little effort to establish that the defendant<br />
had committed an offense, as defined by the law in question. 21 Whereas the ‘rule of law’<br />
would consistently and predictably enforce legal norms, the Athenian preference for<br />
discretionary justice enforced formal and informal norms only irregularly.<br />
Lanni’s view helpfully illuminates how the relationship between law and<br />
legitimacy at Athens was not straightforward: even within the courts, there were multiple<br />
sources of legitimacy—legal norms as well as communal norms, evidenced by statutes,<br />
decrees, poetry, gossip, history, and sometimes even past trials—none necessarily more<br />
authoritative than any other. In this way, jurors and litigants, alike, relied on multiple<br />
sets of previously established norms by which to judge actions. These norms sometimes<br />
conflicted, however, and were not always clearly defined. Again, this is understandable<br />
in a context in which there were no legal experts, and there was no real concept of ‘legal<br />
language’. Uncertainty over what, precisely, constituted bribery (“harm to the people”)<br />
could have had the advantage of making citizens err on the side of safety; as a whole,<br />
then, the destabilizing effect of vague statutes could have reduced the incidence of<br />
bribery, as Lanni’s view suggests.<br />
21 Christ (1998: 193-224). So Arist. Rhet. 1373b-1374a comments that it was up to litigants to define<br />
clearly the nature of the wrongdoing, with or without reference to any legal statute.<br />
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Given the difficulties of measuring the prevalence of bribery in any polity, let<br />
alone in a historical society like Athens, it is ultimately impossible to assess the accuracy<br />
of Lanni’s claim with respect to bribery in particular. There are, however, good reasons<br />
to think that at least with dōrodokia the enforcement of norms in the courts played out a<br />
bit differently than Lanni’s picture suggests. With dōrodokia, the Athenians used the<br />
courts, I argue, not simply to leverage already legitimate norms, as Lanni proposes, but<br />
especially to define which competing norms regarding dōrodokia should be legitimate.<br />
The Athenians effectively shifted the problem of definition we encountered above: it was<br />
up to an individual to define the offense, not according to some strict legal definition, but<br />
according to broader community norms. 22 More often than not, litigants on both sides of<br />
a trial thereby defined dōrodokia as a kind of harm to the people: prosecutors would<br />
claim that the outcomes tied to the receipt of gifts had been detrimental to the city, while<br />
defendants would claim that their actions had in fact benefited, not harmed, the<br />
community. 23<br />
In the case of dōrodokia, therefore, litigants offered their own conception of what<br />
constituted “harm to the people,” and a jury of hundreds of citizens—with potentially<br />
hundreds more looking on 24 —would cast their vote, effectively in favor of one definition<br />
over another. This was not a contest between two equally legitimate norms, but a<br />
22 It should be noted that dōrodokia may not have been the only offense for which this would have been<br />
true: hubris (~arrogance) and likely asēbeia (impiety) also were not strictly defined in law. See further<br />
Ostwald (1986: 528-36), Bauman (1990: 105-27), Carey (1994: 179), Cohen (1995: 143-62), Todd<br />
(2000a). With these offenses, too, it is possible that the lack of a legal definition intentionally fostered<br />
contestation of the norm itself.<br />
23 Both Cimon (ad Plut. Cim. 14.3) and the unnamed magistrate in Lysias 21 defend themselves on the<br />
grounds that they had benefited the polis. The juxtaposition of harm and benefit is particularly pronounced<br />
in Aeschines’ and Demosthenes’ mutual accusations of dōrodokia. Demosthenes, for example, proclaims<br />
how his opponent’s harmful actions were due to dōrodokia, while his own actions were both beneficial and<br />
unrelated to bribes: cf. Dem. 19.15-16, 18, 33, 45-6, 150-2 with 155 and 157, 205-8, 211-12, 223, 229-30.<br />
24 Lanni (1997) on the bystanders at Athenian trials. Likewise, audience members, whether bystanders or<br />
jury members, might create a roar (thorubos) of approval or disapproval: Bers (1985).<br />
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contestation of which definition of a norm should become legitimate. Here, in the case of<br />
anti-bribery legislation, the Athenians appear to have actively used the courts as a locus<br />
for creating and contesting the legitimacy of certain public norms. It should be noted<br />
that, if what constituted dōrodokia was contested by individuals and was decided<br />
ultimately by the people, not by the law per se, any legal definition of dōrodokia need not<br />
have acted as a deterrent.<br />
Two features of the Athenian laws on dōrodokia support this interpretation: as<br />
the previous chapter traced, the legal history of dōrodokia entailed both a legal<br />
redefinition of dōrodokia and frequent changes in which judicial body would hear<br />
dōrodokia cases. Around the end of the fifth century, the original law against bribery<br />
was changed from “If someone is bribed…” to “If someone gives or receives…to the<br />
harm of the people…”; similar wording can be found in other anti-bribery legislation that<br />
was created around the same time. Such a modification to the original law seems to have<br />
incorporated a generally accepted, albeit still quite vague, definition of dōrodokia. Prior<br />
to this re-definition, Athenians frequently defined dōrodokia in roughly similar terms as a<br />
general ‘bad’ to the community 25 ; remarkably, after this legal redefinition, in the fourth<br />
century it was defined by litigants not as a general ‘bad’ but specifically as a ‘harm’. 26<br />
This is the only example in all of Athenian law in which there is a strong correlation<br />
25<br />
So, in Sophocles’ Antigone money is said to re-teach the minds of good men so that they take to<br />
“shameful” deeds (ai0sxra/, 299); in this respect, it is a “bad” institution (kako/n, 296). Similarly, the<br />
Rhodian poet Timocrates twice lambastes Themistocles for being ‘unjust’ in having taken bribes to break<br />
his promise to restore the poet: Plut. Them. 21.1-3. When Callias was (perhaps?) condemned for bribery at<br />
a euthyna after serving as an ambassador, he was condemned purportedly for being “hateful and not useful”<br />
to the polis (e)xqro\n…kai\ a)lusitele/j th| = po/lei, Dem. 19.275).<br />
26<br />
This argument is partial, at best, for we simply do not have enough forensic evidence prior to the<br />
adoption of the law, and afterwards we have primarily only forensic evidence.<br />
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between how litigants and the law defined an offense. 27 The redrafting of the original<br />
law against dōrodokia thus had the crucial effect of focusing litigants’ attention on what,<br />
precisely, constituted ‘harm against the people’; the norm itself was under trial.<br />
Why would dōrodokia legislation be an exception? It is certainly possible that<br />
this was an unintended, even unforeseeable, effect of the new anti-bribery legislation<br />
towards the end of the fifth century—we have no contemporary evidence either way<br />
about the discussions that went into anti-bribery legislation, so certainty is impossible.<br />
Recall, though, that especially for the Athenians accusations of bribery were always<br />
already claims about polity. It would make sense for a litigant to rely on the wording of a<br />
law precisely because what constituted dōrodokia was a matter that could be defined only<br />
by the community as a whole. In this light, because of the peculiarly political nature of<br />
dōrodokia, the law—i.e. the dēmos’ benchmark for how to define dōrodokia—played an<br />
unusually authoritative role in forensic debates.<br />
Moreover, the legislative motivation I am positing here accords well with another<br />
curious feature of Athenian anti-bribery legislation: the wide range of institutional<br />
settings in which trials could be held, what we termed domains of authority in the last<br />
chapter. For any given offense in Athenian law there were often multiple legal<br />
procedures, each with its own distinct incentives and legal penalties (for both prosecutor<br />
and defendant)—presumably to give prosecutors the greatest flexibility in choosing<br />
whether or not to prosecute. Most of these options, however, did not change the venue of<br />
the trial. Whereas most offenses had at most two different venues for prosecution, at one<br />
point or another dōrodokia trials were heard by at least four different institutional bodies:<br />
27 Contra Todd (2000a), who maintains that there was never any such marked legal language at Athens; cf.<br />
Johnstone (1999).<br />
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a public jury, the Assembly, the Areopagus Council, and the Assembly with preliminary<br />
investigation and verdict by the Areopagus. 28 For three of these four venues the relevant<br />
law came to specify that dōrodokia entailed ‘harm’ to the people. 29<br />
The wide range of venues for bribery trials suggests more than mere ‘flexibility’;<br />
indeed, it seems that the Athenians were keen to match dōrodokia to the ‘right’ judicial<br />
venue, the right domain of authoritative expertise. So, as we saw in the previous two<br />
chapters, in the archaic period prior to the democracy, when dōrodokia was viewed as a<br />
kind of moral pollution to the community, a public suit for taking bribes (graphē dōrōn)<br />
was created, and all such suits were tried before the Areopagus Council, the most<br />
hallowed body in Athens. By the start of the democracy, however, the people as a whole<br />
began to regulate what did and did not constitute bribery, first through a series of public<br />
curses and oaths and then through formal trials, as around 462/1 the jurisdiction over<br />
bribery trials was transferred from the Areopagus to jury courts and the Assembly. As<br />
the next section will detail, part of the motivation behind this shift was that the<br />
28<br />
Recall that public trials (graphai) presided over by the thesmothetai were held for those prosecuted for<br />
the general offense of bribery (graphē dōrōn), bribing a judicial body (graphē dekasmou), or taking bribes<br />
while a public prosecutor or witness (synēgoros), and probably bribing the jury in a citizenship trial<br />
(graphē dōroxenias). Trials for outgoing magistrates (euthynai) accused of bribery were presided over by<br />
the financial examiners (logistai), while impeachment of public officials still in office (eisangelia) and<br />
public speakers (rhētores) came before the Assembly. Finally, in the early part of the democracy, the trials<br />
of magistrates were heard by the Areopagus court (euthyna or eisangelia). From the 340’s on, a new<br />
procedure in which the Areopagus performed an investigation (apophasis) and gave their verdict prior to a<br />
trial before the Assembly was created for bribery trials.<br />
29<br />
On changes to the original law against dōrodokia, including the redefinition as “harm to the dēmos or on<br />
of the citizens” (e0pi\ bla/bh| tou~ dh/mou h@ tino\j tw=n politw~n, Dem. 21.113), see above p. 125; the<br />
graphē dekasmou also makes explicit reference to the original law against bribery (cf. e)pi\ dwrodoki/a|<br />
xrh/mata didou/j, [Dem.] 46.26). Eisangelia: rhētores could be prosecuted for “taking gifts and speaking<br />
against the interests of the Athenian dēmos” (mh\ le/gh| ta\ a)/rista tw= | dh/mw| tw= | 0Aqhnai/wn xrh/mata<br />
lamba/nwn, Hyp. 4.8). Apophasis: When the Areopagus conducted an apophasis in the Harpalus Affair, its<br />
charge was probably to determine whether or not the indicted officials had taken gifts “against the country”<br />
(kata\ th=j patri/doj), as this phrase recurs throughout the speeches of prosecutors: e.g. Din. 1.13, 1.26,<br />
1.60, 1.64, 1.67, 2.6, 3.18, 3.22; cf. 1.3, 1.99, 2.26; Hyp. 5.21, 5.38. Even then, the only exception to this<br />
rule is the prosecution of magistrates before the Areopagus, but this grew out of the archaic period prior to<br />
the re-drafting of the original law against dōrodokia and was, in any case, later re-defined to include<br />
‘harm’.<br />
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Areopagus’ judgments in bribery trials were no longer deemed authoritative and hence<br />
legitimate by the people; shifting domains thus allowed those who ‘should’ be the<br />
authoritative judge of what constituted dōrodokia—the people—to judge the trials.<br />
Throughout much of the rest of the democracy, dōrodokia fell under the authoritative<br />
domain of the courts.<br />
By contrast, public speakers and military generals, the most important political<br />
figures, were brought under the domain of the Assembly through an eisangelia process.<br />
This makes sense when we consider how intimately connected these figures were to<br />
public policy: whereas juries might be kurios to judge the conduct of either figure after<br />
the fact, only the dēmos as a whole had the authority to assess if their actions constituted<br />
an immediate danger and thereby warranted an eisangelia. Finally, towards the end of<br />
the democracy in the 340’s, as certain decisions made in the Assembly or the courts were<br />
viewed with suspicion, the Areopagus’ reputation as the ancient ‘guardian of the laws’<br />
made it an ideal authority for passing preliminary verdicts (apophasis) in dōrodokia trials<br />
before the Assembly. 30<br />
What I am proposing, therefore, is that part of the motivation behind Athenian<br />
anti-bribery legislation was to use various judicial bodies to legitimate competing visions<br />
of what ‘dōrodokia’ was—and, by implication, what ‘good governance’ was. The law<br />
itself provided at best a heuristic for thinking about dōrodokia, and notably this heuristic<br />
was closely followed by litigants in dōrodokia suits. If anything, the law’s vague<br />
wording would have encouraged more, not fewer, prosecutions, as litigants would look to<br />
30 Ultimately, these notions were part of a larger political debate about what the ‘ancestral constitution’<br />
(patrios politeia) was. A return to the ancestral constitution, including restoring to the Areopagus some of<br />
the powers Ephialtes had stripped from it, was viewed as a way to make Athens more democratic: see<br />
Ruschenbusch (1958), Witte (1995).<br />
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the law and see that the prevailing norm was, merely, a general ‘harm’ to the people. As<br />
a result, bribery trials became a popular means of contesting the legitimacy of political<br />
outcomes: practically any bad political outcome could be considered a ‘harm’ and was,<br />
accordingly, blamed on dōrodokia. 31 With each trial, the appropriate body, with<br />
authority within that particular domain, would signal whether or not an outcome should<br />
be deemed a ‘harm’ or a benefit to the community; indeed, it would decide between two<br />
competing ideas of how that ‘harm’ or benefit should be defined.<br />
Take, for instance, the series of late-fifth-century accountability measures<br />
designed to ensure that public speakers would not simply follow the money or pander to<br />
the masses. With both the graphē paranomōn and the creation of an eisangelia for<br />
prosecuting rhētores, public speakers would be held accountable for the laws, decrees,<br />
and proposals they recommended. The graphē paranomōn, or public suit against<br />
‘unconstitutional’ proposals, was used against any speaker who had proposed a law or<br />
decree that conflicted with other laws or decrees. 32 In the fourth century, it was used<br />
frequently, and often the basis for prosecuting a public speaker was that his proposal had<br />
been against the city’s interests. 33 The penalty was a sometimes considerable fine, and<br />
disfranchisement if convicted three times. Similarly, an eisangelia, as explored in<br />
31 A point nicely brought out by Harvey (1985: 112-13). Hyperides 4.3 makes a similar claim about how<br />
in his day the impeachment law (nomos eisangeltikos) was being abused to enable prosecutions for trivial<br />
offenses, like hiring out flute-girls at a price higher than that fixed by law, that had nothing to do with the<br />
impeachment law itself.<br />
32 In 403/2, the distinction between nomoi (laws) and psēphismata (public decrees, which were ad hoc<br />
measures) became formalized with different processes for enacting each: Hansen (1983: 161-76). At this<br />
point, the Athenians created a graphē nomon mē epitēdeion theinai (public suit for enacting an inexpedient<br />
nomos) to deal with unconstitutional laws, while the graphē paranomōn continued to be used for<br />
unconstitutional decrees.<br />
33 E.g. Dem. 22.35-78, 23.100-214; Aeschin. 3.49-200. Wolff (1970: 45-67). As catalogued in Hansen<br />
(1974), we have at least 35 attested examples of the graphē paranomōn dating to the second half of the<br />
democracy (403-322 BCE), from which Hansen (1991: 208-9) plausibly extrapolates that the “vast<br />
majority” of Athenian political leaders would have been prosecuted under the graphē at one point or<br />
another in their career.<br />
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Chapter Six, was used against rhētores who had spoken against the best interests of the<br />
dēmos after having taken money. 34 The penalty was variable, but could be an<br />
extraordinary fine or, most often, death.<br />
Essentially, these measures laid out the parameters within which rhētores could<br />
operate: they could gather inspiration for their proposals from any source, and they could<br />
even receive money in exchange for speaking, but they could never speak against the<br />
interests of the people. Within the context of the purportedly grave danger posed by the<br />
New Politicians, these reforms are revealing. In the first place, they clearly illuminate the<br />
legitimacy of this new style, including paying for a public speaker’s services, for in both<br />
cases it was the content—not the source—of the public speech that mattered. Referring<br />
the matter to a court was simply another way to determine whether or not the proposal<br />
was, or should be, publicly legitimate. Rather than ban outright or limit pay for public<br />
proposals, the law allowed public speakers to continue being political entrepreneurs like<br />
Cleon and the like. Wherever they could find new sources or ideas for public policies, so<br />
much the better, provided the policies themselves were ‘democratic’.<br />
Moreover, these laws opened up the courts as an alternative venue to assess and<br />
legitimate policies and policymakers alike. Even if a particular proposal had been passed<br />
in the Assembly, prosecuting a rhētor for proposing it was a way to make the policy less<br />
legitimate. Again, with the eisangelia against the taking of bribes by rhētores, the law<br />
provided merely a guide to the grounds on which someone should be prosecuted.<br />
Ultimately, it was the norm itself—whether or not a particular policy should be<br />
considered legitimate—that was under trial.<br />
34 Hyp. 4.7-8 gives the text of the law. See further discussion in Hansen (1975), Todd (1993: 114-15) and<br />
Chapter Six. Hansen (1975) lists 17 different examples of eisangelia used against a rhētor.<br />
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Already we can begin to see how in Athens, thinking of bribery as politics, albeit<br />
a ‘bad’ political outcome or process, went hand-in-hand with creating a formal space<br />
within the courts to discuss and legitimate which outcomes were ‘good’, which were<br />
‘bad’, and by what criteria those assessments should be made. Even with the specific<br />
legal definition of dōrodokia as a kind of ‘harm’, we should keep in mind the possibility<br />
that this redefinition may have been added not so much as a deterrent to dōrodokia, but as<br />
a public guide to how the Athenians should conceptualize dōrodokia. What I suggest is<br />
that the law here played both a deliberative and an educational role within the polity:<br />
deliberative because the legal redefinition of dōrodokia fostered deliberation among<br />
litigants and jurors over what constituted dōrodokia; educational because it then<br />
broadcast that definition to the public at dōrodokia trials.<br />
The formal political space we have been uncovering, a space opened up within<br />
and by the law, could have been invaluable within a constantly changing polity like<br />
Athens’. Because of this space, political values could be consistently wed to law<br />
enforcement even as new ways of practicing politics developed and as popular ideas<br />
about the legitimate or ideal practice of politics were in constant flux. Assuming a<br />
handful of high profile bribery trials per year—that is, a consistent handful of instances in<br />
which a broad cross-section of the people could legitimate which political outcomes were<br />
beneficial, which were harmful to the city—bribery trials could have provided a novel<br />
supplement to the deliberative institutions of the democracy. 35 To discuss bribery at a<br />
trial was to discuss democracy, as we have seen, and accusations of bribery became in<br />
35 Based on the above estimate that 5% of major public officials—stratēgoi, rhētores, and ambassadors—<br />
were prosecuted for dōrodokia: see the Introduction. I argued there that this was a conservative estimate; a<br />
more accurate assessment might be closer to 10%, which would be around 3 trials per year.<br />
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this manner the prime vehicle for signaling disapproval of public policies or political<br />
outcomes.<br />
Simply by considering the results of frequent dōrodokia trials—some of which<br />
were publicized, others of which doubtless circulated around through informal<br />
channels—an Athenian could quickly gather a rough approximation of which emergent<br />
political practices were gaining legitimacy, which were consistently considered<br />
illegitimate. Considerations like these are often overlooked when bribery is treated as a<br />
cancer—an undesirable practice that is inherently foreign to the aims of politics and one<br />
that must be contained—yet readily appear as vital concerns if we think of bribery as a<br />
subset of politics. Thus, the Athenians may not have been effective in containing the<br />
‘cancer’ of bribery, but they were unusually effective at leveraging accusations (and the<br />
practice) of dōrodokia for the greater good.<br />
Indeed, the next section will take up one case-study to explore this claim in more<br />
depth. As evinced by an examination of how the Athenians first instituted public<br />
accountability, the idea of ‘contesting the norm’, raised above in consideration of how<br />
dōrodokia was prosecuted in Athenian courts, spilled over into other Athenian<br />
deliberative institutions. ‘Bribery’ functioned like a paradigmatic anti-type, a metaphor<br />
used for thinking through which kinds of political processes were ‘democratic’, which<br />
were ‘undemocratic’. By making an accusation of bribery at a bribery trial, an Athenian<br />
implicitly offered a contrasting view of what constituted the legitimate practice of<br />
democratic politics, and this view both reflected and shaped political discourse within<br />
deliberative institutions. ‘Undemocratic’ political practices, by contrast, were labeled as<br />
bribery and were thus delegitimized by court decisions and, subsequently, public action.<br />
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Athenian Laws against dōrodokia in Action: Deliberative Politics and the dōrodokos<br />
One central hallmark of the Athenian democracy, public accountability, arose in<br />
response to purported dōrodokia. Ephialtes’ reforms of 462/1, already encountered<br />
briefly above, were connected to the infamous acquittal of Cimon. As we saw in Chapter<br />
Two, Cimon was prosecuted for dōrodokia at a euthyna after he had failed to take<br />
Macedon, even though it appears that he had never been charged to do so (Plut. Cim.<br />
14.2-3). As our sources describe it, Cimon’s trial seems like just another prosecution of a<br />
top official on the charge of dōrodokia: the general was eventually acquitted by the<br />
Areopagus, and he was subsequently elected stratēgos again. End of story.<br />
What is crucial for our purposes is what happened after Cimon’s trial. Though<br />
apparently convicted by the Assembly, Cimon was acquitted by the Areopagus, and<br />
corruption was immediately suspected. Ephialtes subsequently prosecuted members of<br />
the court where Cimon had been tried for “doing injustice to the people” (tw=n to\n<br />
dh=mon a)dikou/ntwn, Plut. Per. 10.8, cf. AP 25.2-4). 36 We do not know the substance of<br />
this charge, but it is more than likely that a form of illicit influence—bribery is a main<br />
suspect here—was assumed. After all, in an alternate tradition one of the public<br />
prosecutors, a young Pericles, was publicly rumored to have gone soft in his prosecution<br />
of Cimon after Cimon’s sister had unsuccessfully tried to seduce him. 37 The<br />
36 Ephialtes’ “public reputation for being adōrodokētos and just with respect to his politicking” is telling<br />
(dokw=n kai\ a)dwrodo/khtoj ei]nai kai\ di/kaioj pro\j th\n politei/an, AP 25.1).<br />
37 Plut. Cim. 14.4, Per. 10.5. The story sounds apocryphal, but it reveals the need to explain Pericles’<br />
unexpectedly soft behavior towards Cimon at his trial. Both the supposition of bribery and the story of<br />
Elpinice explain a bad outcome with reference to a close relationship and potential personal gain. Cf.<br />
Carawan (1987: 204, 205-6n.58), Rubinstein (2000: 208). Connor (1971: 58-64) provides background on<br />
Pericles and Cimon’s friendship. According to sources unnamed by Plutarch (Per. 10.4), earlier Cimon and<br />
Pericles had entered into a secret pact whereby Cimon could be recalled to the city only if he agreed to<br />
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unacceptable acquittal of Cimon was thus attributed to corruption generally, and probably<br />
bribery specifically. 38 When Cimon left the city again on campaign, Ephialtes quickly<br />
moved to change the procedures for accountability so that public officials would be held<br />
accountable to the people: the fear of bribery enabled true democratic accountability at<br />
Athens. 39<br />
The backdrop for Cimon’s trial and the prosecutions it enjoined was one of class<br />
conflict, according to our sources. The Areopagus Council and its predominantly elite<br />
membership had increasingly been viewed as a source of elite conservatism; even if the<br />
political body was not an instrument of class warfare, the rhetoric of pro- vs. anti-<br />
democratic views was likely employed heavily. 40 In other words, precisely because it<br />
was a dōrodokia suit, debate at the trial would have boiled down to what ‘democratic’<br />
results should look like. 41 The Areopagus’ place within the democracy could have<br />
consequently been deemed corrupt and undemocratic. A bribery trial like that of<br />
Cimon—himself aligned with the more elite interests in the city—or those of the<br />
handle external affairs while Pericles would be given control of the city. That this rumor even existed is a<br />
good indication that at least some Athenians were concerned about the pair’s relationship.<br />
38 Based on Plutarch’s wording of ‘doing injustice (adikountōn) to the people’, the only other plausible<br />
legal process used was a public denunciation for ‘maladministration’ (graphē adikou): cf. AP 54.2. This<br />
obscure process later came under the purview of the Council (AP 54.2) and is otherwise first attested in the<br />
430’s when Pericles was prosecuted whether for bribery, embezzlement, or adikion (Plu. Per. 32.2). It is<br />
unclear, however, what kind of financial crime beyond bribery could have been committed by the<br />
Areopagites here.<br />
39 Note how Aristotle suggests the same institutional change as a remedy for corruption among the Spartan<br />
gerontes: Aristot. Pol. 1271a3-6. After Ephialtes’ reforms, the Areopagus no longer had the right to<br />
initiate and conduct the euthynai of magistrates. Instead, each year ten members of the Council of 500<br />
were designated as euthynoi in charge of lodging indictments as needed against public officials at the end<br />
of their term. Cases of treason could still be heard by the Assembly, but Ephialtes surely transferred<br />
jurisdiction over euthynai and all other cases of maladministration from the Areopagus to the Council of<br />
500 and the newly created popular courts.<br />
40 Cf. Wilamowitz (1893: 2.94). So, Plutarch records intonations of class conflict: Ephialtes was<br />
“terrifying to the oligarchs [i.e. the elites] and inexorable in his pursuit of euthynai and prosecutions of<br />
those who had done the dēmos injustice” (tw=n to\n dh=mon a)dikou/ntwn, Plut. Per. 10.8, cf. AP 25.4);<br />
similar language is found in Aesch. Eum. 690-2.<br />
41 I suggest that this pro- vs. anti-democratic rhetorical positioning could have been misread later and<br />
assigned new meaning amid the patrios politeia debates of the late fifth century. Note how Plutarch frames<br />
this as a debate between democracy and aristocracy, not oligarchy in particular: Plut. Cim. 15.2-3.<br />
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Areopagites would have lent itself well towards legitimizing the people’s view that the<br />
Areopagus simply was not producing ‘democratic’ outcomes. As it turns out, the very<br />
process by which public officials would be held accountable seemed, itself, to be on trial.<br />
Concerns about judicial corruption seem to have surrounded Cimon’s trial from<br />
the outset. Cimon was not prosecuted according to the regular process of accountability<br />
(euthyna), in which the Areopagus or any willing citizen indicted a public official before<br />
the Areopagus. Instead, Cimon’s trial was hand-tailored to the occasion: essentially, a<br />
modified probolē process, in which the Assembly gave a preliminary hearing and non-<br />
binding verdict before the final hearing before the Areopagus. 42 As in a probolē process,<br />
the trial was initiated by a proposal approved at the Assembly, rather than by the<br />
Areopagus or by some willing citizen; moreover, unlike the probolē process, Cimon’s<br />
trial featured public prosecutors directly appointed by the people. 43 Although some of<br />
these procedural details might simply have been conflated in later accounts of the trial, it<br />
is possible that the people strategically employed a probolē-like process to ensure that<br />
Cimon would actually go to trial and, we might surmise, be convicted. 44 After all, Cimon<br />
normally should have been prosecuted by the Areopagus, whether on its own accord or<br />
42 Probolē was normally employed for prosecuting someone who had deceived the dēmos. For Cimon’s<br />
trial, Carawan (1987: 202-5) assumes a straightforward probole was employed, yet the additional use of<br />
public prosecutors should not be understated. In this respect, it would be unsurprising to find that AP calls<br />
the process a euthyna (ta\j eu)qu/naj, AP 27.1), while Plutarch refers to it as a probolē (Per. 10.6): cf.<br />
Roberts (1982: 56). I can make no sense of Bauman’s (1990: 28-31) assumption that ‘aggravated<br />
bribery’, and hence treason, was the charge; the Athenians had no concept of ‘aggravated’ corruption, and<br />
treason is mentioned in none of our sources. On probolē generally, see Carawan (1987: 179-81),<br />
MacDowell (1990: 13-17); for Cimon’s trial, Roberts (1982: 55-7), Ostwald (1986: 40-2).<br />
43 Initiated by the dēmos: Plut. Per. 10.5, Cim. 14.5. Pericles and nine other citizens were appointed to<br />
prosecute Cimon: Plut. Per. 10.6. Preliminary hearing in the Assembly: Plut. Per. 10.5, Cim. 14.3.<br />
44 Given the lack of securely attested probolē trials prior to Cimon’s, and given the fourth-century<br />
preponderance of labeling as probolē the initiation of judicial proceedings by popular vote in the<br />
Assembly—e.g. Xen. Hell. 1.7.35; Isoc. 15.313-14; Dem. 21.1-2, 8-11; AP 43.5—it is uncertain to what<br />
extent the process and terminology recorded reflect contemporary fifth-century usage. Even so, my<br />
argument is concerned more with the use than with the specific mechanics of Cimon’s legal process; in this<br />
sense, the clear desire for the dēmos to initiate and control the proceedings is unquestionable.<br />
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after having assessed an indictment brought by any willing citizen. Likely, when it<br />
became clear that the Areopagus would not lodge an indictment, the people stepped in to<br />
ensure collectively that Cimon would be brought to trial by conducting all initial<br />
proceedings on their own, as in a probolē process. 45 The form of Cimon’s trial was thus<br />
highly unusual, designed as if the people were intent on ensuring that the ‘correct’ result<br />
(a conviction) would be reached.<br />
Of course, even despite this exceptional process, Cimon was acquitted by the<br />
Areopagus. As noted above, Ephialtes responded by prosecuting a number of members<br />
of the Areopagus most likely on a charge of dōrodokia, and these trials played a crucial<br />
mediating role between an unacceptable political outcome (Cimon’s acquittal) and<br />
subsequent political innovation (Ephialtes’ reforms). We know regrettably little about<br />
this series of trials, but our sources clearly understood them in tandem with Ephialtes’<br />
legislative reforms: more than mere retributive measures, they were especially public<br />
ways of signaling the illegitimacy of accountability before the Areopagus. 46 Indeed,<br />
Plutarch records that Ephialtes had prosecuted those who had “done injustice to the<br />
dēmos” (tw=n to\n dh=mon a)dikou/ntwn, Plut. Per. 10.8), a phrase that resonates well with<br />
the then incipient slogan of dēmokratia. 47 If Cimon’s trial was, in a sense, ‘about’ control<br />
over the monies of empire, as we saw in Chapter Two, then Ephialtes’ subsequent<br />
prosecution of Areopagites hinged on who should have control over the judicial process.<br />
45 Cf. Carawan (1987: 179). At least by the 420’s the Athenians were certainly concerned that euthynoi,<br />
like those in the Areopagus, might fail to prosecute an offender. So, IG ii² 127.18-20 records an explicit<br />
punishment for euthynoi who failed in this respect. Carawan (1987: 188) suggests that this was an archaic<br />
penalty. If he is correct, then this archaic law becomes early evidence of precisely the kind of abuse of<br />
authority I am positing was feared in Cimon’s trial.<br />
46 Both are posited by Plutarch as reasons for Ephialtes’ murder: Plut. Per. 10.8; cf. AP 27.3-5.<br />
47 Cf. Aesch. Supp. 398-400, 483-5. See especially Raaflaub (2007) on the central role of Ephialtes’<br />
reforms in the emergence of dēmokratia during the 460’s.<br />
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In effect, those intermediary trials enabled Ephialtes to delegitimize the Areopagus’<br />
acquittal of Cimon.<br />
Given the ideological tensions and concerns with bribery reported in our<br />
sources—and especially given how in Athenian bribery trials what constituted dōrodokia<br />
was, itself, under trial—we can plausibly conjecture that this anti-democratic bias would<br />
have come under fire when Ephialtes alleged that the Areopagites had ‘done injustice to<br />
the people’. On this reconstruction, Ephialtes’ prosecution of the Areopagites pitted two<br />
sides against each other: ‘acquit’, anti-democratic, and dōrodokia were lined up against<br />
‘convict’, democratic and an ‘uncorrupt’ way of holding officials accountable (i.e.<br />
Ephialtes’ imminent reforms). 48 I propose that the series of dōrodokia trials was used, in<br />
part, to delegitimize the Areopagus’ method of accountability and to signal public<br />
support for a new way to secure legitimate political results (such as convictions at a<br />
bribery trial like Cimon’s). The very process by which public officials would be held<br />
accountable seemed, itself, to be on trial.<br />
It is surely significant, after all, that the unusual way in which Cimon was brought<br />
to trial—with public prosecutors conducting the case before a judicial body composed of<br />
the people—would subsequently form the backbone for public accountability after<br />
Ephialtes’ reforms. 49 Ephialtes transferred jurisdiction for trials of public officials from<br />
the Areopagus to the Council of 500 and the jury courts, the composition of both of<br />
which was at this time demonstrably more inclusive than that of the Areopagus Council.<br />
As such, the decisions made by each body straightforwardly manifested the norms of the<br />
48 Cf. Raaflaub (2007: 139) on the terms of this debate.<br />
49 In Cimon’s trial the people elected ten public prosecutors to conduct the trial before the Assembly and<br />
the Areopagus. After Ephialtes’ reforms, prosecutions at euthynai were conducted either by euthynoi, who<br />
were ten members chosen by lot from the Council, or by any willing citizen; depending on the offense,<br />
these trials would be held before either the Council or a jury court.<br />
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entire community, not just those of its elite citizens; for decisions that affected the entire<br />
polity, they were kurios. 50 By transferring to the Council of 500 and the jury courts the<br />
Areopagus’ prerogative to initiate and conduct proceedings for public officials, Ephialtes<br />
made it less likely that an elite official who had been publicly reputed to be corrupt would<br />
go untried or, worse, unpunished like Cimon.<br />
If we look between Cimon’s exceptional trial and Ephialtes’ subsequent reforms,<br />
therefore, we can begin to uncover a vital public debate over how to hold public officials<br />
accountable. I underscore that the Areopagites’ bribery trials likely played a crucial role<br />
in this debate. The same courtroom arguments concerning what should or should not be<br />
considered dōrodokia—that is, which modes of politics were and were not legitimate—<br />
shaped and were shaped by public debates found in deliberative institutions like the<br />
Assembly. The accusations of dōrodokia surrounding Cimon’s trial—the injustice done<br />
to the Athenian people or the prosecutor Pericles’ suspicious involvement with Cimon’s<br />
sister—certainly were ways of delegitimizing Cimon’s acquittal. Simultaneously, too,<br />
they signaled the illegitimacy of accountability before the Areopagus. In claiming that<br />
dōrodokia, or some kind of corruption, had occurred, these accusations implicitly called<br />
for a more ‘democratic’ approach, one which had been partly employed in Cimon’s trial<br />
and was soon instituted through Ephialtes’ reforms.<br />
This case-study is emblematic of what I see as a likely trend in how the Athenian<br />
democracy functioned, and so successfully at that. Our evidence for consistent<br />
connections between bribery and politics like the one proposed here, however, is very<br />
limited, and ultimately the value of this approach is perhaps more theoretical than<br />
50 Cf. Taylor (2007).<br />
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empirical. Accordingly, in the Conclusion we will turn to what I think are the most<br />
salient lessons we have learned from our investigation of bribery in Classical Athens.<br />
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Rethinking Political Bribery:<br />
The View from Athens<br />
The previous seven chapters have tried to understand the world through the eyes<br />
of the dōrodokos. We have viewed the democracy through its various monies—gifts, pay,<br />
honors, bribes, and tribute—and seen how the Athenians used these monies to define the<br />
relationships, legitimate and not, ‘democratic’ and other, that made up their polity. And<br />
we have followed the figure of the dōrodokos out of the shadows of the democracy as he<br />
was etched indelibly into Athenian law and political institutions. Having borrowed the<br />
eyes of the dōrodokos for so long, if we think back to Timagoras’ ill-fated embassy to the<br />
Persian King, it is perhaps difficult now to grasp just how inscrutable Timagoras’ dōra<br />
first appeared to be. We were perplexed then by how dōrodokia was defined, why<br />
Timagoras took the dōra, and why the Athenians killed him. Now, however, those<br />
questions are seen to have ready, even irrelevant, answers.<br />
But if assuming the perspective of the dōrodokos has laid to rest certain questions,<br />
it has uncovered still others. As we look back from Timagoras’ world to our own, we<br />
find that the view from Athens reveals a paradox to modern observers. Bribery, a form of<br />
corruption, has long been considered a hindrance to political and economic development,<br />
as it is thought to raise transaction costs while short-circuiting or distorting political<br />
process. In Klitgaard’s (1988: 75) influential definition:<br />
Corruption = Monopoly + Discretion – Accountability.<br />
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Anti-bribery reform advocates consequently focus on diffusing political power and<br />
reducing discretion while increasing accountability. In making government more<br />
efficient and fair, such reforms implicitly make government more responsive to the<br />
people’s interests. It is perhaps no coincidence, then, that the bulk of suggested reforms<br />
entail implementation of what are essentially the hallmarks of modern liberal<br />
democracies—public accountability, transparency, clear separation of public and private<br />
spheres, and the rule of law. 1<br />
By these standards, the Athenians enacted paradigmatic reforms for combating<br />
bribery. The vast majority of public officials at Athens were selected by lottery for one-<br />
year terms and worked collaboratively on executive boards, not individually; similarly,<br />
the most significant court cases were decided by juries consisting of hundreds of<br />
Athenians, selected at random from a pool of 6,000 potential jurors each year. The<br />
potential monopolization of resources, whether political, economic, or judicial, was thus<br />
slim. Likewise, executive boards were tasked with explicit charges by the dēmos;<br />
although they might have a certain amount of discretion in how they fulfilled their<br />
charge, the members of a board nevertheless tended to have effectively little discretionary<br />
power of their own. Finally, as we saw in the previous two chapters, the Athenians<br />
heavily legislated bribery, creating no fewer than seven legal processes for prosecuting<br />
the gift or receipt of bribes, whether generally or involving specific officials in specific<br />
contexts. By modern standards, the penalties attached to these laws—a tenfold fine,<br />
1 See recently Klitgaard (1988), della Porta and Vannuci (1999), Rose-Ackerman (1999), World Bank<br />
(1997), Doig (2000), della Porta and Rose-Ackerman (2002), Johnston (2005). Robinson (1998) has<br />
rightly called for more research as to the efficacy of these specific reforms; his approach prudently<br />
privileges analytical empirical research over definitions and models. His uncertainty stems in part from the<br />
recognized need to adapt anti-corruption reforms to a local context; in this light, ethnographic studies of<br />
corruption have been particularly illuminating: see Haller and Shore (2005) generally and, for specific<br />
examples, Ledeneva (1998) and Lane Scheppele (1999) on Russia in transition, Rosenthal (1964) on the<br />
Muslim world, and Gupta (1995) on India.<br />
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disfranchisement, or death—would be considered extreme and, one might imagine,<br />
effective ways to hold officials accountable.<br />
What makes the Athenian case a paradox, however, is that these anti-bribery<br />
measures, though paradigmatic, appear to have been ineffective. Although Athenian<br />
conceptions of what did or did not constitute bribery changed over the course of the<br />
democracy, these laws apparently did nothing to change the common sentiment that<br />
officials could take gifts so long as their actions did not harm the dēmos. As a result, the<br />
number of public officials who took gifts seems to have been very high by Western<br />
standards. Accurately measuring the incidence of bribery is impossible, of course, but we<br />
have already found two different indications that this was so: both the enormous volume<br />
of accusations of bribery and, as best as we can extrapolate from limited evidence, the<br />
high rate of bribery trials as well. 2<br />
Still more inexplicable, Athens actually flourished in the face of corruption.<br />
Neither was the polis captured by rent-seeking politicians nor is there evidence that it was<br />
really run by informal criminal networks. On the contrary, commonplace bribery seems<br />
to have co-existed with strong institutions; in both theory and practice, the power of the<br />
people was only augmented over time, as we have seen. Moreover, ineffective anti-<br />
bribery legislation seems to have been perfectly consistent with Athenian democratic<br />
values, as hallmarks of the democracy were forged through constant regulation of the<br />
dōrodokos. How could this be? How was it that Athens flourished because of, not in<br />
spite of, this inefficacy? 3<br />
2 There are over 460 attested references to bribery in our non-fragmentary classical sources; similarly,<br />
between 5-10% of major public officials were brought to trial for bribery: see the Introduction above.<br />
3 It should be noted that the amount of bribery envisaged in Athens is considerably more than the minimal<br />
amount advocated by political economists, who recognize that controlling bribery itself creates additional<br />
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The view from Athens suggests that these questions are perhaps the wrong ones to<br />
ask. For the Athenians, bribery was not a discrete problem that could simply be solved<br />
(or reduced to a minimal equilibrium); rather, it was a mode of politics that, along with<br />
the democracy, changed, reinvented itself, took on new meaning, and thus had to be<br />
constantly re-incorporated into the workings of the democracy. Athenian bribery, like the<br />
democracy itself, was not a static phenomenon—some isolated inefficiency in the<br />
workings of polity—but was ever dynamic. In other words, precisely because the<br />
democracy was always changing, there was never any set equilibrium for which the<br />
Athenians were striving: certainly Plato and Aristotle understood that polities were<br />
always in motion, always evolving or devolving over time. As a result, there was never<br />
any static ideal of ‘good government’ against which bribery could be measured. To<br />
speak of ‘more’ or ‘less’ bribery at Athens would be to miss the point that the Athenians<br />
seemed okay with even a considerable amount of bribery, provided it could be leveraged<br />
in some way for the good of the democracy.<br />
It is important, in this regard, to underscore the very different way in which the<br />
Athenians approached the concept of bribery. For them the normative value of dōra did<br />
not depend on the context in which they were given or received (e.g. public office), or<br />
even the intent with which they were given. It hinged, instead, on the perceived result of<br />
costs in time, money, and effort: e.g. Klitgaard (1988: 24). What conventional political economic wisdom<br />
suggests is that the ideal amount of bribery lies at the equilibrium where trying to regulate it further would<br />
accrue more costs than simply letting the bribery exist. It could be argued that, given severe informational<br />
asymmetries in the world of Athenian politics—that is, given the enormous costs of trying to monitor<br />
public officials’ financial accounts—this equilibrium was astonishingly high at Athens; on this view, given<br />
Athens’ inefficient technologies for monitoring public officials, we could only expect that they would have<br />
a high amount of bribery.<br />
This view is unattractive, however, given the extreme monitoring the Athenians actually achieved:<br />
they employed treasurers whose sole job was to look after the accounts of generals, they examined the<br />
financial accounts of magistrates ten times a year, and the Athenians did not seem shy about bringing a<br />
bribery suit against an official. Indeed, if political economists have correctly modeled the cost-benefit<br />
analysis of bribery and its regulation, then Athens’ success as democracy and economy is doubly<br />
impressive, for she invested seemingly excessive resources in combating corruption.<br />
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the dōra. If an official did something good for the community, even if he had received<br />
dōra in the process, he was praised; if something bad happened during his tenure, he was<br />
blamed, and frequently it was assumed that he had been bribed, even if the assumption<br />
was unwarranted. 4 It was the outcome of the purported exchange that mattered, and this<br />
outcome was always evaluated with respect to the good or bad done to the community.<br />
As a result, the Athenians focused far less on minimizing an official’s opportunity to take<br />
bribes and far more on ensuring that that official’s relationship with the community<br />
would continue to be reciprocal.<br />
Such a consequentialist approach to bribery worked particularly well in the<br />
Athenians’ case precisely because so much of their political process leveraged social<br />
relationships. Within this context, as we saw, dōra entered politics unproblematically;<br />
numerous sources attest to the perquisites received by a variety of magistrates.<br />
Negotiation of these duties within the context of personal friendships was inevitable, but<br />
it was also desirable to the extent that it fostered greater cooperation and an ethos of<br />
community among the citizens. 5 In practice the leveraging of private relationships in<br />
politics created a range of outcomes, from desirable to undesirable, helpful to harmful.<br />
Hence the Athenians needed some way to differentiate between the good and the bad<br />
leveraging of relationships to achieve political outcomes. Accusations of bribery<br />
4 Recall, for instance, that in the dōrodokia trials of Cimon and the unnamed public official of Lysias 21,<br />
both defendants insisted that whatever dōra they had received should be evaluated according to how much<br />
they had given back to the community: Plut. Cim. 14.3, Lys. 21 passim. Conversely, during the disastrous<br />
Sicilian expedition of the Peloponnesian War, the general Nicias fears returning to Athens, lest the people<br />
(erroneously) condemn him for having taken bribes to lose in battle: Thuc. 7.48.4; cf. 4.65.2-4.<br />
5 Note, too, how higher rates of political participation in Athens meant that political office could be<br />
leveraged by ultimately more citizens in helping, or in being helped by, their friends. Without a discrete<br />
class of repeat political players consistently benefiting from access to public office, the stigma against gifts<br />
to public officials might have been necessarily small. By contrast, in precisely those areas where we do<br />
find a narrower range of political participation—notably military generals and public speakers—anxieties<br />
over the mixing of money and politics were relatively great.<br />
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Conclusion<br />
explicitly served this purpose, as they were used to delegitimize political outcomes,<br />
processes, and players, alike.<br />
In this way the dōrodokos, that curious chameleon of a social type in Athens,<br />
became a conceptual bogeyman of the democracy. He frequently entered public<br />
discourse at the precise moment someone wished to cast a particular practice, person, or<br />
outcome outside Athens’ moral community: what was not ‘inside’ the democracy was<br />
‘outside’, and what was ‘outside’ was dōrodokia. Crucially, therefore, in configuring<br />
who was ‘outside’ the community, accusations of dōrodokia also defined the contours of<br />
that community. In effect, the image of the dōrodokos isolated the offender from the<br />
dēmos and thereby negatively revealed the moral boundaries of the community, itself.<br />
The formal oaths and curses sworn in the Council, Assembly, and jury courts are a good<br />
example of this process at work. In swearing an oath together, participants in these<br />
political bodies were bound to each other within the framework of the polity, and they<br />
swore to rise up as a community to drive out anyone guilty of dōrodokia. 6 The inside of<br />
the community itself was reaffirmed by extirpating the dōrodokos.<br />
Accusations of bribery were rampant—in literature, at public venues like the<br />
Assembly or the courts, and of course at dōrodokia trials—but this was only because the<br />
Athenians constantly policed the borders of acceptable practices within their democracy<br />
and continually tweaked the democracy in practice for the greater good. 7 Thus, these<br />
accusations were more than descriptive claims about the conduct of an individual; they<br />
6 Rhodes (1972, 2007), Sommerstein and Fletcher (2007). In this respect, it is crucial that in the stoning of<br />
Lycides, suspected of dōrodokia after he proposed to listen to a Persian herald during the Persian Wars<br />
(Hdt. 9.3-5), although it was the Council members who stoned him, they acted as citizens, not magistrates,<br />
by first removing the crowns signaling their political office (Lyc. 1.122).<br />
7 For a different view on the widespread condemnation of dōrodokia, see Mastrocinque (1996: 16-18),<br />
Taylor (2001).<br />
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were prescriptive ideas about how a political actor should act. Specifically, as we have<br />
seen, bribery trials functioned as a vital political opportunity for an authoritative body to<br />
think through and weigh in on a particular outcome or policy. Through bribery trials, that<br />
authoritative body could signal its disapproval of certain political results: a ‘failed’<br />
military campaign, for instance, or a ‘harmful’ public proposal. At these legal venues,<br />
the people could begin formal deliberation on what a better solution to ‘corrupt’<br />
institutions might be. All bribery trials offered, whether explicitly or implicitly, a<br />
different view of what a ‘democratic’ polity should look like, and these views could play<br />
a foundational role in shifting—and legitimating—the terms of public debate.<br />
Approached this way, an accusation of dōrodokia was an insinuation that the<br />
democracy was headed in the wrong direction, albeit for a single point in time when an<br />
official had purportedly taken a bribe and thereby effected a bad outcome. It was a<br />
reminder, too, that the democracy could always be better than it was, and it was<br />
consequently an invitation to think about a new trajectory for the democracy. The<br />
significance so attached to bribery may seem excessive to modern readers, but the<br />
Athenians appear to have consciously crafted their institutions to foster exactly this kind<br />
of deliberation on dōrodokia. With vague legal definitions, high rates of prosecution, and<br />
speeches at trials that attempted to place the conduct of the accused either inside or<br />
outside the sphere of permissible, legitimate, ‘democratic’ actions, Athenian laws on<br />
dōrodokia created a political space within the courts wherein the norms on bribery could<br />
be contested and ultimately legitimated.<br />
In this way, by construing a different relationship between law and legitimacy, the<br />
Athenians could perform crucial political work that would have been too time-consuming<br />
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for the Assembly to do in each and every case. Indeed, it is political work that nowadays<br />
is performed not by judges or jurors, but by legislators in crafting the law. Whereas the<br />
rule of law presupposes that law defines the contours of a sphere of legitimate action—<br />
what is legal should be legitimate—law in Athens was used in the case of bribery as an<br />
arena for contesting the very boundaries of that sphere.<br />
The Athenian approach incorporated informal discussion of political values into<br />
formal judicial process and thereby avoided a crucial vulnerability in the rule of law: its<br />
inability to adapt quickly to changing notions of legitimacy. 8 Under the rule of law,<br />
precisely because law-making is ideally distinct from adjudication, there can be<br />
considerable distance between what is legal and what society considers legitimate. By<br />
contrast, in Athens this distance between legitimacy and law in action was effectively<br />
minimized, as with each subsequent bribery trial a potentially new, emerging conception<br />
of what did or did not constitute a ‘harm’ to the community—hence bribery—could be<br />
forwarded and, if it accorded with popular notions of what was good for the city,<br />
legitimated. 9<br />
Examining bribery in Classical Athens can arguably provide a valuable corrective<br />
to contemporary public policy approaches to bribery. Even if we look upon the Athenian<br />
case and ultimately throw up our hands, calling Athens too ‘different’ to be of real<br />
comparative use, the view from Athens offers us at least a vision of a different way to<br />
8 So, Warren (2004: 330-1) critiques modern conceptions of bribery on the grounds that they are<br />
essentially normatively static: comparative studies simply posit some set of ‘background norms’ against<br />
which the workings of law, politics, and the market should operate. In reality, however, this background is<br />
dynamically contested and in constant flux. What is essential for our investigation here is that, likewise,<br />
what was considered ‘socially legitimate’ at Athens was not normatively static, but was in fact constituted<br />
through the political practices of Athenian citizens.<br />
9 It should be noted that this is not a blanket criticism about the potential efficacy of the rule of law; rather,<br />
it is an observation that one reason law and legitimacy can diverge so significantly is precisely because<br />
there is little formal recourse within the law to allow it to evolve lock-step with shifting public norms.<br />
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think with, through, and about bribery. In adopting a relational, consequentialist model<br />
of bribery rather than the standard rational actor model, we gain a better understanding of<br />
when and why people frame an action as bribery. This, in turn, prompts us to focus more<br />
on the content of the social relationships in which bribery occurs, rather than on the<br />
corrupt character of—or poor institutional design around—a bribe-giver or bribe-taker.<br />
Further, that the Athenians relied on personal relationships to the extent that they<br />
did provides a helpful reminder that all polities are constituted by social relationships.<br />
Even arms-length, professional relationships—the kind we find in parts of the Athenian<br />
democracy—are a specific kind of social tie, one with specific norms, obligations, and<br />
practices. The practice of politics in any polity is thus a constellation of these<br />
differentiated social relationships. As we have seen at Athens, the monies used to<br />
negotiate any of these relationships can look like bribes to an outside observer: what was<br />
needed in Athens—and, arguably, what is needed in any polity—is a means to legitimate<br />
one particular perspective, to call a specific negotiation ‘bribery’ or ‘not bribery’.<br />
Fundamentally in Western societies this legitimization is thought to stem from the law,<br />
yet Athens reminds us that there can sometimes be a wide separation between legally and<br />
socially legitimate practices.<br />
It is not clear to what extent reforms like the Athenians’—or even legal inefficacy<br />
more broadly—would be successful instruments of democratization in other societies; in<br />
this respect it is unclear how easily findings from Athens can be translated into a different<br />
context. Certainly, where gift exchange is not a cornerstone of society, it would be more<br />
difficult to imagine that bribery would take on the same meaning as in Athens and, as a<br />
result, that it could be used in the same way to improve, not simply to corrupt, the<br />
330
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Conclusion<br />
workings of politics. After all, in a society where gift exchange is limited, allowing more<br />
frequent bribery may result in patterns of bribery different from those in the Athenian<br />
case: more harm-inducing bribes, or bribes only in certain sectors, bribes that quickly<br />
transform into extorted payments, etc.<br />
Nevertheless, the kind of investigation undertaken here suggests that, even if we<br />
take into account different cultural norms and definitions of ‘bribery’ and then legislate<br />
accordingly, we might still miss the point that different societies use ‘law’ in different<br />
ways. The figure of the dōrodokos lay at the very center of the Athenian imaginary, and<br />
regulations of dōrodokia consequently loomed large in the Athenians’ efforts to reform<br />
their democracy. This is arguably why eschewing the rule of law enabled the democracy<br />
to be more responsive to (changes in) popular conceptions of justice and thus to be more<br />
legitimate overall. Because bribery is always about injustice and illegitimacy, its<br />
normative value stems from social, not legal, conceptions of how politics should work.<br />
In the eyes of the Athenians, therefore, espousing the ‘rule of law’ to combat corruption<br />
would make sense only if the outcomes of the law happen always to synch up with the<br />
people’s understanding of political justice.<br />
Like the Athenians, who used the dōrodokos to think through pressing issues and<br />
ultimately to arrive at a more just polity, we end by looking forward on a positive note.<br />
There are a number of ways in which the Athenians succeeded at democratization and<br />
development even amid common bribery. Other thick accounts of cross-cultural or<br />
historical comparison might yield similar results. It is hoped that the view from Athens<br />
will open our eyes to a different understanding about the ideal role of bribery in a polity.<br />
Far from minimizing bribery through precise legal restrictions and ‘proper’ institutional<br />
331
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Conclusion<br />
design, a more valuable approach to anti-corruption reform might be to think of ways<br />
bribery can continually be leveraged for the greater good.<br />
332
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens References<br />
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