BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Two
anecdotes thus expose a dōrodokos actively—and problematically—controlling public
monies. 50
We can trace the roots of this problem back to the dēmos’ early efforts to control
the distribution of political rewards. From at least the beginning of the democracy, the
dēmos managed the assignment of public honors in return for services to the community:
witness the misthos provided the generals of Eion in 476 BCE, or the dēmos’ refusal to
honor Miltiades when he asked to be honored for military victory. 51 The rewards of
membership in the polity—specifically, public office and citizen benefits—were also
symbolically controlled by the dēmos. While this idea is manifest in the dēmos’ direct
election of stratēgoi, the use of the lot to select the vast majority of magistrates, itself
heralded as a democratic institution, established the dēmos as apportioner of the honor of
public office. 52 This idea can be extended, too, to the dēmos’ opening up of the
50 Indeed, in Chapter Six we will examine how, when the Athenians developed procedures for holding
officials accountable in the second half of the fifth century, they did so with an eye towards punishing,
specifically, the dōrodokos who had mismanaged public monies.
51 Eion epigrams: Aeschin. 3.183-5, Plut. Cim. 7.4-6. The Herms are collectively called a misthos in the
text cited at Aeschin. 3.183, Plut. Cim. 7.5. For discussion, see Blamire (1989: 112-14 ad Cim. 7.4-6).
Plutarch Cim. 8.1 recounts how Miltiades was refused a crown when he asked for one; in Aeschines,
Miltiades is said to have been refused the honor of having his name inscribed on the painting of the Battle
of Marathon in the Stoa Poikile (Aeschin. 3.186).
52 Lot as a democratic institution: [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.3; Hdt. 3.80.6; Pl. Rep. 557a, 561a-b; Xen. Mem.
1.2.9; Isoc. 7.22-3, 12.153-4; Aristot. Pol. 1294b7, 1317b20, 1320b11. Hignett (1952: 321-6). In 487/6
selection by archons switched from election to selection by lot from a short-list (AP 22.5), on which see
Badian (1971), Ober (1989: 76-7), Hansen (1990c), the latter of which provides extensive bibliography. At
this time, selection by lot was also probably introduced for other magistrates and Councillors: Ober (1989:
76) and Hansen (1990) provide discussion. Ober (1989: 76-7) and recently Taylor (2007) have examined
the sociological effects of the lot, but two aspects of its usage have gone hitherto unnoticed.
First, as a randomized distribution mechanism, the lot was used to distribute egalitarian shares.
Scholars commonly pick up on the ‘egalitarian’ piece of the puzzle—i.e. the lot prevented elites from
monopolizing public office—but the ‘shares’ piece is just as crucial. In effect, honorary shares of the
political pie—timai, on which see Ostwald (1995)—were distributed equally to those who were eligible,
just as shares of sacrificial meat were often apportioned by lot: Detienne (1989:13) and, for the contiguities
between civic equality and the apportionment of meat, Loraux (1981a: 620). Note, too, how the Gods
were said to have divided up the cosmos and the regions of earth into various timai via a lottery: Hom. Il.
15.187-93, Pi. O. 7.54-68. This egalitarian distribution of political power very well may have underpinned
the early democracy’s championing of isonomia: cf. Hdt. 3.80.6 with Vlastos (1953: 356-66) and Schmitt
Pantell (1992: 45-52).
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