BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Two
tracks an identical movement towards conceptualizing authority as the legitimate power
to compel action (kratos). This focus on kratos was reflected in Athens’ transition to
empire, examined above, and with Ephialtes’ reforms in 462/1 BCE infused domestic
politics as well. Though much of the substance of these reforms remains murky, it
seems clear that they transferred to the Assembly and Council the ability to hold public
officials accountable at a euthyna and perhaps at an eisangelia, as well. 69 They thereby
reinforced the idea that officials should be obedient to the dēmos—one reason why these
reforms have been convincingly tied to the contemporary emergence of dēmokratia as a
buzzword in political discourse. 70 Tellingly, such focus on the dēmos’ kratos paralleled a
discursive shift in the word nomos, which at this time increasingly connoted a
prescriptive rule or law that compels action. 71 With Ephialtes’ reforms, then, the dēmos
asserted its political authority within the courts, in effect extending its control over more
than just the domestic management of imperial resources. With these reforms, the dēmos
had full control over the very agents who managed imperial monies. 72
And control those political agents it did. In at least two instances during the
Peloponnesian War in the last few decades of the fifth century, stratēgoi were formally
charged, or feared being charged, for dōrodokia, and the dēmos was acutely concerned to
69
Humphreys (1983: 242-7), Ostwald (1986: 70-3), Ober (1989: 77-8), Hansen (1991: 36-7), Raaflaub
(2007). Ephialtes’ reforms are discussed at length in Chapter Seven below.
70
Raaflaub (2007) collects the sources on dēmokratia and argues persuasively for their connection to
Ephialtes’ reforms.
71
For the development of nomos in the fifth century, see Ostwald (1986: 89-136). Ephialtes’ association
with bringing nomos to the people is attested in Anaximenes, who records that the leader moved Solon’s
laws from the Acropolis into the public spaces of the Agora and Boule (72 FGrH F 13). This highly
political act presented the laws themselves as a possession belonging to the people at the precise moment
when the dēmos was using law to claim possession over imperial monies and public officials, alike.
72
The subsequent development of the euthyna process, examined in Chapter Six, strongly suggests that the
Athenians were most concerned about holding accountable, specifically, those magistrates who handled
imperial monies.
110