BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Two
Instead of asking why the Athenians instituted public pay, therefore, if we ask
why public pay took the specific form that it took, it seems clear that the Athenians were
conceptualizing misthophoria through the lens of patronage politics: the collective
dēmos, not an individual citizen, served as patron to the masses. We find indirect
corroboration for this idea in a second set of descriptions of public pay, which frame it as
a money used to negotiate patronage politics, albeit between an elitie citizen and the
community. Aristotle, followed by Plutarch, is explicit on this point: in providing jury
pay, 87 other kinds of public pay, 88 and theoric pay, 89 Pericles “demagogued” in
opposition to Cimon’s patronage. 90 Alternatively, it is reported that Pericles instituted
these public monies in order to compete against the political authority of Thucydides, son
of Melesias (Plut. Per. 11.4). We do not know Plutarch’s source for that latter political
rivalry; in any case, what is important here is that, when they were not associated with
Athens’ empire, these measures were viewed as tokens in a political competition to
secure support from the dēmos.
Our sources paint a consistent picture of Pericles’ taking the initiative to create a
new mode of politics, one in which he redistributed the dēmos’ own funds to itself, but
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
amount of jury pay, but Cleon is said to have increased it from 2 obols to 3 obols per day: schol. ad Ar. V.
88, 300.
88 It is unclear what Plutarch means here by a1llaij misqoforai=j, or “other kinds of provision of misthos”
(Plut. Per. 9.3), but elsewhere pay for the navy (Plut. Per. 11.4), pay for the navy (Plut. Per. 12.5), as well
as pay for artisans and laborers working on the Acropolis building programme (Plut. Per. 12.5-6) are
attributed to Pericles. Potentially pay for public officials is included here too, on which see Ar. Ach. 65-7,
[Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.3, IG i 3 82.17-21. See Stadter (1989: 117-18 ad Per. 9.3) for further discussion.
89 It is difficult to determine what exactly is meant by qewrikoi=j, “theoric” payments (Plut. Per. 9.3).
Probably these payments had nothing to do with the Theoric Fund which Eubulus managed in the midfourth
century: Ruschenbusch (1979). What, then, would they have covered? Stadter (1989: 116 ad Per.
9.3) makes a compelling case that Plutarch is following a tradition found in Ulpian (ad Dem. 1.1=Dindorff
33) that Pericles designated that leftover public funds should be devoted to public festivals (theōroi), as a
way of pleasing the dēmos. Ulpian’s note, however, might simply be a garbled misreading of Pericles’
famed generosity in putting on festivals and theatrical performances: cf. Thuc. 2.38.1, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.9.
90 a)ntidhmagwgw=n pro\j th\n Ki/mwnoj eu)pori/an, AP 27.3; katadhmagwgou=menoj, Plut. Per. 9.3.
116