BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Two
political services—in short, trafficking in decrees, laws, honors, and policies. 102 Cause
and effect are somewhat muddled here—did Cleon first befriend the dēmos and then
begin to profit from it, or was it the other way around?—but the difference is crucial. In
the first instance, we are led to believe that Cleon was corrupted by power gained from
his newly acquired mass support; in the second, Cleon’s corrupt activity was constituted
by his courting of the masses.
There are good reasons for thinking that the latter occurred, that is, that Cleon’s
new practice of politics was inherently considered corrupt and that, in fact, it was plied
through money. 103 First, we should note that political alliances do not spring up ex
nihilo; some kind of reciprocal relation is needed in order to leverage political support.
For the old-school public speakers, this relation readily appeared in the form of philia; for
Cleon, who had renounced his friendships, at first there would have been no such basis
for establishing and organizing mass support. Cleon required an ersatz philia, some kind
of relational glue to enable him to open up political access to a broader swath of the
public. I suggest that this glue entailed what his opponents called dōrodokia; because
Cleon’s politicking forged new patterns of social ties within the practice of politics, the
monies used to negotiate those ties were deemed illegitimate by opponents. Accordingly,
Cleon was called a dōrodokos.
102 Note how insults of the New Politicians typically came in the form of epithets signaling the politician’s
associations with trade, i.e. that he was profiting from his politicking. Cf. Cleon the tanner (e.g. Eq. 44, Nu.
581), Hyperbolus the lamp-maker (Eq. 1316, Nu. 1065, Pax 690), Cephalus the potter (Ec. 248-53),
Aristoxenus the needle-seller (Pl. 175 with scholiast), and the catalogue of politicians at Knights 129-45
with Sommerstein (1981: 150-1 ad loc.). This became a common motif in Comedy: Jackson (1919)
collects the evidence, while Connor (1971: 152-8) helpfully points out the potential class tensions inherent
in calling someone a ‘peddler’ or ‘manufacturer’.
103 That rhētores received a misthos was later taken for granted: Ar. Plut. 377-9, 567-70; Pl. Phdr. 257c-d;
Aeschin. 2.180, 3.173; Dem. 19.246; Hyp. 3.3, 4.28. Cf. APF 518-19.
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