BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Two
self-interested opportunist, in fact, he might genuinely have thought himself ‘champion
of the people’ (or the two could be one and the same). 105 After all, in renouncing his old
friendships, he reportedly criticized the corruption that could result from conducting
politics through selective social and political channels. Philia, Plutarch has him claim,
“often softened one’s thinking and led one astray from right and just policy in
politics.” 106 Following Plutarch, we might imagine that Cleon, like his paymasters, was
himself trying to improve a corrupt system. Whether this testimony is apocryphal or not,
we cannot be certain, but it does make sense if we adopt the perspective of those
Athenians for whom political subordination to a patron was no longer necessary and no
longer desired.
This chapter has examined the figure of the dōrodokos in the fifth century: a
disobedient character whose presence signaled problems in the distribution of monies in
Athens’ public economies of empire and patronage. By the end of the century, the
dōrodokos was not simply a disobedient citizen, but one who had inverted the vertical
relations between citizen and community; in this respect, he was opposed completely to
“people’s power.” As the Peloponnesian War drew to a close, such opposition to the
democracy crystallized in the form of two different oligarchic coups, at which point the
figure of the dōrodokos became inextricably linked with oligarchy. Along with civil war,
impossible to assess—despite the best efforts of Wankel (1982): cf. Harvey (1985) and Hansen (1991:
274-6; cf. 1980). Given the extraordinary sums cited, these instances most likely represent problematic
exceptions, that is, instances when a rhētor’s fee was blamed for his bad performance, rather than strong
indications that payments themselves were banned. In fact, the very point of Hyperides’ testimony is that
these kinds of payments were allowed so long as they did not result in harm to the dēmos.
105
Prostatēs tou dēmou: Ar. Eq. 1128, Ra. 569; cf. V. 419, Pax 684, Pl. 920; Thuc. 8.89.4. Connor (1971:
110-15).
106
w(j polla_ th~j o)rqh~j kai\ dikai/aj proaire/sewj mala&ssousan e0n th| ~ politei/a| kai\ para&gousan,
Plut. Mor. 806F.
124