BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Three briefly ruled Athens in 404/3 during the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. 11 This pro- Spartan junta initially oversaw the re-drafting of Athens’ laws, including a return to the ancestral laws (patrioi nomoi), which did not include Ephialtes’ contentious, if pro- democratic, reforms in the mid-fifth century. 12 Yet their rule quickly turned violent and exclusionary: sykophants and other scoundrels (ponēroi) were executed, as were certain metics, and the franchise was limited to 3,000 citizens. 13 The oligarchs later confiscated property and used the Council of 500 as a court to purge the city whether by exiling or killing their enemies. 14 Civil war soon erupted between the exiled Athenians and those still in the city, led by the Thirty. After the exiles’ victory at Phyle, the Thirty were deposed, but a Spartan force defeated the exiled Athenians at the Piraeus, and the Spartan leader Pausanias effected a reconciliation between the opposing Athenian camps. When the democracy was reinstated, all citizens swore an oath of amnesty: with the exception 11 To be fair, the image of the tyrant was central to Athenian political ideology throughout the democracy, as detailed by Rosivach (1988), the essays in Morgan (2003), and Ober (2005: 212-48). I emphasize here two important points. First, Ober rightly argues that anxieties over the threat of tyrannical oligarchs were particularly pronounced towards the end of the fifth century; cf. Osborne (2003). Just after the restoration of the democracy in 410, for example, Demophantus passed an anti-tryanny decree which was sworn by all citizens and which explicitly rewarded to anyone killed in attempting to kill a tyrant the rewards given to the tyrant-slayers Harmodius and Aristogeiton (Andoc. 1.96-8). Likewise, Gallia (2004: 458 n.36) sees further parallels between the early tyrant-slayers and the murderers of Phrynichus, one of the oligarchic leaders in 411/0. Second, as will be argued in this chapter, the rule of the Thirty in particular marked a watershed moment in the history of Athenian political ideology. Beginning in 403, Athenian democratic ideology came to define the democracy in opposition not to tyranny more generally, but to the oligarchy of the Thirty, in particular. For reasons that will become apparent, it was in conjunction with this shift that the dōrodokos came to be associated with tyrant-like (greedy, harm-dealing) oligarchs. 12 Xen. Hell. 2.3.11-12, Diod. 14.3.7-14.4.2, AP 35.1-2. Note how Critias is referred to as a nomothetēs at Xen. Mem. 1.2.31. Rhodes (1981: 440-5 ad AP 35.2), Krentz (1982: 49-50), Ostwald (1986: 477-8). 13 Execution of sykophants: Xen. Hell. 2.3.13-14, Lys. 25.19, AP 35.3, Diod. 14.4.2; cf. Lys. 12.5. Metics: Xen. Hell. 2.3.21. Franchise: Xen. Hell. 2.3.18, AP 36.2. For discussion of the Thirty’s political measures, see especially Rhodes (1981: 415-55 ad AP 34-37), Krentz (1982), Ostwald (1986: 475-90). 14 Prosecutions to confiscate property are mentioned in Lys. 19.4, 27.1, 30.22. Further executions: Xen. Hell. 2.3.21, 2.4.21; Isoc. 7.67, 20.11; Aeschin. 3.235; AP 35.4, 37.2; Diod. 14.2.1, 14.4.4, 14.5.5; in the Apology Socrates recounts how he disobeyed an order from the Thirty to arrest Leon of Salamis (Pl. Ap. 32c4-e1). Ostensibly, the bulk of these measures could have been enacted at least under the auspices of purging the city of unjust men (cf. Lys. 12.5, Xen. Hell. 2.3.18, AP 36.2), but contemporary observers were not always favorable to the Thirty’s actions. 131
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Three of a few select magistrates, nobody could be punished thereafter for any crime committed during the Thirty’s reign and the ensuing civil war. 15 The ‘amnesia’ sworn by the Athenians was a means of communally forgetting the horrors committed during the Thirty’s reign; and in other respects, too, the Athenians tried to forget or undo the period of oligarchy under the Thirty. 16 But, as Plato’s Republic obliquely evinces, the oligarchs’ legacy lived on. Decades later speakers in court still brought up their opponents’ involvement in the events of 404/3 as important evidence that they thought should have continuing relevance. 17 Members of the cavalry, which had actively cooperated with the Thirty, were resented. 18 Likewise, the good or bad of someone’s actions was often measured against the Thirty’s example. So, in a prosecution speech at a dōrodokia trial, one speaker frames his opponent’s bribery in terms of the Thirty’s heinous actions. 19 We might say that in the decades after the Peloponnesian War, political behavior was reconfigured in the shadow of the Thirty, as the oligarchs became an anti-type against which public officials were measured. 20 15 The amnesty applied to all Athenians except the Thirty, their successors the Ten, the Ten supervisors of the Piraeus, and the Eleven; any of these latter would have been covered by the amnesty had they submitted their official accounts, but few likely did so (AP 39.6). Carawan (2002) says that the amnesty only applied to those who were atimoi at the time, but see the cogent reply by Joyce (2008) who reinstates the orthodox view that the amnesty was about general political forgiveness. See further Loraux (1997), Wolpert (2001), Ober (2005: 171-82). 16 Demosthenes records that all court decisions from the Thirty’s reign were deemed invalid (Dem. 24.56), and in 402/1 the properties confiscated by the Thirty were sold by the poletai if not to their original owners (many of whom had been excecuted), then often to their owners’ neighbors: SEG 16.120-1, 32.161; 38.149, 41.100=Athenian Agora XIX part 2; see also Walbank (1982) for text and discussion. Xen. Hell. 2.4.38 also notes the return of possessions to their owners after the peace. 17 See, for example, the accusations found passim in Lysias 16, 25, fr. 9 (Eryximachus); Lys. 31.12-14 condemns the Athenian Philon simply for not actively opposing the Thirty. 18 Cf. Lys. 16.8, 26.10. On the cavalry’s involvement in the Thirty’s reign, see Bugh (1988: 120-53), Krentz (1982: 116-17), and Németh (2006: 86-90). 19 Lys. 28.14, discussed in greater detail below; cf. Lys. 25.30. 20 Similarly, in 411/0 less than a decade earlier, the oligarchy of the Four Hundred had set a precedent for a number of the Thirty’s measures, including vitiating the power of the jury courts (Thuc. 8.67, AP 29.4) as well as exiling, imprisoning and executing citizens (Thuc. 8.70.2; cf. Andoc. 2.13). Again, though, the Thirty in particular became a powerful anti-type in democratic politics in the early fourth century, and it was the latter oligarchy, not the former, that was continually evoked in public discourse. For this reason I 132
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BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam
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legislating dōrodokia. Rather than
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encouragement that made me crazily
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and long-lasting patience were crit
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CHAPTER SEVEN: Athenian dōrodokia
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BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

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