BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Three
nothing or, at worst, only bads in return for the goods (monetary and otherwise) they had
received. We will return to this point later, but for now it is worth mentioning that this
focus on ‘taking’ effectively redefined the civic friendship between oligarch and
community. Rather than having a relationship predicated on reciprocal exchange, as
under the democracy, the rulers of the oligarchy only took, never gave, and often actively
harmed. As ‘enemies’ of the city (e.g. e1xqra pro\j th\n po/lin, Lys. 12.2), they were
perceived to be already outside the moral community of the polis, that is, outside of any
reciprocal exchange relationship with that community. The oligarchs’ problematic
relationship to money, therefore, was symptomatic of their problematic relationship to
polity, as well.
So the metic Lysias brings out the injustice of this ‘exchange’ relationship when
he describes his own treatment at the hands of the Thirty. “We were not worthy of this
treatment by the polis,” he laments, “but had produced all our dramatic choruses and paid
numerous taxes” (Lys. 12.20). By weighing his own payment of liturgies and taxes
against the actions of the oligarchs—extortion, property confiscation, theft, and the
murder of Lysias’ brother (Lys. 12.8-19)—the orator underscores how he had given,
while they only took or, worse, gave him but the death of his brother in return. Civic
reciprocity was nowhere to be found.
The context of Lysias’ description helps illuminate another, slightly different
shade of meaning. The orator infers that the Thirty were rounding up metics at the time
in order to pay for their own government (Lys. 12.6; cf. Xen. Hell. 2.3.21). As noted
above, the property stolen by the oligarchs was thus symbolic of the power they were
unjustly exercising for themselves. Lysias makes this point, too, in describing a bribe he
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