BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Three
found in Lysias 28. When the money was not found, Philocrates was prosecuted for the
possession of public property, as documented in Lysias 29.
Ostensibly, dōrodokia should have very little to do with these cases, for their clear
focus is on klopē, embezzlement (Lysias 28), or on withholding public property (Lysias
29). 32 Consistently, the speakers of each oration emphasize how the defendant has
‘taken’ in one form or another; and these accusations, whether of the defendant’s conduct
or of similar conduct by other officials, regularly involve verbs like kle/ptein (steal),
lamba/nein (take), and u(fai/rein (deprive of)—that is, verbs of clear ‘taking’. 33 This
conceptual focus on ‘taking’ is understandable given the charges of embezzlement for
Ergocles and the withholding of public property for Philocrates. Yet we immediately run
into a problem here. ‘Taking’ is intended to apply to both embezzlement and dōrodokia,
for Ergocles seems to have been charged with both crimes: both are listed whenever his
crimes are catalogued (Lys. 28.3, 28.11; cf. Lys. 29.5, 29.11), and both are thus presented
through the same conceptual frame. 34
How are we to understand this uneasy, confused relationship between ‘taking’ and
dōrodokia? Why, after all, does the speaker of Lysias 28 fear not that Athens is full of
peculators, but that dōrodokia is rampant (Lys. 28.9)? Or why does Lysias 29 read more
32
Cohen (1983: 31-2) usefully outlines the legal background for both speeches. See also Sinclair (1988b:
60-4).
33
kle/ptein: Lys. 28.3, 11, 16; 29.11, 13. lamba/nein: Lys. 28.5, 29.11. u(fai/rein: Lys. 28.7, 16; 29.5.
Cf. Lys. 28.13, 29.13. I use the verb ‘take’ here solely as a conceptual frame and do not intend any overt
reference to the legal class of ‘taking’ in Anglo-American law.
34
The two crimes are nearly conflated when the speaker refers to the embezzled funds as “the property
taken from the cities” (ta\ e)k tw=n po/lewn ei)lhmme/na, 28.5). What is significant about this appellation is
that the verb lamba/nein much more regularly refers to reciprocal exchanges than to outright peculation:
LSJ s.v. lamba/nw II1h. In other words, the very funds that were considered ‘embezzled’ might very well
have been contextualized within a series of regular payments for services, exchanges which, as we have
seen, would have been indistinct from actual bribes. Harvey (1985: 79-80) points out how these crimes are
often closely associated, but it is worth noting that this association was particularly frequent in the first few
decades of the fourth century: Strauss (1985).
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