BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Three
So when Poverty and Chremylus have a debate about Zeus’ wealth, it is the
economic return provided by the god that is at issue (Ar. Pl. 582-91). Poverty reasons
that Zeus could not possibly be rich because a rich god would never crown athletic
victors at his festival with crowns of wild olive; rather, because he was so rich, he would
surely give away valuable gold crowns (Ar. Pl. 582-6). This is precisely the logic
Socrates would later employ in claiming that Asclepius and Achilles could not possibly
have been dōrodokoi. Chremylus responds with a different view: Zeus, rich yet sparing,
chooses merely to save his own wealth while not spending anything on the victors (Ar.
Pl. 587-9). Yet in that case, as Poverty criticizes, he is greedy and stingy
(a)neleu/qeroj…filokerdh/j, Ar. Pl. 591), the same affront leveled against Philocrates in
Lysias 29. As in Lysias 28 and 29, therefore, Wealth measures political justice according
to an economically defined ‘good’ given to the community. As thieves or stingy
members of the community, politicians including dōrodokoi are vilified, while those who
give and take in turn ultimately prosper when Wealth regains his sight at play’s end.
Aristophanes’ use of the ‘rags to riches’ conceit in Wealth is thus readily aligned
with the accusation of profiting ‘at the city’s expense’ found in the speeches against
Ergocles and Philocrates; however, this alignment marks a considerable departure from
fifth-century use of the ‘rags to riches’ trope. In the fifth century, as we saw in the
previous chapter, Aristophanes had lambasted politicians like Cleon for just this sort of
suspicious accumulation of wealth. While such accusations certainly underscored how a
politician may have been escaping democratic accountability, they were nevertheless
leveled at pro-democratic politicians. There was no concern of oligarchic aspirations.
By contrast, the ‘rags to riches’ conceit in Wealth was directed at citizens who were
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