BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Three
the resultantly severe imbalance of the composition. 56 On the one hand, the catalogue
seems a grand elaboration on the common topos of requesting charis from the people in
exchange for all the good deeds the defendant has done. 57 On the other hand, whereas in
other speeches requesting charis for euergetism is usually unrelated to the charge brought
forward, in this speech the euergetism somehow forms the crux of the defendant’s legal
argument for innocence. “I would be mad, jurymen,” he reasons, “if, in pursuit of honor
(filotimou/menoj), I should spend my inheritance on you yet also take gifts from others
unto the detriment of the polis” (e)pi\ de\ tw= | th=j po/lewj kakw= | para\ tw=n a1llwn
dwrodokoi/hn, Lys. 21.22). The speaker’s catalogue of liturgies is as much an
explanation of his innocence as a request for pardon. This is perhaps a counterintuitive
claim: how could detailing his expenses on the polis possibly be a demonstration that he
had not taken bribes? Let us investigate further. 58
The defendant’s list of liturgies, indeed the entire extant speech, is framed as a
defense of character: “About the charges themselves, jurymen, I have given you
sufficient explanation,” the speaker begins, “but I think it fit that you listen to me about
56 On the exceptionality of this catalogue of liturgical expenses, see Schmitz (1995: 85-6), Todd (2000b:
229) and especially APF 592-3. The latter in particular explains this extraordinary catalogue as an
extraordinary attempt by the defendant to make up for his family’s oligarchic sympathies; but, as will be
clear from what follows, the catalogue can be seen as playing an integral legal role in the speaker’s legal
defense, as well.
57 So, Lys. 21.25. Likewise, the defendant in Lysias 20 confesses that he and his family treated the city
well solely to gain an acquittal should they ever be prosecuted (Lys. 20.31). Cf. Ant. 2.2.12; Is. 5.41-2,
6.60-1, 7.38-41; Isoc. 18.67; Lys. 25.13; [Dem.] 50.2, 7. For discussion, see Dover (1974: 176-7), Ober
(1989: 226-33, 241-3), Johnstone (1999: 100-8), Christ (2006: 172-81).
58 Scholars are quick to note that what we have of Lysias 21 is not the defendant’s full speech, but an
epilogos, or the second part of a defense coming after the defendant’s treatment of the charges themselves
(cf. Lys. 21.1). Assuming that the speech does not deal at all with the charges, their interpretations have
consequently focused on the defendant’s character and his general strategy to ingratiate himself to the
jurors, not on any legal arguments he makes. Schmitz (1995: esp. 91-3), for instance, explicates all of the
rhetorical arguments with an eye towards illustrating how they were typical for an elite Athenian who, like
the defendant of Lysias 21, probably had oligarchic sympathies; cf. APF 592-3, Todd (2000b: 229). I am
concerned, by contrast, to illuminate how these arguments might be typical for an elite charged with
dōrodokia. After all, it was not uncommon to make legal arguments in an epilogos—e.g. Lys. 14-15, 28-
29—and, as we will see, the defendant in Lysias 21 seems to do just that.
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