BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Three
dēmou, or traveling judges, was restored, augmented, and relocated to the city center; and
coordination was the central focus in the creation of both the symmories, as we saw
above, and a new selection procedure for secretaries. 86
This bureaucratic expansion certainly helped the workings of the democracy, yet
one probable consequence of such increased collaboration was that it diluted the social
ties of the actors involved. With more collaboration and with collaboration among more
people, the kinds of relationships formed through and leveraged within the political
process would have tended closer to arms-length, what we might call ‘professional’ ties. 87
Indeed, even outside of political boards, we find political groups more atomized in the
fourth century, as their membership changed more rapidly than it had in the fifth
century. 88 This change was due no doubt in part to Athens’ desire to recover politically
from the Thirty. Whereas close relationships had prevailed among the hetaireiai that
oligarchs had leveraged for political power in the late fifth century, in the new democracy
the political clubs were effectively discolored by their associations with the oligarchs,
and they ceased to be such powerful political tools. 89 Instead, elite political associations
86 dikastai kata dēmou: AP 53.1, Haussoullier (1979: 123-6), Whitehead (1986: 261-4). On the
symmories and collaboration, see especially Rhodes (1980: 311). In the fifth century secretaries had been
selected from the Council (IG ii 2 104-107), but later in the fourth century they were selected from the
citizen population at large (IG ii 2 110-11; cf. AP 54.3). This, too, fostered coordination among still more
officials.
87 Arms-length ties, the now familiar ideal in corporate and political contexts, are marked by either brief or
standardized social interaction: see Granovetter (1985), Uzzi (1997), Zelizer (2005b). Commonly they are
thought of as ‘impersonal’ ties, but this just means that the content of the ties tends towards exemplifying
social distance (as between strangers) than social intimacy (as between friends or family). The larger a
corporate body engaged in collective action, the more diluted the relational ties typically are—and hence
the greater the social distance, on average, between actors. In showing that there was greater participation
in the fourth-century democracy, Taylor (2008) provides indirect evidence for the dilution of social ties
within fourth-century politics.
88 Strauss’ (1985: 11-41) sociological analysis of politics in the early fourth century is essential on this
point.
89 Calhoun (1916), Strauss (1985: 11-41).
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