BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Three
they were awarded. 94 Political justice was characterized by an impersonal, routinized
approach to political process.
With increased political collaboration and a greater routinization of political
process, the practice of democratic politics in the early fourth century most likely would
have been marked by a greater prevalence of arms-length, professional ties. I would
suggest, further, that such ‘professionalization’ of politics was not merely a consequence
but was actually an intended result of at least some of Athens’ institutional changes. So
the defendant of Lysias 21 underscores that people should not be judged by those they
benefit (Lys. 21.22). To modern eyes, his sentiment certainly brings to mind the obvious
idea of conflict of interest, but, again, it is important to remember that this idea emerged
prominently in Athenian politics precisely after a period in which oligarchs had used the
city’s political institutions for their own interests. Athens’ shift towards a more
depersonalized space for politics, itself tied to the concurrent ‘financialization’ of civic
obligations, was a conscious shift away from the Thirty’s mode of self-interested political
practice, as emblematized by the greedy dōrodokos. Accordingly, it is likely that the
creation of more arms-length ties in politics went hand-in-hand with Athens’ political
recovery in the restored democracy.
This chapter has explored two main reasons why the money-loving, thieving
dōrodokos appeared in Athens in the generation after the Thirty. Emphasizing a financial
return constituted both a sign of Athens’ own need for money after the Peloponnesian
94 Praise: see above n. 90. Standardized language appears especially on decrees passed without change
from the Council’s recommendations: cf. Rhodes (1972: 52-81), who collects the sources. The prescripts
of decrees also became standardized with the archon’s name and precise dating according to the Athenian
political or sacrificial calndears—a marked change from the fifth century’s use of names without
patronymics or demotics for identifying the secretary, prytaneis, and proposer of the decree: Henry (1977:
49). By much later in the century (340’s BCE), even the awarding of public honors had become routine for
completion of certain offices: AP 46.1; Aeschin. 1.111-12, Dem. 22.36, 22.38-9; cf. Dem. 22.8-20 with
Whitehead (1983: 73n.32).
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