BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Four
The Democracy in Danger:
Dōrodokia and the Rise of the “Crop of Traitors”
378-322 BCE
As Athens tried to move out of the shadow of the Thirty, she faced an
increasingly unstable Greek world, one dominated by inter-state alliances and warfare.
Indeed, as leading city-states rose to relative prominence—first Sparta, then Athens in the
370’s, followed by Thebes in the 360’s—much of the rest of the Greek world allied
against them in order to control any potentially new threat. The Second Athenian League
was one such alliance, directed against Sparta upon its initial formation in 378 but later
counterpoised against Thebes after Sparta’s defeat at Leuctra. Yet by 355, the League
was in shambles after the conclusion of the two-year Social War, in which a number of
Athens’ allies had revolted. With these shifts in international alliances frequently came
civil conflict, or stasis, as cities changed regimes to signal changed allegiances. Even
with such inter-state alliances, no area in Greece was stable for long, for tensions were
high both inside and outside the city. 1
Stasis, then, was an enduring feature of the fourth century Greek polis. 2
Importantly for this chapter, the fear of stasis lay at the heart of the dominant image of
1 On these developments, see Seager (1974), Davies (1978: 168-70), Cargill (1981), Cawkwell (1981),
Jehne (1994), Dreher (1995). The fourth century was rife with stasis: just a cursory overview encounters
violent revolutions in Corcyra (Xen. Hell. 6.2.3-15; Diod. 15.46-7, 15.95.3; Aen. Tact. 11.13-15), Corinth
(Xen. Hell. 4.4.1-13) and the Peloponnese (Isoc. 6.64-7, Diod. 15.40). Cf. Tod 144.25-6, 147.28-9 for
examples of explicit clauses against constitutional subversion in interstate alliances.
2 An overview of stasis in the fourth century can be found in Fuks (1972, 1977, 1979) on social tensions in
Isocrates and Plato’s Republic and Laws, respectively; de Ste. Croix (1981: 292-9); Lintott (1982: 222-
38); Gehrke (1985) catalogues and analyzes instances of stasis in the fifth and fourth centuries. It should
be noted that, while stasis has been interpreted as a primarily political phenomenon instigated by a foreign
power—so Ruschenbusch (1978b), Lintott and Gehrke—Fuks and de Ste. Croix (1981: esp. 293-5) rightly
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