BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Four
For Demosthenes, as well as for other contemporary Athenians, Philip’s arrival on the
Greek political scene heralded the rise of a horde of traitors: not merely a handful of
corrupt individuals acting in isolation, but an entire ‘crop’ of rogues from all over Greece
who formed factions, instigated stasis and thus betrayed their cities for the price of a
bribe. Philip’s wealth and dōrodokia became the hallmarks of Greek politics in the final
decades of the Athenian democracy, and, as we will see, it was in light of both their
attitudes towards Philip’s diplomacy and its purported link to stasis that the Athenians
began to reshape their understanding of the dōrodokos. 5
As in the case of Timagoras, whose fateful gifts from the Persian king were
investigated in the Introduction, the bribe-takers lambasted by Demosthenes were
considered traitors to their city. What is crucial for our purposes, though, is that
supposedly they were not working alone. Unlike Timagoras, who was singled out for his
treasonous politicking with the enemy, the purported traitors on Philip’s payroll were a
concerted group acting from within the city. Philip’s trademark brand of diplomacy was
thus thought to have fomented factions within the city: the threat of dōrodokia was a
threat of stasis as well.
So, for example, in the Third Philippic, delivered in 341, Demosthenes holds up
the town of Olynthus as a model for the evil overcoming all of Greece (Dem. 9.56-62).
At Olynthus, he says, the city was divided into those subservient to Philip in all respects
(pa/nq’ u(phretou=ntej) and those trying to ensure that the citizens not become Philip’s
slaves (Dem. 9.56; cf. Diod. 16.53.2). Though the orator does not put a number on them,
Philip’s partisans in Olynthus appeared to be numerous, for, as he claims, they
5 On Philip’s reputation for bribing, cf. Dem. 18.19, 18.61, 19.300; Diod. 16.8.7, 16.53.3, 16.54.3-4,
16.55.4, 16.95; cf. Plut. Mor. 178a-b. See further Ryder (1994) and Mitchell (1997: 149-50).
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