BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Four
systematically ruined the city by maliciously prosecuting and slandering the city’s
defenders until the dēmos was won over (Dem. 9.56). As Demosthenes chillingly
describes of the town of Oreus, it was Philip who directed and funded the inevitable civil
conflict that ensued when his hirelings, now a partisan mass, fought against the city’s
staunch defenders (Dem. 9.59-62). 6
Given that stasis was a persistent problem throughout the fourth century, though,
Philip was no more its cause than were Thebes, Sparta, and indeed Athens. In this
respect, Demosthenes’ suggestion that the problem of political instability was due
directly to Philip’s rise is misleading. In fact, the orator’s alarming portrayal of Philip’s
systematic and systematically corrupt rise, though shared by a number of contemporary
Athenians, was misleading in two further respects, as well. It presupposed a Macedonian
policy of methodical expansion, as if Philip began with some master plan for taking over
all of Greece and for targeting Athens in particular. But, as numerous scholars have
shown, Philip’s actions in context often seem more like shrewd ad hoc measures than an
actual preconceived plan to take over Athenian territory in Attica, let alone all of Greece. 7
6 Calling Philip the chorēgos (choir-director) and prytanis (president; cf. xorhgo\n e)/xontej Fi/lippon kai\
prutaneuo/menoi, Dem. 9.60), Demosthenes borrows civic language from the democracy, thereby showing
how Philip’s presence effectively subverted the workings of democratic institutions.
7 Harris (1995: 115-6); Cawkwell (1978: 108-13), who reaches a similar conclusion about Philip’s aims in
346; and especially Buckler (1996: 84-6); cf. de Ste Croix (1981: 292). In the case of Olynthus, for
example, Philip seemed to be after money, not power, just as Diodorus attests (Diod. 16.53.3); indeed,
Philip’s actions against minor players in the Chalcidian Federation suggest that he might never have
anticipated the capture of Olynthus one year later: cf. Diod. 16.53.2 and Ryder (2000: 53). Moreover,
Cawkwell (1978: 122-3) reminds that some poleis welcomed Philip with open arms, hailing him as their
savior, and at least in these cases Philip’s dōrodokia was irrelevant.
The rhetoric of Macedonian expansionism was common in Demosthenes: e.g. 8.2, 8.14, 8.18,
8.60, 9.6-19. So, for instance, in the Third Philippic the orator ends a chronological survey of Philip’s
conquests with the summary statement, “Neither the Greek nor the barbarian world is big enough for the
fellow’s [sc. Philip’s] greed” (pleoneci/a, Dem. 9.27). Cf. Dem. 19.315-31. Still, it was seemingly not
until the First Philippic (351) that Demosthenes viewed Philip as a true threat: cf. Ryder (2000: 45-51); de
Ste Croix (1981: 607n.36) places this turning point earlier (352), while Harris (1995: 50) would locate this
turning point still later at the fall of Olynthus in 348 (cf. Dem. 19.101-2, 302-6, Aeschin. 2.79). Either
way, Philip was not always a manifest threat for Demosthenes, and in fact the orator himself later confessed
to exaggeration in depicting Philip as waging war against all Greeks (Dem. 18.20, 24).
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