BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Four
at least 13 also insinuate that Aeschines was a traitor. 13 In the opening of the speech,
Demosthenes underscores how Aeschines failed in every one of his duties as an
ambassador—by providing a dishonest report to the people, giving them bad advice, not
following their explicit instructions, and wasting precious time that the city could have
used to pursue other opportunities (Dem. 19.4-6)—and each one of these failures was
thought due to the receipt of dōra (Dem. 19.4, 7-8). More damning is Demosthenes’
repeated accusation that Aeschines “profited at the city’s expense,” a refrain familiar
from the earlier part of the fourth century, as we examined in the last chapter. 14 Yet,
instead of profiting at the city’s financial expense, as the accusation earlier signaled,
Aeschines is accused of actively bringing ruin to the city. That is, he is accused of being
a traitor, not a thief. His personal profit is weighed against the destruction of Athens’ ally
Phocis and, Demosthenes suggests, the eventual ruin of Athens herself. 15
Beneath the veneer of these accusations lay a much larger, more sustained
problem, one critical to the very security of the polis: for the democracy to survive,
ambassadors had to be honest and trustworthy (Dem. 19.182-4). 16 As the orator warns,
there would surely be dire consequences for trusting in a traitor like Aeschines. 17 In
13 Dem. 19.8, 9, 16, 19-20, 27, 29, 68, 88, 94, 97, 102, 104, 110, 111-3, 114-5, 116-18, 120, 121, 125, 127,
134, 142, 143-6, 147, 149, 201, 205, 209, 220, 236, 243-5, 254-5, 279, 286, 292-3, 301, 303-9, 308, 313,
316, 328-9, 331 to which should be added the orator’s accusations that Aeschines was a traitor for taking
bribes: Dem. 19. 88, 90, 133, 146, 178, 180, 182-4, 207-8, 229, 258, 301-2.
14 The accusation recurs throughout Demosthenes’ speeches: Dem. 3.29, 8.66, 17.11, 18.109, 18.211-7,
18.250, 18.298-9, 18.320, 21.123-5 57.60.
15 Dem. 19.7, 275. This weighing of interests recurs throughout Demosthenes’ speech: e.g. Dem. 19.8, 90,
143-6, 147, 149. Cf. 18.298-9.
16 As a result, Demosthenes frequently upholds his own, purportedly trustworthy actions and reports as a
foil to Aeschines’: cf. Dem. 19.15-16, 18, 33, 45-6, 150-2 with 155 and 157, 205-8, 211-12, 223, 229-30.
In response, Aeschines takes a similar tack, foregrounding Demosthenes’ ties with Philip’s purported
hireling Philocrates, while distancing himself from Philocrates: Aeschin. 2.14, 18, 54, 56, 63-6, 69; cf.
3.58, 69, 79.
17 Indeed, to further this aim the orator’s accusations repeatedly link Aeschines’ bribe-taking to purported
instances of lying: because Aeschines was bribed, he lied in his reports to the Assembly, he lied about
Philip’s intentions while giving advice to the people, and in this manner he committed the greatest
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