BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Four
constitutional change were well on their way. Not just another isolated Timagoras,
Aeschines was emblematic of a larger class of ponēroi, lying rogues bought by Philip at
the price of the city’s destruction and plotting the city’s demise from within (Dem.
19.68). Accordingly, Demosthenes recommends that Aeschines be punished to serve as a
lesson to all the current and would-be traitors in Athens (Dem. 19.231-2, 339-40, 343).
Although we should be wary of taking any orator at his word, there appears to
have been at least some truth to Demosthenes’ picture of stasis and pervasive distrust. 25
Indeed, after the conclusion of the Social War in 355—and only two years after Philip
had taken Pydna and Amphipolis—amid considerable anxieties over financial recovery,
Athens was especially vulnerable to the threat of stasis. For one, Philip’s imposing
presence in the Aegean was a direct threat to Athens’ interests in securing grain from
Thrace. 26 As a result, Athens’ use of a select few citizens to handle relations with the
Spartacid Kings in Thrace—and thereby to secure favorable trade terms—became a risky
endeavor, it was thought, for those few elites might easily be corrupted by the enemy to
divert the grain elsewhere. 27 What is more, the Social War and, with it, the demise of the
25
As Plato’s intense focus on stasis would suggest. So, for instance, Rep. 4.422e-423a remarks, “Any
state, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the state of the poor, the other the state of the rich.”
On fourth-century Athenians’ preoccupation with stasis, see further Fuks (1972, 1977, 1979), de Ste. Croix
(1981: 69-80), Brock (2000: 27-30), Kalimtzis (2000: 15-31). Similarly, Aeneas Tacticus’ manual on
siegecraft (350’s) is rife with concerns that the polis might be attacked by its own citizens: e.g. Aen. Tact.
10.20, 14.1, 17.1, 22.21. Cf. Whitehead (1990: 25-33). Note how when the League of Corinth was formed
in 337, there was a clause explicitly aimed at preventing constitutional subversion: Tod 177.12-14; cf.
[Dem.] 17.5, 12, 15.
26
See Oliver (2007: 43-4) on the successful threat Philip posed to Athen’s ability to police maritime trade
in the 340’s and 330’s.
27
Beginning in the late fifth and early fourth centuries, ties between the Spartacids and traders in the
Bosporan region were notoriously close: traders were given tax breaks and priority in loading their cargo
(Dem. 20.31-2), as well as ateleia at the emporion at Theodosia (Dem. 20.33); Bosporan elites were
educated at Athenian schools (Isoc. 17.4, 15.224); and Athenian elites regularly spoke in favor of awarding
Bosporan elites statues and public honors (Gauthier [1985: 156-7]; Oliver [2007: 23]). Moreno (2007:
175-9) provides an exhaustive treatment. Concerns about corruption and the grain trade were thus
pronounced—Lysias 22 is a classic early example of fears in this area—but ultimately these did not include
fears of treason. Whereas the grain-dealers in Lysias 22 might be castigated for trying to harm the dēmos
(Lys. 22.14-15) and even for colluding to get rich (Lys. 22.20), they were not suspected of trying to
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