BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Four
Such fears implicated the relationship between elites and other citizens, but there
is evidence that Athens’ financial reforms problematized the relationship between
citizens and foreigners, as well. During the Social War, a number of slaves and metics
had deserted the city, thereby significantly reducing the city’s commercial revenues and
the taxes they accrued (Isoc. 8.20-21). As a result, one major focus of Athens’ financial
recovery in this period was on fostering commercial trade. So the Athenians tried to
entice metics to return to the city, facilitated trade through the creation of commercial
courts, and even naturalized metic bankers so that they would remain in Athens. 35
Crucially, these efforts at boosting commercial trade destabilized traditional
categories of civic status, in effect blurring the lines between citizens and others and
thereby diluting the content of civic ties among citizens. Metics were enticed to return in
large part by the grant of enktēsis, or the citizen right to possess property within the
polis. 36 Similarly, the commercial courts granted what was essentially a citizen right—to
defend oneself or prosecute another before an Athenian jury—to foreigners; indeed, a
number of bankers at this time were actually granted citizen status. 37 In both cases,
traditional boundaries between citizen and non-citizen were blurred. 38 It is important
here that the space in which this occurred, the Piraeus port, was heavily commercialized,
35
In his Ways and Means, Xenophon explicitly recommends bringing back metics (Xen. P. 2.1-7), creating
facilities and hostels to promote trade (Xen. P. 3.12-13; cf. Din. 1.96), and creating commercial courts dikai
emporikai (Xen. P. 3.3) on which see [Dem.] 7.12, AP 59.5, Pollux. 8.63 and Cohen (1973: 59-74),
Vélissaropoulus (1980: 241-5). Additionally, Xenophon recommends creating a board of ei)rhnofu/lakej
to make the city more attractive to trade (Xen. P. 5.1); such an idea may very well have underpinned the
creation of the Theoric Commission.
36
Pečirka (1962: 152-60) collects the sources; see also Burke (2002: 182).
37
Cohen (1973: 59-74) on the maritime courts, Osborne (1981-3: 194-9, 210-15) on the naturalization of
bankers.
38
Most forcefully argued by Burke (2002: 182-3). On the marked distinctions between citizens and metics
in Athenian civic ideology, Whitehead (1977) is foundational; recently, Kostas Vlassopoulos (2007) has
argued that these boundaries were far more blurry in reality than our literary sources would suggest—cf.
Hagemajer Allen (2003) for a similar conclusion reached from a different approach—but accepting his
view does not preclude constant contestation and problematization of those same boundaries.
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