BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Four
By the measure of any contemporary account, the Athenians had cause for
concern in the 330’s, an especially volatile time for Athenian foreign relations. By 340,
Athens and Macedon had openly broken the Peace of Philocrates and renewed hostilities.
Philip appeared to be on the move yet again, and a coalition of Greek forces was
marshaled to stop him. But the Greek side was outmatched, and the resultant battle at
Chaeronea in 338 was an unqualified disaster for Athens and her allies: Philip won
decisively and assumed control over Greek affairs, a hegemonic position which he
institutionalized the next year as leader of the panhellenic League of Corinth; the Second
Athenian League was dissolved.
Not surprisingly, Chaeronea sent shockwaves through Athens. Even though a
number of Athenians were resistant to the League of Corinth—largely because Philip
appeared to be treading on the autonomy of Greek poleis—the battle at Chaeronea had
demonstrated that nothing much could be done with Philip still at the Macedonian helm.
In 336, however, anti-Macedonian proponents saw their chance when Philip was
assassinated. There was a series of revolts, but again it was not enough. Philip’s son,
Alexander the Great, quickly suppressed the revolutions, and decisively so (Diod.
17.4.4). The following year, when Thebes again tried to muster some form of resistance,
Alexander razed the city and enslaved some 30,000 of its citizens (Diod. 17.8. 3-14.1,
Arr. 1.7.1-8.8, Plut. Dem. 23.1). After Thebes’ obliteration, direct resistance to Macedon
was essentially a dead letter. 45
45 Sealey (1993: 194-205), Habicht (1997: 11-22), Ryder (2000: 78-84), Worthington (2000b: 90-9).
Sparta’s subsequent attempt at a coup resulted in a heavy defeat in 330. As Worthington (2000b: 94)
astutely remarks, calling for resistance to Macedon at that time would not have been a winning rhetorical
strategy in large part because Alexander had left for the East soon after the sack of Thebes. Unlike Philip,
who had maintained a near constant presence in Greece for decades, Alexander was a manifestly more
distant threat.
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