BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Four
token of gratitude. 54 Rather, the dēmos and local deme assemblies increasingly turned to
dispensing symbolic honors for magistrates and private citizens alike: crowns of olive
and gold, civic privileges, and public inscriptions commemorating the award of these
honors. 55
Not only were these honorific inscriptions more prevalent from the middle of the
fourth century, but, crucially, they were also more specific in how they praised an
honorand. For instance, honorific decrees shifted from naming a citizen solely by name
to regularly including the names of his father and deme as well. 56 In the 360’s the
Assembly and deme assemblies began to describe an honorand’s achievements and
services more elaborately, employing a range of ‘cardinal virtues’ to characterize the
public works and the honorand. 57 As David Whitehead has compellingly demonstrated,
54
Whether or not there was pay for public office in the fourth century is a vexed issue among ancient
historians. Although it does not significantly affect my argument, I side with Hansen (1979, 1980), who
claims, largely based on the silence of our sources, that after 411 there was no systematic misthos (“wage”)
for public officials. At the deme level, this is surely correct, as Whitehead (1986: 161) points out; and
epigraphic sources confirm that ambassadors were regularly paid a misthos of 20 drachmas, but only upon
successful completion of their objectives, meaning the payment itself was not so much compensation as a
token of gratitude: IG ii² 102.10-13 (c. 370), 124.12-18 (375/6), 264.9-12 (before 336/5).
The opposite viewpoint has been championed most vigorously by Gabrielsen (1981) and
supported by Rhodes (1981: 691-5), but the lynchpin in Gabrielsen’s argument, Aristotle’s Ath. Pol. 42.3
and 62.2, states only that the nine archons and certain other officials received payments for “maintenance”
(trophē or sitēsis), not a general, all-purpose “wage,” as misthos more regularly connotes: cf. MacDowell
(1983: 75-6) pace Gabrielsen (1981: 67-81), and von Reden (1995a: 89-92) on misthos. Again,
Gabrielsen (1981: 118-19) erroneously assumes that, because the masses frequently (he suggests almost
exclusively) occupied lotteried public positions, they must have been remunerated or else they never would
have chosen to enter office. Yet this premise is contradicted by the fact that every year hundreds of
citizens—including those from lower social strata—spent a number of months serving as chorus members
(chōreutai) in the city’s major festivals. Significantly, these citizens, like most public officials according to
Hansen, received only the provision of meals as ‘remuneration’. In a city with a remarkably strong ethos of
civic participation, it is not inconceivable that poorer citizens would have opted to run for public office,
even without ‘compensation’, once or twice in their lifetime. After all, as Gauthier (1985: 118-9) reminds,
political office was fundamentally an honor (timē).
55
Henry (1983: 22-42; 241-6; 262-78) catalogues the awarding of crowns, exemption from taxes (ateleia),
and public dining, respectively.
56
This development continued well through the democracy to the point that at the end of the fourth century
there emerged detailed relative clauses which still more specifically described the honorand: Henry (1983:
10-11).
57
Naming: Henry (1983: 13). Elaboration in 360’s: Whitehead (1983: 61); cf. Henry (1983: 42-3).
Cardinal virtues: Whitehead (1983; 1993: esp. 52-7, 67-72) on the division between general, all-purpose
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