BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Introduction
define what actually constituted his action—was it bribery or not? This is the problem of
definition. With that established, we can move on to his intent in performing that action:
how did he frame his decision, and what, accordingly, was his motivation? This is the
problem of intent. Finally, we must investigate the motivation behind Athens’ use of the
death penalty here. Why was Timagoras killed, rather than fined or sentenced to some
other punishment? This is the problem of the role of law. Each of these problems will be
discussed in a bit more detail here before we turn to a different, more fruitful way of
understanding Timagoras’ embassy.
When we think of bribery, we tend to think of a kind of abuse of public power for
private gain, but how should this ‘abuse’ be defined? 14 This problem was hotly debated
by political scientists and legal scholars in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Three distinct
definitions of the ‘abuse’ inherent in bribery emerged from that literature, each of which
proved helpful as an analytical category, yet none of which was commonly accepted as a
comprehensive definition of bribery. Certain social scientists defined ‘abuse’ according
to formal, legal regulations: bribery was thus a kind of illegal use of public power for
private profit. Alternatively, recognizing that legal definitions were not always
comprehensive and were sometimes at odds with the interests of the public at large, other
scholars posited that ‘abuse’ should be defined according to what is against the public
interest: bribery, so defined, was when an official profited from public office in a way
detrimental to the public interest. Finally, a third group posited that, in part because the
public interest was a complex idea often difficult to gauge, ‘abuse’ was to be defined
14 See especially Johnston (2005: 10-12) and Chapter One below.
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