BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Four
this respect, were the jurors to acquit him, Dinarchus warns, they would effectively
betray justice (to\ di/kaion), favoring Demosthenes’ reputation over the honor the city
would recoup by punishing him (cf. do/cai, Din. 1.27).
Dinarchus similarly contrasts Demosthenes with Themistocles, Aristides, and
other renowned Athenians to imply that, no matter how great Demosthenes’ reputation,
or doxa, it should never be placed above that of the city. Demosthenes, in fact, is thought
to have diminished the city’s own doxa by placing his own safety above that of the
community (cf. a)docote/ran, Din. 1.40). In this way, Demosthenes assumed an
undemocratic air, as if he considered himself somehow better than the city and the people
or, worse still, somehow immune to the laws and the Areopagus’ report (Din. 1.40; cf.
1.45, 87; Hyp. 5.12). 73
As this last comparison suggests, Demosthenes’ symbolic contempt for the city’s
laws also betokened contempt for the symbols and values of the city itself. Unlike the
city’s great benefactors—men like Themistocles or Aristides who built the city’s walls
and brought in the first tribute from Athens’ allies—Demosthenes refuses to give any
good (agathon) to the city, watching over only his own safety and treating everything as a
source of income (Din. 1.40; cf. 2.15). Accordingly, his corrupt activity, so indicative of
his contempt for the city’s laws, indicates, too, a conscious refusal to perform public
Harpalus Affair and then tried to escape the court’s verdict thus inflates his own unseemly arrogance
(beyond that of the gods!) and denigrates the authority of the laws. See further Dem. 24.5; Aeschin. 1.4,
3.6, 3.196; Din. 2.19, 3.3; and Ober (1989: 217-19) on the Athenians’ antipathy towards legal advantages
for anyone, especially the wealthy.
73 Pseudo-Demosthenes makes a similar point in underscoring how those who sell the interests of their
country have regard for neither laws nor oaths ([Dem.] 17.13). It was readily assumed, therefore, that
citizens accused of crimes like sykophancy or dōrodokia—which appeared to involve a malicious disregard
for the law (cf. Dem. 19.101, 120)—considered themselves above the law. So, Demosthenes warns the
jury not to let Aeschines become “greater than the masses” (mei/zw...tw=n pollw=n, Dem. 19.296), nor to
pardon Theocrines, accused of sykophancy, for consciously and arrogantly casting aside the laws (Dem.
58.15, 24).
201