BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Five
investigation (apophasis) by the Areopagus Court into an alleged instance of dōrodokia.
Finally, depending on the offense and procedure used, there were three different penalties
for illicitly giving and receiving dōra: outlawry or, later, disfranchisement (atimia),
death, and a tenfold fine for the amount of the dōra. 3
Taken as a whole, these measures exhibit two characteristics strikingly at odds
with each other. There is a wide range of coverage, including a variety of offenses
(illicitly giving and taking dōra, making corrupt promises) by a variety of specific agents
(generals, public speakers, and political assemblies of various kinds are all singled out).
Yet there is also considerable overlap in the offenses and procedures, where bribing a
group of people conceivably falls under any of three different graphai, to say nothing of
the possibility of investigating the offense under an apophasis or, if the offender was a
public official, an eisangelia or euthyna.
How do we account for such rich legal innovation? For scholars of Athenian law,
this variety of reforms straightforwardly indicates a persistent anxiety in the democracy
about dōrodokia. 4 They assume either that the Athenians first identified a range of
(precisely the kind of property normally confiscated under an apographē); that part of his property came
from bribes he received is thus purely incidental.
3 Our sources give conflicting accounts of the penalties for dōrodokia; this is an intractable problem for any
legal history of dōrodokia. Atimia: explicit in the law cited at Dem. 24.113; cf. And. 1.74, Aeschin. 3.232.
Tenfold fine: AP 54.2, Hyp. 5.24, Din. 1.60, 2.16-17. Death: Isoc. 8.50, Aeschin. 1.86-7 for the graphē
dekasmou; Din. 1.60, Hyp. 5.24 (conjectured). Of these sources, Aeschin. 3.232 lists only atimia as a
penalty for the graphē dōrōn, while both Din. 1.60 and Hyp. 5.24 claim that the penalty was either death or
a tenfold fine. I argue below that these last two penalties applied only at a euthyna or eisangelia procedure
(although originally instead of death atimia qua outlawry was used), while, as Aeschines attests, atimia
(qua disfranchisement) was the only penalty used in a graphē dōrōn suit: see note 33 below. The penalty
under an apophasis could vary according to the public decree calling for the investigation: in the case of
the Harpalus Affair, for example, Demosthenes was fined 50 talents after being suspected of taking 20
talents in dōra (Plut. Dem. 26.2). It is unknown what the penalty was for conviction in a graphē
dōroxenias, but atimia qua outlawry was likely: see Chapter Six below.
4 Such a baldly functionalist view underpins the consensus scholarly view. So, for example, Strauss (1985:
73) remarks, “Bribes threatened to turn an individual against the commonwealth, hence they were
outlawed.” Similarly, MacDowell (1983a: 57): “It is...not surprising that some attempts were made to
check corruption by legislation and prosecution.” Cf. Calhoun (1913: 67), Harvey (1985: 95), Taylor
(2001: 157), Hashiba (2006: 72).
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