BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Five
a greater deterrent—may actually reflect new conceptions of dōrodokia, the law, or
penology. Accordingly, we should ask not just why the Athenians decided to adopt
formal regulations concerning dōrodokia, but especially why they enacted these
particular measures with these particular penalties and procedures. In other words, what
tends to get lost in approaches premised on broad generalizations about Athenian
lawmaking is the tremendous social meaning legislation had for the Athenians. Certainly
there was overlap in Athenian legislation on dōrodokia, but this was motivated by
profound social and political considerations, as we will see, not necessarily by a
conscious desire to promote the rule of law, that is, to effect strictly legal definitions of
legitimate action backed by legally enforced penalties.
Dinarchus’ testimony exposes an additional problem in assuming that Athenian
dōrodokia legislation aimed at something similar to the modern notion of the rule of law.
The rule of law presupposes a specific role for law as the ultimate arbiter of legitimate
action; in a rule of law context, the polity is structured by, specifically, legal norms, and
this system of norms—the law—is ideally kept separate from the contestation of political
norms in deliberative, legislative bodies. Legal penalties thus should be the primary
means of deterring illicit action. For classicists examining Athenian legislation on
dōrodokia, all of these purposes were implicitly served by creating not only a
comprehensive definition of dōrodokia within the law but also an effective system of
accountability to enforce that definition.
To be fair, the Athenians certainly believed in equality before the law—all
citizens had equal access to the courts, and nobody was to be above the law—and the
laws themselves were constantly hailed as one, if not the, central authority on communal
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