BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Five later was this general list of offenses by magistrates compiled in the form of the nomos eisangeltikos and, crucially, turned into a series of offenses by private individuals, too, who could then be prosecuted under a graphē to the thesmothetai. 63 We have only one tantalizing bit of evidence, but it suggests that the graphē dōrōn went through the same changes. In the collection of laws from Demosthenes 46.26, the manuscripts read, “If anyone bribes (sundeka/zh|)...whether giving or illicitly receiving money for the purpose of dōrodokia (e)pi\ dwrodoki/a| xrh/mata didou\j h2 dexo/menoj)...” The grammar is strained here, for it is untenable that the person illicitly giving money (sundeka/zh|) also illicitly received it (dexo/menoj). Possibly, though, our text conceals a reference to the original law against dōrodokia; if so, and even if not, then that law, like others collected in the same group, might have originally applied only to public officials. 64 On this view, the original procedure for the graphē dōrōn would have been a simple ‘indictment’ (whether called an eisangelia or a graphē) of a public official. At a later time, perhaps when changes to the law’s wording were made, it was turned into 63 On this later compilation, see Calhoun (1913: 67-8 n.6). The thrust of my argument holds even if the original offenses governed by an eisangelia (public denouncement) were, technically, applicable to any citizen; in other words, even if the original nomoi were nowhere restricted to public officials, per se, I suggest that in actuality the motivation behind and application of them concerned only public officials until the formal codification of graphai at the end of the fifth century. Note how with Demophantus’ law in 409/8 the Athenians essentially redrafted the law against overthrowing the dēmos so that it applied to anyone (cf. e)a/n tij dhmokrati/an katalu/h| th\n 0Aqh/nhsin, And. 1.96). 64 Plausible restoration is impossible given the strength of the manuscript tradition, but it should be noted that the clauses about illicitly giving and receiving money only repeat the force of sundika/zh|. More telling is Pollux’ testimony that the graphē dekasmou concerned only active bribery, as the name suggests (Pollux 8.42); after all, despite this testimony that a bribed juror could be prosecuted by a graphē dōrōn, we never hear of jurors, Assembly members, or Council members on trial for committing dōrodokia (pace Aeschin. 1.86-7: see below). Thus, I suggest, h2 dexo/menoj could have been later added, presumably because a scholiast was thinking of the law against dōrodokia; an h1 dropped out between th\n boulh/n and e)pi\ dwrodoki/a|; or the participles either in the dexo/menoj clause or in both clauses should be emended to finite verbs, e.g. di/dw|...h2 de/xhtai. 243
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Five a regular graphē before the thesmothetai, by which procedure any citizen could be prosecuted. 65 Having outlined all of the above changes to the law’s substantive meaning, punishment and procedure, we can finally turn to establishing its date and significance. Although we lack positive evidence either way, two aspects of the graphē dōrōn suggest that it dates back to Solon’s laws, instituted in 594/3 nearly one century before the democracy. Inasmuch as the original graphē dōron appears to have been a general regulation demarcating the illicit receipt of gifts only in broad terms, it is not likely to have been drafted in response to a specific new phenomenon, say, taking dōra from the Persians during the Persian wars. 66 Instead, it appears to have been an innovation which 65 Ant. 6.49-50, dating to 419/8, may be evidence that the graphē dōrōn already existed by this time: see note 58 below. Note how, when AP 59.2 lists the graphē dōrōn among the list of graphai before the thesmothetai, there is no hint that these laws were archaic: see Rhodes (2006: 258). At any rate, it is unlikely that the original graphē dōrōn, which effectively established the accountability of magistrates, would have entailed a graphē before the thesmothetai. All other public indictments of officials came before the Areopagus, and there is no reason to think that dōrodokia would have been singled out as an exception to this rule, particularly given the fact that the thesmothetai were, themselves, prime magistrates who might be suspected of dōrodokia. On the institution of public accountability, see further below. 66 As recently conjectured by Hashiba (2006: 72-3), who is forced to posit a date for the graphē dōrōn only after the 480’s based on the (erroneous) assumption that such legislation was forged from “a strict attitude towards bribery” (2006: 72) and constituted “a condemnation of bribery from a standpoint representing the public interests of the polis” (2006: 72n.42). As we have seen, however, Athenian condemnations of dōrodokia need not entail a “strict attitude” towards taking dōra in office, and it only begs the question to claim that legislation on dōrodokia represented the public interests of the polis. Even if we do follow Hashiba’s dating, however, his (admittedly conjectural) argument on the contents of the first law on dōrodokia is nonetheless purely associative. Precisely because our sources on dōrodokia in the first half of the fifth century happen to refer to taking dōra from the Persians and ‘Medizing’, he argues that the original law against dōrodokia outlawed taking dōra from the Mede (2006: 73). As David Lewis (1979) points out, however, this fear of bribe-induced Medizing probably reflects late—not early—fifth-century bias, for there is no secure evidence of Persian gold actually entering into Greek relations until the second half the fifth century. Even so, to make his case, Hashiba adduces two examples: in 480, Lycides and his family were stoned to death because Lycides had proposed that the Athenians vote on surrendering to the Persian King (Hdt. 9.5), and perhaps in 461 Arthmius of Zelea was decreed an enemy of the people for allegedly conveying gold from the Persian King to Sparta (Aeschin. 3.258; Dem. 9.42, 19.271; Din. 2.24-5; Aristides 1.310 Dindorff; cf. Thuc. 1.109; Diod. 11.74.5). While these examples “support the proposition that in the 470s and 460s the Athenians believed that bribery associated with Medism should be punished by outlawry”(72), they also suggest that at this time the Athenians were content to employ informal, extrajudicial means to do so. In other words, we need not posit the creation of a formal, legal sanction in response to dōrodokia associated with Medism. 244
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BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam
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© Copyright by Kellam McChesney Co
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legislating dōrodokia. Rather than
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encouragement that made me crazily
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and long-lasting patience were crit
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CHAPTER SEVEN: Athenian dōrodokia
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