BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

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.
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