BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Six
that dōrodokia was prevalent in the early democracy or that informal measures were
required because of the Athenians’ inability to regulate political agents through more
formal means. 10 Yet a common impulse might nevertheless lie behind the emendations to
these oaths and curses, all of which were adopted possibly within as narrow a timeframe
as the first few decades of the democracy. Indeed, the clauses on dōrodokia might very
well have been the means by which the dēmos transformed its political bodies into
institutions of, explicitly, a democracy. As I argue, these clauses are illuminated when
taken as a whole and placed in conjunction with the clauses on following the city’s laws,
for both clauses indicate a desire to mark out the kinds of behaviors that the community
expected of its political agents. In this sense, they simultaneously define a political
space—a domain of authority—and located individuals’ actions within that
depersonalized space.
The inclusion of clauses on acting lawfully signaled that political agents in a
variety of political bodies were bound by the laws in what they could or could not do.
Archons, for example, had specific jurisdictions based on areas of substantive law and
were not allowed to prosecute citizens or, later, to conduct trials outside these limits. The
clause in the archons’ oath on performing the duties of office “in accordance with the
laws” (kata\ tou\j no/mouj) defined the boundaries of a space in which their actions were
expressly legal and hence in accordance with the good ordering of the city’s laws.
10 The conclusions reached by Kahrstedt (1936: 64) and Hashiba (2006: 75), respectively. Hashiba (2006:
75) concludes that the creation of an extra-legal measure like the archon’s oath is an indication that a
formal, legal measure would have been ineffective. Cf. Faraone (2002: 84-5). That the Athenians did not
enact any formal measures, however, only begs the question that dōrodokia was a tremendous problem.
Hashiba’s interpretation presumes, moreover, that in the face of such a problem, the Athenians simply
would have assumed that no formal resolution could be attained and left the matter at that. Yet the
Athenians did make a number of similar institutional changes within a short time of when Hashiba claims
they were unable to: notably, Ephialtes’ reforms, on which see below.
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