BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Six
and his counsel. The Athenians outside the Council meeting eventually “got wind of”
Lycides’ recommendation and immediately stoned him to death (cf. w(j e)pu/qonto, Hdt.
9.5), and there was such an uproar (qoru/bou) in Salamis over Lycides that, after the
women finally heard about what had happened (punqa/nontai to\ gino/menon, Hdt. 9.5),
they too took action, marching to Lycides’ home and stoning his wife and children to
death.
Significantly, Herodotus uses military metaphors to describe the women’s actions,
as each woman “ordered on” the next (diakeleusame/nh, Hdt. 9.5), and they approached
the home “at their own command” (au)tokele/ej, Hdt. 9.5). As subtly conveyed by these
metaphors, the stoning of Lycides and his family was a concerted, informal response by
the entire community, a response which, like an army marching against an enemy, aimed
to contain a threat to the city. As with a formal trial or decree of the Assembly, the
community came together, heard a report, and collectively pronounced judgment on the
offender. 14 In this way, Lycides’ apparently untenable counsel was replaced by public
speech, then collective action by the people as a whole; in casting Lycides’ actions as
outside the Council’s domain of authority, the people effectively replicated the kinds of
action permissible within that domain. It is worth pointing out that such permissible
actions were manifestly democratic modes of politics.
14 Note how, in Lycurgus’ account, the Assembly was thought to have taken the formal step of passing a
public decree about Lycides (Lyc. 1.122). But such a decree, if in fact it existed—cf. Habicht (1961: 21-
2)—would have been drafted only after the fact, as even Lycurgus’ account suggests: Flower and
Marincola (2002: 108 ad Hdt. 9.5.2). Herodotus might preserve an oblique hint of this mirroring of formal
action in his report that, when the Athenians heard about Lycides’ proposal, they “stood around” him and
stoned him to death (perista/ntej, Hdt. 9.5). Such a scene certainly recalls the public nature of archaic
court trials, like that represented on the shield of Achilles, where crowds stood around the litigants and
judges: Hom. Il. 18.502-3, Hes. WD 29. But, as Asheri (1977: 177 ad Hdt. 9.5.6-9) notes, Herodotus’
precise wording might be a reference to trials in Classical Athens, as well, where at least in the fourth
century “those standing around” a trial (oi( periesthko/tej) were frequently invoked by litigants as a
critical part of the trial itself: Lanni (1997). Likewise, the qo/ruboj that rose up in the city might suggest
the “din” of the crowd often invoked by speakers in court, on which see especially Bers (1985).
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