BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Six
Tellingly, the punishment established by these public oaths and curses resembled
the penalty of outlawry set up by the original law against dōrodokia. The destruction
called for in public pronouncements was a licit form of community violence against an
offender and his home, just as any violence against someone who was ‘outlawed’ was an
explicitly sanctioned response without consequence or pollution. 15 Like atimia, to curse
and stone an offender was a way to remove a pollution threatening the city like a foreign
enemy. 16 By removing that enemy ‘outsider’, the community reasserted the physical and
symbolic boundaries of the Council’s domain. Yet unlike atimia, a kind of expulsion
which essentially admitted the community’s inability to control a pollution, stoning was a
way to contain a threat; it proved that the dēmos could control an offender. 17 Whereas
outlawry left the offender’s fate in his own hands, stoning took control of the offender’s
life. Both processes thus functioned analogously, but in the newly established democracy
it was political oaths and curses that symbolically heralded the dēmos’ authority to
control its public officials, the dōrodokos in particular.
Even though a citizen like Lycides may have been suspected of dōrodokia, we
need not assume that clauses on dōrodokia were added to public oaths specifically
because dōrodokia was prevalent or because the Athenians were actually concerned that
each and every one of these political bodies was in danger of being corrupted through
15 Asheri’s (1977: 176-9 ad Hdt. 9.5) discussion is particularly insightful on this point; see also Cantarella
(1988). Similarly, that contemporary archons swore to set up a gold statue if they took bribes was also a
way to mitigate pollution. Note how Olympic athletes and judges, too, swore an oath to Zeus Horkios that
they would not do any wrong: Paus. 5.24.4 with Perry (2007). An offender set up a golden statute of Zeus
as a votive offering in honor of the offended deity (Paus. 5.21).
16 As suggested by Herodotus’ military metaphors, which paint a picture of the Athenian women marching
against an enemy. Note how, according to Lycurgus, Lycides’ recommendation was tantamount to
betraying the city (prodido/nai th\n po/lin, Lyc. 1.122). Cantarella (1991: 84-7) helpfully underscores
how the act of stoning reinforced the boundaries of the community while configuring an offender as an
outsider. For the contiguities between stoning and religious purification, see further Gernet (1981: 265-6),
Allen (2000: 205-6) and especially Cantarella (1988; 1991: 80-4).
17 On this crucial difference, Allen (2000: 209-11) is foundational. Cf. Gernet (1981: esp. 265-7)
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