BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Six
So it was that in the years after Ephialtes’ reforms, the euthyna process was
adapted to address fears about a new kind of dōrodokia involving tribute payments which
had recently been transferred to the Treasury of Athena at Athens. 19 This new kind of
dōrodokia came to be framed in the law not just as an act of bad decision-making, but
especially as a kind of financial mismanagement. Within the context of this shift in
practices, the Athenians modified the penalties, not the formal processes, concerning
dōrodokia. Indeed, the last chapter noted that by the fourth century the graphē dōrōn
procedure had three penalties: the original Solonian punishment of atimia (though by
then envisioned as ‘disfranchisement’, not ‘outlawry’), death, and a fine of ten times the
amount of dōra received. Yet these last two penalties are securely attested only long
after Ephialtes’ reforms: respectively, in 424 when Eurymedon was fined (Thuc. 4.56.3)
and in either 394/3 or 393/2, when Onomasas and perhaps other members of Epicrates’
embassy to the Persian King were condemned to death (Lys. 27.3). 20 As will be clear,
these penalties actually suggest divergent approaches to dealing with the dōrodokos:
whereas the law was ‘updated’ to address new concerns, the resultant legal and
institutional changes forced the Athenians to rethink how they conceptualized dōrodokia.
19
Ar. Eq. 66, 69, 403, 802, 830-5, 996, V. 669-77, Nu. 591; [And.] 4.30-1; Lys. 19.52 with Thuc. 6.12.2,
6.15.2.
20
The use of the death penalty or some monetary fine is attested for some dōrodokia trials prior to the
420’s, but not securely. Following Herodotus, Miltiades had to pay a fine probably for a charge of apatē,
not dōrodokia (Hdt. 6.136). Aristides was reportedly convicted of dōrodokia and fined, but already in
antiquity Plutarch doubted the story on the basis that only Craterus mentions the trial yet provides no
evidence for it (Plut. Arist. 26.2-5). The anticipated penalty for Cimon’s trial was apparently death (cf.
qanatikh\n di/khn, Plut. Per. 10.6), but see further Chapter Seven below. Callias’ purported conviction and
fine at a euthyna for taking dōra from the Persian King (449/8) have long been thought spurious: debated
in AE 129-51, 487-95, Robertson (1980: 77-8), Meister (1982), Badian (1987), Piccirilli (1989). The
hellēnotamiai were probably tried for embezzlement, not dōrodokia—the word xrhma/twn, not dw/rwn, is
used to describe the offense (Ant. 5.69)—when nine of them were put to death sometime in the 450’s or
440’s (Ant. 5.69-71). Pericles was fined and deposed on the Argolid expedition in 430, but his case also
included charges of embezzlement: Thuc. 2.65.3, Plat. Gorg. 516A.
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