BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Six
with political institutions like assemblies, lawcourts, and executive boards. 47 Unlike
public officials, who were regularly held accountable by the end of the fifth century,
these private individuals could engage with the polity yet seemingly evade accountability.
This section will trace how the legal and institutional changes from the end of the fifth
century onward reflected a revised understanding of the dōrodokos. As we will see,
focusing on both bribe-givers and bribe-takers, that is both outsiders and insiders at once,
mirrored how the dōrodokos himself was conceived as simultaneously inside and outside
the moral community of the dēmos. Institutional reform was thus articulated in response
to the dōrodokos.
In the previous section we saw how, by 411, the eisangelia procedure came to be
used for a number of new offenses, including dōrodokia: specific kinds of dōrodokia,
meaning specific kinds of dōrodokoi, were thus singled out for legal action. Crucially,
some of these new dōrodokoi were not public officials. On the one hand, it is
straightforward enough that the treason clause of the nomos eisangeltikos was expanded
to include a provision against taking dōra (cf. dw=ra lamba/nh|, Lex. Cant. s.v.
ei)saggeli/a). As discussed earlier, this clause would have been used primarily to
prosecute stratēgoi or other top military officials who were elected to control whole
armies, particularly as it was incorporated into a clause on the actions of stratēgoi. On
the other hand, it is remarkable that the conduct of rhētores, who were not magistrates,
was regulated in the same way: they were forbidden to “take money and speak against
the interests of the Athenian people” (r(h/twr w2n mh\ le/gh| ta\ a1rista tw| = dh/mw| tw= |
47 As Wallace (2006) rightly describes, one general feature of the Athenian democracy was that ‘private’
conduct was defined as essentially anything that did not harm the community or another individual. I
would add, moreover, that this specific demarcation of private and public was something that developed
over time. This section outlines one crucial step in that development.
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