BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Six
jury to accept or reject the Areopagus’ verdict, but prosecutors were sure to point out how
just and true the Areopagus’ report must be. So, in the Harpalus Affair, prosecutors
continually referred back to the Areopagus’ verdict as their (sole) evidence that
Demosthenes and others were guilty; for them, the verdict of the Areopagus was
unimpeachable, and the dōrodokoi represented a threat to that very authority. 82
So the fourth-century legal focus on dōrodokia of large groups of citizens and of
large political bodies went hand-in-hand with the nascent political narrative depicting the
dōrodokos as a traitor. At the same time, the impetus for asserting the authority of
discrete political domains to legitimate communal norms was an old one: as we have
seen, that aspect of dōrodokia legislation was constant from the Solonian graphē dōrōn
onwards. Within the law, at least, we might say that the dōrodokos represented a
consistent threat to the way the community established value. This included a threat not
only to what was and was not in the community’s interests, but even to who in the
community was authorized to make that evaluation in the first place.
The threat of the dōrodokos at this time was considerable. He was thought
capable of corrupting an entire political body, in effect forcing the Athenians to reassert
the authority of one political body or to switch domains to another one altogether. Just as
he was traitorously positioned to overturn the democracy, the dōrodokos overturned the
very sources of political authority in the city, as well. Switching domains as the
Athenians often did in the fourth century in response to suspected corruption thus
reflected a particular conception of the dōrodokos qua a traitor to the community.
Crucially, then, underpinning institutional reform throughout the fourth century was the
82 Carawan (1985: 136-7). Note how frequently the prosecutors weigh the upstanding nature and justice of
the Areopagus’ report against the corruption and injustice of the defendants: Din. 1.45, 1.87, 2.1, 2.2, 2.6-
7, 3.7; Hyp. 5 fr.3.5-7.
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