BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Seven
ask who was most affected by a legal or institutional change—and above all how they
were affected—we begin to see that, within the context of Athenian society, these legal
and institutional changes had dramatically different effects. Whereas changes in the law
primarily affected elite citizens, for they were most liable to prosecution for dōrodokia—
whether receiving or giving bribes—institutional changes, which tended to affect the
masses who served on political bodies, were not punitive. Moreover, whereas
institutional reforms focused on eliminating certain kinds of relationships—e.g. close ties
among jurors or between juror and litigant—legal regulations focused only on
eliminating certain kinds of gifts and were effectively silent on the social relationships
leveraged in politics. Understanding the purpose of such social differentiation will thus
be one key aim of this chapter.
Asking who was affected by Athenian legislation on dōrodokia and how
implicates the further question of why these particular Athenians were affected in this
particular way: in other words, we are faced with the intended role of law in society.
This chapter will focus on two related roles—what we might term law’s educational and
legitimating roles—each of which strengthened the democracy in a different way.
Changes to Athens’ political institutions and to her laws on dōrodokia aimed in part to
educate citizens by instilling within them proper democratic values and making them
aware of the prevailing political norms on dōrodokia. Yet anti-dōrodokia laws in
particular opened up a political space wherein the norms themselves could be contested
and re-established by the proper authoritative body. In this sense, dōrodokia suits in
action served as a means of legitimizing specific political outcomes, political players, and
even political practices. Certainly the law’s ability to act as a deterrent continued
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