BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Seven
forming a political faction to overthrow the democracy, point in the direction that a
concerted group of political agents was helping to corrupt the judicial process. 11
On this view, as judicial outcomes like Anytus’ trial in 409 ran counter to the
dēmos’ expectations, they were blamed on a kind of dōrodokia that signaled a
problematic relationship to the community. As with other accusations of dōrodokia, I
would add, what was troubling was the idea that single individuals could have
relationships with such far-reaching influence; the media used to negotiate those
relationships—whether drachmas, favors, or other—was thus incidental.
The Athenians’ response was twofold: first, to atomize jurors so that they could
not self-assemble into large voting blocks; and then to ritualize the allotment process
through an increasingly complex series of steps in order to remind jurors of the very
authority they held as dikasts. Note how the sortition process first broke up jurors by
tribe, then by letter groups, precisely the two categories that previously would have been
most easily exploited for collusion. Then, after atomizing jurors, the process transformed
them from citizens into jurors. Like other rituals in the Athenian polis, civic and
otherwise, one purpose of transforming the citizens into this civic category of jurors was
to foster a new solidarity among participants qua dicasts, one thus drawn along public not
private lines. 12
As more steps of the allotment procedure became randomized, they also became
invested with greater social significance, creating greater separation between ordinary
11 See discussion above, Chapter Six.
12 Connor (1987) and Osborne (1994) on, respectively, religious and civic rituals in the democracy. Bers
(2000) also underscores the ritual aspects of the sortition process, but ultimately claims that the process was
meant to assuage non-jurors of the number and probity of jurors selected (2000: esp. 557-8). By contrast, I
would point to the very real significance that the ritual could have for the participating jurors, themselves.
A similar process of identity (trans)formation can be found in the swearing of the dicastic oath, on which
see Chapter Six above.
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