BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua
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BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Seven citizen and authoritative juror: hence the involvement of more jurors in executing the selection process, or the use of more props (pinakia, colored staffs) to dramatize the jurors’ roles. The implementation of the lot at each step of the way may very well have been a reminder of the profoundly religious character of the jurors’ office, as signaled by the oath of the heliasts sworn by all potential jurors each year. 13 Inasmuch as the new, more complicated allotment process was a kind of civic ritual, it is perhaps unsurprising that the Athenians soon extended it to the selection of magistrates, as well. The changes to the jury allotment procedures thus may have been geared more towards both preventing jurors from self-assembling into blocks of voters and inculcating a sense of civic identity than from preventing an external agent from bribing a jury en masse. The difference is crucial. While the Athenians turned to the law to regulate how an outsider could interface with a political body like a jury, they left the regulation of jurors’ behavior to informal means like the heliastic oath or the process of allotment. No doubt this distinction was partly necessary if the Athenians were to maintain secret ballot voting in court cases. But one significant sociological consequence of these policies was that elites would have been disproportionately punished in courts of law—whether for giving or taking bribes—whereas the masses who sat on juries would have been controlled through non-punitive measures. 14 What seems at first glance to have been an elaborate system set up to prevent corruption appears, on closer examination, to have served a very different purpose, indeed. What I suggest is that in both cases the desire to locate jurors or magistrates 13 So Bers (2000: 558-9) helpfully carves a middle path through the ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ interpretations of the lot, on which see, for example, Headlam (1933: 4-17), Demont (2003: 39-50). 14 On the social composition of juries, see Markle (1985). Taylor (2007) convincingly shows that magistrates selected by lot were more likely to be drawn from a broader socio-economic and geographical range than those elected. 301

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Seven within an explicitly political space—one stripped of the content of personal relations and imbued instead with civic meaning and identity—led the Athenians to devise an increasingly elaborate selection procedure. This procedure amounted to nothing less than a civic ritual that simultaneously removed jurors from their social relations qua neighbors or philoi from the same tribe and promoted a common civic identity qua jurors or public officials. It focused on the relationships, not the dōra, in dōrodokia. Perhaps as a result, it performed less of a regulatory and more of an educational role. As with the swearing of the heliastic oath, the use of the lot throughout the ritual signaled the sanctity of the position the jurors and officials took on. 15 The ritual itself educated its participants in the very ways in which they should perform their duties: participation of all, with impartiality, for the benefit of the community, with added honor for oneself. Whereas legal regulations might be viewed as punitive measures meant to correct a wrong, the institutional changes made to the jury and magistrate allotment procedures signaled a desire to educate participants in how to perform a public role—that is, they focused on preventing the wrong from happening in the first place. To that extent we might helpfully connect this educative function with the prevailing conception of the dōrodokos at the time of the bulk of these changes: he was a thief, an insider looking to become an outsider, but who might nevertheless be reintegrated into the community as an insider. Again, if the Athenians were concerned about dōrodokia in the selection of jurors or magistrates, they were focused more on these figures’ relation to the community rather than, specifically, on the dōra they might receive. In order to mend that relationship to the community, the Athenians used civic rituals to foster a more civic- oriented character. 15 Cf. Headlam (1933: 4-12), Bers (2000: 558-9), Demont (2003: 50-51). 302

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Seven<br />

within an explicitly political space—one stripped of the content of personal relations and<br />

imbued instead with civic meaning and identity—led the Athenians to devise an<br />

increasingly elaborate selection procedure. This procedure amounted to nothing less than<br />

a civic ritual that simultaneously removed jurors from their social relations qua neighbors<br />

or philoi from the same tribe and promoted a common civic identity qua jurors or public<br />

officials. It focused on the relationships, not the dōra, in dōrodokia. Perhaps as a result,<br />

it performed less of a regulatory and more of an educational role. As with the swearing<br />

of the heliastic oath, the use of the lot throughout the ritual signaled the sanctity of the<br />

position the jurors and officials took on. 15 The ritual itself educated its participants in the<br />

very ways in which they should perform their duties: participation of all, with<br />

impartiality, for the benefit of the community, with added honor for oneself.<br />

Whereas legal regulations might be viewed as punitive measures meant to correct<br />

a wrong, the institutional changes made to the jury and magistrate allotment procedures<br />

signaled a desire to educate participants in how to perform a public role—that is, they<br />

focused on preventing the wrong from happening in the first place. To that extent we<br />

might helpfully connect this educative function with the prevailing conception of the<br />

dōrodokos at the time of the bulk of these changes: he was a thief, an insider looking to<br />

become an outsider, but who might nevertheless be reintegrated into the community as an<br />

insider. Again, if the Athenians were concerned about dōrodokia in the selection of<br />

jurors or magistrates, they were focused more on these figures’ relation to the community<br />

rather than, specifically, on the dōra they might receive. In order to mend that<br />

relationship to the community, the Athenians used civic rituals to foster a more civic-<br />

oriented character.<br />

15 Cf. Headlam (1933: 4-12), Bers (2000: 558-9), Demont (2003: 50-51).<br />

302

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