BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Seven
a public jury, the Assembly, the Areopagus Council, and the Assembly with preliminary
investigation and verdict by the Areopagus. 28 For three of these four venues the relevant
law came to specify that dōrodokia entailed ‘harm’ to the people. 29
The wide range of venues for bribery trials suggests more than mere ‘flexibility’;
indeed, it seems that the Athenians were keen to match dōrodokia to the ‘right’ judicial
venue, the right domain of authoritative expertise. So, as we saw in the previous two
chapters, in the archaic period prior to the democracy, when dōrodokia was viewed as a
kind of moral pollution to the community, a public suit for taking bribes (graphē dōrōn)
was created, and all such suits were tried before the Areopagus Council, the most
hallowed body in Athens. By the start of the democracy, however, the people as a whole
began to regulate what did and did not constitute bribery, first through a series of public
curses and oaths and then through formal trials, as around 462/1 the jurisdiction over
bribery trials was transferred from the Areopagus to jury courts and the Assembly. As
the next section will detail, part of the motivation behind this shift was that the
28
Recall that public trials (graphai) presided over by the thesmothetai were held for those prosecuted for
the general offense of bribery (graphē dōrōn), bribing a judicial body (graphē dekasmou), or taking bribes
while a public prosecutor or witness (synēgoros), and probably bribing the jury in a citizenship trial
(graphē dōroxenias). Trials for outgoing magistrates (euthynai) accused of bribery were presided over by
the financial examiners (logistai), while impeachment of public officials still in office (eisangelia) and
public speakers (rhētores) came before the Assembly. Finally, in the early part of the democracy, the trials
of magistrates were heard by the Areopagus court (euthyna or eisangelia). From the 340’s on, a new
procedure in which the Areopagus performed an investigation (apophasis) and gave their verdict prior to a
trial before the Assembly was created for bribery trials.
29
On changes to the original law against dōrodokia, including the redefinition as “harm to the dēmos or on
of the citizens” (e0pi\ bla/bh| tou~ dh/mou h@ tino\j tw=n politw~n, Dem. 21.113), see above p. 125; the
graphē dekasmou also makes explicit reference to the original law against bribery (cf. e)pi\ dwrodoki/a|
xrh/mata didou/j, [Dem.] 46.26). Eisangelia: rhētores could be prosecuted for “taking gifts and speaking
against the interests of the Athenian dēmos” (mh\ le/gh| ta\ a)/rista tw= | dh/mw| tw= | 0Aqhnai/wn xrh/mata
lamba/nwn, Hyp. 4.8). Apophasis: When the Areopagus conducted an apophasis in the Harpalus Affair, its
charge was probably to determine whether or not the indicted officials had taken gifts “against the country”
(kata\ th=j patri/doj), as this phrase recurs throughout the speeches of prosecutors: e.g. Din. 1.13, 1.26,
1.60, 1.64, 1.67, 2.6, 3.18, 3.22; cf. 1.3, 1.99, 2.26; Hyp. 5.21, 5.38. Even then, the only exception to this
rule is the prosecution of magistrates before the Areopagus, but this grew out of the archaic period prior to
the re-drafting of the original law against dōrodokia and was, in any case, later re-defined to include
‘harm’.
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