BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Seven
In effect, those intermediary trials enabled Ephialtes to delegitimize the Areopagus’
acquittal of Cimon.
Given the ideological tensions and concerns with bribery reported in our
sources—and especially given how in Athenian bribery trials what constituted dōrodokia
was, itself, under trial—we can plausibly conjecture that this anti-democratic bias would
have come under fire when Ephialtes alleged that the Areopagites had ‘done injustice to
the people’. On this reconstruction, Ephialtes’ prosecution of the Areopagites pitted two
sides against each other: ‘acquit’, anti-democratic, and dōrodokia were lined up against
‘convict’, democratic and an ‘uncorrupt’ way of holding officials accountable (i.e.
Ephialtes’ imminent reforms). 48 I propose that the series of dōrodokia trials was used, in
part, to delegitimize the Areopagus’ method of accountability and to signal public
support for a new way to secure legitimate political results (such as convictions at a
bribery trial like Cimon’s). The very process by which public officials would be held
accountable seemed, itself, to be on trial.
It is surely significant, after all, that the unusual way in which Cimon was brought
to trial—with public prosecutors conducting the case before a judicial body composed of
the people—would subsequently form the backbone for public accountability after
Ephialtes’ reforms. 49 Ephialtes transferred jurisdiction for trials of public officials from
the Areopagus to the Council of 500 and the jury courts, the composition of both of
which was at this time demonstrably more inclusive than that of the Areopagus Council.
As such, the decisions made by each body straightforwardly manifested the norms of the
48 Cf. Raaflaub (2007: 139) on the terms of this debate.
49 In Cimon’s trial the people elected ten public prosecutors to conduct the trial before the Assembly and
the Areopagus. After Ephialtes’ reforms, prosecutions at euthynai were conducted either by euthynoi, who
were ten members chosen by lot from the Council, or by any willing citizen; depending on the offense,
these trials would be held before either the Council or a jury court.
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