BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One
correspond, respectively, to whether or not the transaction medium represents a voluntary
bestowal on another, direct exchange, or rightful claim to a share. 9
Building on Zelizer’s ideas, I argue that bribery should be understood no less as a
way of negotiating social relations. After all, bribes are commonly taken to be just such a
form of money, as it is the bribe itself—whether in cash or in kind, explicit or not—that
establishes someone’s right to a particular good or service. Given that bribery is thought
of as a kind of quid pro quo, we can readily classify it as a transaction of compensation
(direct exchange). More specifically, I propose, something is ‘bribery’ if and only if
there is an exchange, a violation of an obligation inhering in a social relationship, and a
causal link between the two such that the violation is thought to occur because of the
exchange. These three components should be uncontroversial given that they are always
implicit whether we define bribery as a kind of “abuse [violation] of public power for
[causality] private gain [exchange]” or as an “illicit [violation] payment [exchange]
meant [causality] to change one’s mind.” Yet bribery occupies a special role within
Zelizer’s typology because the relevant, violated social relationship is usually not that
between bribe-giver and bribe-taker (i.e. the two transactors); instead, it is usually a
relationship between the bribe-taker and some third party. 10
Note how extending the frame in this way to encompass the perspective of a third-
party creates the potential for a crucial conflict between social frames. In part because of
uncertainty surrounding what constitutes bribery, in part because of the high risks
9 This is a different typology than the schema of general, balanced, and negative reciprocities developed by
Sahlins (1972: 185-230, esp. 191-6) and which classicists typically use: see most recently Herman (2006:
30-8).
10 Of course, this is not always the case. I would argue that, in the case of ‘bribing’ a child to get good
grades, the child is thought to have violated an obligation either to herself or, more likely, to her parents. In
this case, the exchange constitutes the violation: thereafter the child presumably would be striving to get
good grades not because she owed it to her parents, but because she would be compensated for doing so.
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