BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One
the very least we are hard-pressed to ascertain why Herodotus, or one of his sources,
would have accepted, let alone passed on, the story at face value. 26
Understanding the significance of the events at Artemisium requires moving past
the standard view. This section presents a case for how a relational approach can help.
Two aspects of a relational approach to bribery lend themselves particularly well to the
Athenian context. Because the Athenians had no word for ‘bribe’, the Athenian
vocabulary of bribery focused on compensation and the violation of social norms. As we
saw in the previous section, these were the two critical components in a relational model
of bribery. Moreover, as has been underscored by much recent literature on gift
exchange and economic activity in ancient Athens, gifts like those given to the Greek
generals at Artemisium were consistently used to negotiate social relationships. 27 We
have good reason to think, therefore, that the Athenians themselves understood bribery
through the relationships that structured it. Both claims will be treated in this section as
we investigate the vocabulary of bribery and the social contexts in which it could have
appeared at Athens. The next section will examine how contested claims about bribery
implicated broader public discussions about politics.
26 The historicity of the scene at Artemisium has been seriously questioned for a number of reasons, not
least of which is the curious problem that, because the fleet was stationed at Artemisium explicitly in order
to back up the Spartan land forces at nearby Thermopylae, it is odd that the Spartan leader Eurybiades
would have wanted to leave. See further Cawkwell (1970: 41), Wallace (1974: 22-5), Podlecki (1975:
17-18), Frost (1980: 107-8 ad 7.6-7), Kurke (2002: 90). Cf. Plut. De Hdt. Mal.872BC. Doubts of
historicity aside, many scholars paint Themistocles as a venal profiteer: see discussion, including ancient
testimony, in Kurke (2002). Recently, Blösel (2001; 2005: 135-44), Baragwanath (2008: 292-4) and, less
so, Fornara (1971: 66-74) have attempted to salvage Themistocles’ reputation as a cunning patriot.
Blösel’s proposed scenario in which Herodotus uses Themistocles as a metaphor for Athens’ imperialism is
possible—similarly, Cresci Marrone (1986), Balot (2001: 99-135 esp. 117-20)—but he goes too far in
trying to model this scene off of, specifically, Pericles’ bribing of Pleistoanax: cf. Steinbock (2006). While
I do not come down on either side of this issue, I would like to underscore that these normative assessments
are all inherently political claims.
27 By ‘negotiate’ here and throughout I intend reference to some kind of relational work. Two social actors
‘negotiate’ a relationship in defining, redefining, adjusting, calibrating, or rejecting the obligations that
inhere in their relationship. That is to say, they negotiate a social relationship in performing the work
necessary to create, maintain or end it.
42