BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One
that would become dokeō were crucially linked to dekomai as iterative forms of that verb:
“receive again and again” (iterative) later turned into “expect, await.” 42 Over time,
therefore, a special meaning of dekomai (“expect, await”) came to be attached to an
entirely new verb (dokeō).
But was there anything left behind? When these iterative forms broke off from
Gk. *dekmai, did any of their semantic meaning (“expect, await”) subsequently remain
attached to the verb dekomai? I propose that, yes, a meaning akin to “expect, await” was
preserved in dekomai and the Attic form dekhomai—and that this meaning was later
preserved in the noun dōrodokia and other similar compounds. 43 Positing this kind of
semantic affinity to the verb dokeō explains why dōrodokia follows the morphology of
42 Note how the rare verb dokeuō (“watch, observe”), off of which dokeō is based, appears in contexts that
suggest that it, too, functioned as an iterative form of Gr.*dekmai.Cf. Tichy (1976: 81-2). Homeric
evidence for de/xomai (“expect, await”) unquestionably proves that the classical meaning of doke/w
(“expect, await”) was formed as an iterative of de/komai and hence is derived from Gr. *de/kmai: e.g. Hom.
Il. 4.107, 5.228, 238, 20.377. This has no bearing on the problematic relationship between Homeric
dei/dex- (“greet, honor,” e.g. dei/dekto, Hom. Il. 9.224) and de/dex- (“await,” e.g. de/deco, Hom. Il. 5.228,
Od. 20.377, 22.340), the former of which has been derived alternately from IE *deik̂- (“show”)—see most
recently Forssman (1978)—or from IE *dēk̂- (“accept”): e.g. Frisk s.v. doke/w, Chantraine s.v. doka/w,
Tichy (1976).
43 My derivation is motivated by the following observation: instead of beginning with de/xomai and asking
why dōrodokia compounds follow the morphology of doke/w, it is fruitful to ask why, if dōrodokia
compounds look like doke/w, the verb doke/w does not also mean “receive” or “receive illicitly.” We need
to account for this. For my argument, it is sufficient to point out only that Homer evinces semantic
convergence of forms of de/xomai and dokeu/w (later doke/w). What I propose here is that in the shift from
Gr.*de/kmai (“receive”) to its iterative meaning in reduplicated forms (“expect, await”), an intermediary
semantic form—“receive” + “expect”—was also retained. This meaning subsequently inhered in the verb
de/xomai; when compounds were formed from this particular meaning, they were marked in a formally
distinct way by following the morphology of the distinct yet closely related verb doke/w. Ruijgh (2004:
58-9) traces a similar development from *de/khti to doke/ei (“it seems good”) through influence by doke/w
(“think”).
This morphological divergence, suggesting as it does that dōrodokia was derived not solely from
de/xomai but was also influenced by doke/w, cannot be explained simply in terms of distinction in dialect or
time. That Attic consistently aspirates –dok- compounds is clear enough from a wide range of compounds,
many of which are attested only once or twice. By contrast, dōrodokia and its cognates, by far the most
prevalent –dok- compounds, are attested hundreds of times in Attic, yet not one of these compounds is
aspirated. Perhaps in recognition of this point, both the Suida (s.v. dwrografh/) and Thucydides (dw/rwn
do/khsin, 5.16.3) derive dwrodoki/a not from dw=ra + de/xomai but from dw/ra + doke/w (“be suspected of
[the legal suit of] dōra”). My own derivation follows the spirit, if not the content, of their etymologizing.
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