BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One
Eurybiades and Adimantus by providing them with dōra, the Athenian himself seems to
have been given veritable compensation, a “payment” (cf. misqw| =, e)kexa/risto, Hdt. 8.4-
5) in order to stay at Artemisium. No close relationship need be presumed here, and the
use of misthos might signal both the particular frame of compensation and especially a
formal payment by the Euboeans. On this point Phanias’ alternate version—in which
Themistocles offers a talent of silver to the trierarch Architeles—is explicit, for
Themistocles’ offer could readily be interpreted in light of the regular payment of misthos
made by a general like Themistocles to a trierarch like Architeles (Plut. Them. 7.6). 81 On
one reading of the scene, in fact, the ‘bribes’ given were no more than payments often
given to generals to ensure that their men would be fed. 82
Examples can be multiplied. Trierarchs who did not wish to command their ship
could hire out someone to take their place. 83 Although Athenian ambassadors were given
a per diem for the duration of an embassy, they were often still provided accommodation
by proxenoi living in the city they were visiting. 84 From the mid-fourth century onwards,
magistrates were publicly honored on an increasingly regular basis simply for performing
the duties of their office. 85 In addition to various rates of pay for public officials including
81 On the regular payment of a misthos for military service, see Pritchett (1971: 3-27); for the distribution of
this misthos by the stratēgos, Pritchett (1971: 85-92). Although there are chronological problems with
positing that a stratēgos might provide a monetary wage in the 480’s—so, Pritchett (1971: 11), Frost (1980:
107 ad 7.6-7), Blösel (2001: 182)—it is enough for our purposes that later Athenians hearing of
Themistocles at Artemisium would have understood his payment to Architeles in light of regular payments
in political practice.
82 Cawkwell (1970), Wallace (1974), though cf. Blösel (2001: 135-6). The explicit purpose for which
funds were accepted was often hard to determine, as monies collected for the tribute, say, were nevertheless
used to provide provisions or misthos for soldiers: Pritchett (1974: 40-1).
83 Lys. 21.10, Dem. 21.80, 51.7. Given the purported reputation of the helmsman hired in Lysias 21.10, we
need not presume that the speaker had known him before hiring him.
84 Mitchell (1997: 29).
85 See the examples provided by Whitehead (1983: 73n.32). Note how, by the time of Aristotle’s
Constitution of Athens (late 330’s to early 320’s), the Council regularly received a dōrea of a gold crown
after successfully submitting its accounts: AP 46.1; Aeschin. 1.111-12, Dem. 22.36, 22.38-9; cf. Dem.
22.8-20.
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