BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One
councilors, judges were provided small court fees by litigants at the preliminary hearing
of suits (Poll. 8.38, Dem. 47.64), while jurors were paid at the end of each day for which
they served on a jury (Ar. Eq. 225, AP 62.2).
These last payments were made by the polis and certainly, to that extent, signaled
a formal political relationship between citizen and polis. It is important to remember,
however, that the polis seems to have had a monopoly over the legitimate provision of
these kinds of pay; these particular transactions were strongly associated with the
specific, fixed transactors of citizen (or official) and polis. If somebody else tried to
provide the same kind of compensation, it was often considered bribery, where the bribe
monies were viewed as a substitute for the pay normally provided public officials. 86 As
suggested by a relational approach to bribery, simply changing one of the transactors—
allowing a regular citizen, say, to give a payment to a public official in return for a
particular service—could shift the normative value of the transaction considerably.
By the same token, it should be noted just how often informal gifts to an official
within the context of a social relationship would have flowed side-by-side with formal
payments from the polis. 87 How the scene was evaluated thus often hinged on whether
one adopted the perspective of an ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’. Again, consider how
Themistocles leveraged reciprocal relationships with both Eurybiades and Adimantus in
86 Public officials were paid certainly in the fifth century and perhaps in the fourth century as well. The
issue of fourth-century pay for public office is a vexed one among Greek historians: for an introduction to
the debate, see Gabrielsen (1981) for and Hansen (1979, 1980) against the idea that fourth-century officials
were regularly paid. I tend to side with Hansen: see Chapter Four below. Note how in the Heliastic oath,
the jurors swore never to take gifts on behalf of their office from anyone in any way whatsoever (Dem.
24.150). Although the pay was modest—intended mainly to pay for meals and as an honorarium, on which
see Markle (1985) and Chapter Two below—we never hear of officials taking bribes expressly because
they were paid too little.
87 We can reframe this idea in terms of the rewards or perquisites of office, treated in detail by Hansen
(1980) and Sinclair (1988a: 179-86) and see also Lys. 19.57, 25.9, 25.19, 30.25; Dem. 3.29, 19.215,
[Dem.] 58.35; Aeschin. 3.173; Din. 1.41, 1.77. Cf. Lys. 28.9, 29.6; Ar. V. 669-77, Pl.377-9, 567-70. The
central issue of perquisites is whether they are legitimate or illegitimate (i.e. bribery, as oft). In this sense,
legitimate rewards might come from either a formal or informal source.
64