BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua
BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One order to get the leaders to stay and defend Euboea. We can imagine that the dōra he gave were viewed among ‘insiders’—himself and anyone else part of the same relational context—as just one installment in a long series of gift/counter-gift reciprocal exchanges. Similarly, each general contributed his own ‘counter-gift’ to Themistocles: a pledge to stay and defend Artemisium. But note how, in that case, the counter-gift itself was a political service that represented its own set of obligations in a different social context: the ‘outside’ relationship between public official and community, for example. The services provided by the generals to Themistocles (and, for that matter, those provided by Themistocles in return for the Euboeans’ payment) performed relational work within the twin contexts of an inside and outside relationship. In other words, both sets of relationships were negotiated at the same time; the generals’ ‘counter-gift’ to Themistocles was also a gift/counter-gift to some third party. By using a political service, normally used to negotiate the outside relationship, as a token to perform relational work in the inside relationship, all the generals at Artemisium thus lay themselves open to the claim of bribery. The issue faced by Themistocles and his associates was one of dual framing, a conflict between insider and outsider perspectives discussed in the previous section. The monies that did relational work in one relational context simultaneously entailed obligations within another context. Realistically, people encounter these kinds of scenarios all the time and unproblematically negotiate both relationships simultaneously through compromise. A problem arises, however, when one relationship is not given its proper due, that is, when the relative balance between the two relationships too much 65
Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One favors one or the other. 88 In that case, it can appear that some inherent obligation has been broken and, crucially, that this normative violation has resulted from how someone has tried to negotiate the other relationship. Because such relational work is often performed through monies—gifts, counter-gifts, cash, favors, entitlements, etc.—the normative violation is often blamed on the transaction, the very site and means of relational negotiation. 89 Examining Athens from a relational perspective allows us to push our relational model yet further. As the case of Themistocles suggests, dōra in political collaboration can negotiate two relationships simultaneously; when one of those relationships is thought to outweigh the other unjustly, outsiders readily frame the actions as bribery. 90 We can generalize this claim as follows: wherever there was political collaboration, there was the possibility that someone might look at the scene and call it bribery. After all, Athenian politics did not merely leverage these configurations of social relations, but was in fact constituted by them. Hence, politics at Athens, like politics anywhere, should be viewed as a specific subset of all the social relations that attain in society. Each political 88 Hence ‘private gain’ at ‘public loss’ shows an undesirable favoring of private over public regard. The imbalance between a bribe-taker’s profit while the rest of the polis suffered was central to the topos of “profiting at your [sc. the people’s expense,” treated in Chapters Three and Four below. 89 This is precisely what occurs in Zelizer’s (1994; 2005b) ‘Hostile Worlds’ scenarios, on which see above. 90 Cf. von Reden (1995a: 94). It should be noted that such dual framing always arises in political situations, but can be found in other social contexts, as well. To return to Timocreon’s abuse of Themistocles, the Athenian is called a “liar, con, traitor...won over by roguish silver” (yeu&stan a1dikon prodo&tan…a)rguri/oisi kobalikoi=si peisqei\j, 727 PMG 4-5) for having taken money from Timocreon’s enemies to keep Timocreon in exile, rather than to restore him as he had pledged to do. Timocreon was Themistocles’ guest-friend (cf. cei=non, 727 PMG 4), and the entire poem details how, in repeatedly committing bribery, Themistocles harmed not only Timocreon, but a number of other friends, as well. There, not restoring Timocreon from exile is a service that negotiates two distinct sets of relationships—Themistocles and Timocreon, Themistocles and Timocreon’s enemies. Although Timocreon blames this service on “roguish silver” and thereby assumes Themistocles had been bribed, in theory Themistocles may have been given this silver as a ‘gift’ with no strings attached and may simply have been showing more favor to one set of friends (Timocreon’s enemies) than to another (Timocreon). The poem has been much discussed: see especially AE 415, Fornara (1966: 260), Stehle (1994: 510-11) on historical issues and Podlecki (1975), Scodel (1983), and Stehle (1994) on the thorny issue of the poem’s genre. 66
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Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One<br />
order to get the leaders to stay and defend Euboea. We can imagine that the dōra he gave<br />
were viewed among ‘insiders’—himself and anyone else part of the same relational<br />
context—as just one installment in a long series of gift/counter-gift reciprocal exchanges.<br />
Similarly, each general contributed his own ‘counter-gift’ to Themistocles: a pledge to<br />
stay and defend Artemisium.<br />
But note how, in that case, the counter-gift itself was a political service that<br />
represented its own set of obligations in a different social context: the ‘outside’<br />
relationship between public official and community, for example. The services provided<br />
by the generals to Themistocles (and, for that matter, those provided by Themistocles in<br />
return for the Euboeans’ payment) performed relational work within the twin contexts of<br />
an inside and outside relationship. In other words, both sets of relationships were<br />
negotiated at the same time; the generals’ ‘counter-gift’ to Themistocles was also a<br />
gift/counter-gift to some third party. By using a political service, normally used to<br />
negotiate the outside relationship, as a token to perform relational work in the inside<br />
relationship, all the generals at Artemisium thus lay themselves open to the claim of<br />
bribery.<br />
The issue faced by Themistocles and his associates was one of dual framing, a<br />
conflict between insider and outsider perspectives discussed in the previous section. The<br />
monies that did relational work in one relational context simultaneously entailed<br />
obligations within another context. Realistically, people encounter these kinds of<br />
scenarios all the time and unproblematically negotiate both relationships simultaneously<br />
through compromise. A problem arises, however, when one relationship is not given its<br />
proper due, that is, when the relative balance between the two relationships too much<br />
65