BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One
framing of a specific outcome as bribery hinged on whether or not that outcome fit with
generally recognized trends in politics: discrete events were framed as bribery (or not)
depending on how well they resembled broader, common conceptions of what bribery
looked like. Once idealized in this way, the stereotype of the dōrodokos could play an
important role in public discourse.
This will be the second argument sketched here. It was through social types like
the dōrodokos that Athenians thought through the democracy itself. Hence, adopting the
narrative frame of bribery implicitly (or explicitly) told a larger narrative about politics
and society, for it assigned a particular role to the dōrodokos within the broader
democracy. By telling a story about one sequence of events, an Athenian was staking a
claim in broader public discussions about how democratic politics should be conducted.
Discourse on dōrodokia was the discourse of democracy; and it was here, through
competing narratives on dōrodokia and democracy, that deliberative politics was
fashioned.
First, the dōrodokos and ‘bad friends’. Dually-framed dōra can simultaneously
make and break friendships, with the normative value of the dōra hinging on how they
are framed. If framed through the lens of a ‘broken’ relationship in which a social
obligation has been violated, bribery emerges. Recall from the Introduction how a
dōrodokos like Timagoras was called a ‘bad friend’. Precisely the kind of person who
had harmed, not helped, his friends—a person who had failed to understand the principle
of reciprocity—was the type who might violate the obligations in one friendship in order
to negotiate those in another. This is precisely the kind of person Timagoras was called
when he was impugned both for taking bribes and for treating his fellow ambassador
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