BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One
poorly. 93 In subsequent chapters we will encounter a number of other dōrodokoi who
were similarly ‘bad friends’.
What kind of ‘bad friends’ were born of bribery? Although the frame of bribery
could be used if an obligation within any friendship was thought violated, there is good
reason to think that, for the Athenians, there was one relationship in particular—that
between citizen and community—through which bribery was continually framed. 94
Throughout the democracy, there was a strong ethos of civic obligation: citizens qua
members of a political community had an obligation to take a hand in bettering that
community. 95 This obligation was sometimes informally expressed through social norms
on entering political office, serving on a jury, respecting other citizens, or taking part in a
festival. Alternatively, there were formal requirements like property taxes and liturgies
for the elite, laws on military service or on speaking against the people’s interests. Either
way, a citizen’s membership in the polity was defined by the duties he had towards the
community and the rewards he received as a member of the franchise. It was a
relationship founded on reciprocity. 96
93 Similarly, Timocreon lambastes Themistocles for taking bribes and thereby betraying his friend (727
PMG). Demosthenes accuses Aeschines of being a bad friend (Dem. 19.191) and bad guest (Dem. 19.196-
8), both of which signal that Aeschines failed to understand the value of reciprocity.
94 So Leslie Kurke (2002: 94) writes, “gift-giving…becomes negatively inflected as ‘bribery’ (dōrodokia)
when it is felt to interfere with a citizen’s obligations to his civic community.” While Kurke is certainly
right to point to the discursive power at the heart of insinuations of bribery, I would argue that what was
called bribery need not, but often was, framed in relation to a citizen’s obligations to the community. Of
course, a citizen’s violated obligations to his friends—as in Timocreon’s invective against Themistocles
(727 PMG)—could also result in the inflection of gift-giving as bribery.
95 E.g. Thuc. 2.35ff. On the range of these civic obligations, Liddel (2007) is essential. For Aristotle’s
thoughts on civic obligation, see Rosler (2005). So Demosthenes notes that the freedoms of democracy
were guarded by rivalrous competition to participate politically and to win rewards from the dēmos (Dem.
20.107-8). For an idea of the breadth and depth of Athenian civic participation, Sinclair (1988a: esp. 51-
4).
96 Liddel (2007: 139-43). Aristotle commonly writes that the goal of political life was to win honor (timē)
from the community: EN 1159a15-25, 1095b14-31, Pol. 1302a31-b18, 1283a16-22, Rh. 1361a28-b2.
Recent scholars have explored how this timē was frequently expressed as charis or reciprocal “thanks” for
the provision of some good deed to the community: see especially Davies (1981: 92-8), Ober (1989),
Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: passim).
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