BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One
The dōrodokos, then, was a ‘bad friend’ to the community: not a specific bad
friend, but an example of a generic category of individuals in the democracy. Whether
we encounter him in comedy or forensic oratory, he is a kind of idealized figure—in a
word, a stereotype. 102 Again, a relational view helps illuminate why this could have been
the case. Whenever we negotiate any social relationship—a friendship, say—we have in
mind certain social benchmarks by which we define and redefine its terms. “Friends are
supposed to do X or Y,” we think, and this generic expectation consequently structures
our interactions with specific friends by helping shape the norms of the relationship.
Behavior and expectations are shaped according to some ideal about what a relationship
is or is not, what it should and should not be.
Because of his dual framing as insider and outsider, the dōrodokos was potentially
identified with two relational roles, two ideal types, at once. Within the relationship
negotiated by the bribe, the dōrodokos was aligned with one relational role, whether
friend, neighbor, father, associate, etc., and his behavior was measured according to the
yardstick of the ideal friend, neighbor, etc. From the community’s perspective and within
the context of his relationship with the community, however, he was aligned with the role
of ‘bad friend’. By failing to provide an expected, obligatory return in his ‘friendship’
with the community, the dōrodokos had intentionally or unintentionally identified himself
with the community’s other ‘bad friends’.
the same reciprocity inherent in philia: Hutter (1978), Schofield (1998). While I would venture that every
society establishes a similar kind of reciprocal relationship between citizen and community, it should be
noted that both the nature and the content of this obligation can vary tremendously. In Athens this
obligation was defined primarily by informal, not formal norms: relatively few legal regulations restricted
official conduct, while the social standard of reciprocity—help the community, don’t harm it—prevailed.
102 Wankel (1982: 33), Kulesza (1995: 45-83, esp. 81-2).
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