BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter One
bribes; an insider, however, could contest this framing of events in two distinct ways.
First, a different relational frame with a different transaction context could be adopted.
By claiming that the monies were not compensation, but were gifts that required no
specific return, an insider could contest the twin ideas that there had been an exchange
and that this exchange had caused some normative violation. Moreover, and this way is
most important for our purposes, the frame of bribery could be contested by claiming that
there had been no violation of obligations in the first place. This last view posited that
the norms of the outside relationship should be defined along different lines from those
adopted by the outsider: new practices, like the insiders’ quid pro quo exchange, should
be allowed, or old practices should take on new meaning.
Again, this makes sense from a relational perspective. When we try to negotiate
the terms of a relationship—as we switch the ideal types that define it, changing from
friend to lover, say—we restructure the norms governing that relationship. By changing
how we understand the ideal form of the relationship, we let new practices become
accepted, or old practices become imbued with new meaning. After a certain point, it no
longer makes sense to think of the relationship through the previous ideal (friends), and a
new ideal (lovers) must be adopted; the relationship is then likened to a new, idealized
social type. Crucially, this new type is structured according to a new set of norms. 108
108 In the same vein, Rose (2003: 232) suggests that moral discourses are ultimately statements of imagined
unities: the kinds of things ‘we’ do or do not do. Changing the contents of these discourses thus signals a
new conception of who ‘we’ are—a redefinition of the boundaries of community. I view such a process,
whereby accretions of meaning slowly change a core concept until it must be reinvented or redefined, as
analogous to the accretion of meanings and practices attached to rituals: cf. Beard (1987) and Feeney
(1998: 129-31) for a relevant discussion of how literary texts represent the multiplicity of meanings in
ritual processes. In this light, it is perhaps unsurprising to find contemporary sociologists like Miller (1998:
73-110) and Wuthnow (1996: 183-97) speaking of rituals within and concerning practices of consumption.
For these scholars, it is precisely through ritual that consumers align purchases (consumption) with broader
cultural values and thereby negotiate social relationships. I would argue that the same could be said about
engaging in bribery, as well.
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