BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Kellam ... - Historia Antigua

Conover Bribery in Classical Athens Chapter Two
instead of send men and ships on the League’s expeditions (Thuc. 1.99.3; Plut. Cim.
11.1), with the result that Athens assumed an increasingly disproportionate role in
providing the men and ships needed for the League’s expeditions.
While she assumed a greater role in the League’s military operations, Athens also
assumed a more authoritative position within the League itself. Already in the 470’s
Athens was sending settlers to conquered territories in the Aegean, and by the 460’s she
was using force to maintain control over League members. 11 The ‘enslavement’
(e)doulw/qh) of Naxos is taken by Thucydides as a precedent for Athens’ subsequent
hegemonic actions with other League members, but treating League members in this way
actually seems to have been an extension of Athens’ earlier, real enslavement of non-
league members like Skyros and Karystos (cf. h)ndrapo/disan, Thuc. 1.98.2-3). In
454/3, the League’s treasury where tribute monies were deposited was moved from Delos
to Athens. By this point, Athens had already begun to take a hand in the judicial affairs
of certain allies; by the end of the 450’s, she began to assume a pivotal role in setting up
democracies throughout the League, as well. 12
According to Thucydides, Cimon’s siege of Thasos in 465/4-463/2—the very
expedition after which he would be charged for dōrodokia—marked the precise moment
when the League transformed from an alliance into an Athenian-controlled “hegemony”
(Thuc. 1.101). While it is perhaps fruitless to seek just such a turning point, the
11 Notably, colonies were set up at Eion (Plut. Cim. 8.2), Skyros (Thuc. 1.98.2, Plut. Cim. 8.3), and
Amphipolis (Plut. Cim. 8.2). Additionally, it appeasr that Athenians were trying to set up a colony at
Ennea Hodoi just upriver from Eion when they were defeated: cf. schol. ad Aeschin. 2.31.
12 Thuc. 1.77.1-4, Antiph. 5.47, and, on the financial revenue from holding the trials of allies at Athens,
[Xen.] Ath. Pol 1.16-18; AE 205-19 provides a good discussion. Redefining the juridical relations between
Phaselis and Athens, the Phaselis decree (IG i 3 10=ML 3; perhaps late 460’s or early 450’s) grants the
Phaselites the privilege of trial before the polemarch whenever a cause for a suit arose at Athens, a
privilege that had already been granted to the Chians. See also the Calchis decree (IG i 3 40=ML 52; either
440’s or 420’s); IG i 3 21 on judicial affairs in Miletus, dated probably to 450/49 BCE. Democracies were
set up in Erithryae (IG i 3 14=ML 40; 460’s or 450’s) and Samos (Thuc. 1.115.3; 440 BCE).
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