Bribery in Classical Athens (PhD diss. Princeton)

BRIBERY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS

Kellam Conover

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

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March 2010

UMI Number: 3401570

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ABSTRACT This dissertation proposes a fresh look at bribery and its regulation to examine how bribery shaped the development of the ancient Athenian democracy (508/7-322 BCE). Political scientists and economists commonly treat bribery as a kind of inefficiency that can be minimized through proper institutional incentives and legal sanctions within a static polity. Yet Athens’ democracy was anything but static, and the very ‘problem’ of dōrodokia changed considerably over time. Exploring this dynamic change thus refocuses our understanding of the relationship between bribery and democracy. As Chapter One shows, the concept of dōrodokia was used to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate forms of political collaboration vital to the success of the democracy. Rather than define dōrodokia by the context in which the gift, favor, or payment was made, the Athenians looked to the outcome of the transaction. ‘Good’ results, processes, and players were aligned with dēmokratia, ‘bad’ with dōrodokia. Chapters Two through Four show how changing conceptions of dōrodokia were consistently tied to evolving ideas about what good democratic politics looked like. The figure of the corrupt man, or dōrodokos, was consistently conjured up in public discourse to explain bad political results. In this way, he played a central role in public discourse as a conceptual bogeyman to changing ideals within democratic politics. As Chapters Five through Seven investigate, the very hallmarks of the Athenian democracy—public accountability, selection by lot, and a clearer demarcation between public and private spheres—were developed in opposition to dōrodokia. In this sense, the Athenians articulated the constantly changing shape of their democracy by heavily

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legislating dōrodokia. Rather than focus on minimizing profit from public office, the Athenians designed their institutions so that frequent dōrodokia would be leveraged for the common good. In both public discourse and political practice, dōrodokia emerges as an integral mode of democratic politics. Not only did the Athenians think through their democracy by thinking with the figure of the dōrodokos, but they designed democratic institutions expressly as anti-dōrodokia measures. The central question about Athens thus becomes how she succeeded not in spite of, but because of such prevalent bribery.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thinking about corruption for an extended period of time does funny things to one’s brain. It’s a disconcerting, frustratingly intricate topic, and prolonged exposure slowly corrupts one’s thinking, causing significant distortions to one’s social life and livelihood. In my case I fear writing this dissertation has made me a slight bit insane. It is with great pleasure, then, that I acknowledge here those who had a hand in precipitating my condition; it is hoped that others will take my words to heart, lest they incur the same affliction. The ideas in this dissertation have unsettled me for a long time. In my first graduate seminar, the play of economic images and justice in Aeschylus’ Oresteia kept me up for nights on end, and the interpretive problems I encountered at that time have lingered in my mind, festering and causing many a sleepless night since. I give fond thanks to David Rosenbloom, who encouraged me then to obsess over these images, and to the custodial staff of East Pyne, whose bright smiles tricked me into correlating positive feedback with my incipient insomnia. I doubt they knew the utter madness towards which they were leading me, but they meant well. A few other guides were not so innocent. I say ‘guides’ because they have, in their own ways, been unwitting mentors to me over the years; ‘not so innocent’ because I suspect they knew full well what they were doing in welcoming me into their fold. It is in no small part to them that my affliction took the particular form of this dissertation. Dirk Hartog introduced me to the Dark Side of law and legal history, and with that he made my life inestimably more complicated. Kim Scheppele completely dismantled my own understanding of law and its myriad roles in society; and it was her unfailing

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encouragement that made me crazily think it a good idea to add three chapters to this work. And Viviana Zelizer, who took a chance on a maddened classicist, has generously illuminated a path to still more frustration, anxiety, insomnia, and lunacy. For their guidance and unflagging support, I owe profound thanks. My readers know particularly well the fits and fixation this work has caused me. Each and every time I felt utterly shattered, defeated by the conundra I faced, with a few choice words, a smile or an open door, and always a continuing faith that I would prevail, they helped me to put the pieces together again. Marc Domingo Gygax has been a true colleague; his warmth, humor, and strong vision of my project provided much-needed moments of clarity amid years of confusion. Josh Ober gave detailed comments on every chapter and consistently encouraged me to embrace the crazy by thinking big and outside the box. His perspective and sage wisdom have been continuing sources of inspiration. Andy Ford, friend and toughest critic, has been a stellar advisor, better than I could have dreamed. He has always known the right remedy to free my thinking, and he has taught me to grow upward from my roots. As a token of my heartfelt appreciation, and for their masterful management of a difficult, irrational, and often elusive student, I dedicate this work to my teachers. Any other institution probably would have sought to quell a neurotic student’s angst, but Princeton University has proven an uncommonly rich place for breeding anxiety. Under the extremely generous support of a Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellowship, a Robert Hoffman ’58 Scholarship, and a Center for Human Values Graduate Prize Fellowship, I was ensured to spend my every waking thought, for years, obsessing over

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bribery and the law. Without these gifts, my anxiety might never have transformed into full-fledged neurosis. Thank you, Princeton. Writing a dissertation is often a psychological battle.

Luckily, every time I

thought I had answered one question, a number of people reminded me that, actually, there were many, many more unanswered questions that should be gnawing at me, daily. Warm thanks, then, go to audiences who heard presentations of parts of various chapters at the Princeton Research Symposium, the Hoffman Scholars presentation, LEGS, the CHV seminar, and the Classics Department’s dissertation colloquium, masterfully led by Brent Shaw. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Jessica Clark, Meredith Safran, Arudra Burra, Philip Pettit, and Rahul Sagar for their pointed, friendly reminders that my task was far vaster than ever I had imagined. If my experience writing this dissertation appears unusually sunny, it is only because along the way I have had such loving, supportive friends who have distracted me—repeatedly and unabashedly—from conquering these demons. A certain few have left an indelible mark on me, and, far from distracting me—good friends, they—they have but heartened me to bang my head against the wall all the more. Dana Fields, Emma Ljung, Sydnor Roy, Alana Shilling, and Tom Zanker are all bright lights each of whose warmth, heart and distinctive mind has been an inspiration. Sean Corner, Luca Grillo, and Mira Seo, carissimi, have enabled my neurosis seemingly without end. Their insistence that I eat lavish meals has taught me to taste and savor life; for their everloving support I am profoundly grateful. Though bearing the brunt of my madness, Breanden Beneschott repeatedly went above and beyond the call of duty as dear friend, drill sergeant, and disc jockey; his love

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and long-lasting patience were critical throughout the revision process. I cannot thank him enough. My family, especially my parents Pam Conover and Chris Conover, would probably prefer not gratitude but a sincere apology for letting myself succumb to the insanity that was this dissertation for so long. No doubt they were positively dismayed at holiday dinners when I was unable to stop talking about the intricacies of Athenian tax collecting, among other arcane topics I was writing about at the time. Yet they always so graciously pretended that I was not even the slightest bit loony. From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry. Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank Jill Arbeiter and particularly my work spouse Stephanie Lewandowski for all they have done to make the department feel like my home for six years. As consummate administrators for the Classics Department, they made my job so easy it felt like a vacation. And as friends armed at all times with a bright smile and a warm hello, they duped me into thinking that being crazy wasn’t so bad after all. Either way, they have my warmest gratitude and sincere pledge to keep some madness with me forever.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS i

ABSTRACT:

INTRODUCTION: In the Shadows of Democracy: Bribery in Classical Athens

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CHAPTER ONE: Bribery, Politics, and the Problem of Definition

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CHAPTER TWO: Dōrodokia, Elites, and the People’s Authority, 508/7-404 BCE

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CHAPTER THREE: Dōrodokia in the Generation after the Peloponnesian War, 403-378 BCE

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CHAPTER FOUR: Dōrodokia and the Rise of the “Crop of Traitors,” 378-322 BCE

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CHAPTER FIVE: Approaching Bribery and the Law at Athens

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CHAPTER SIX: Legal Innovation and the dōrodokos

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CHAPTER SEVEN: Athenian dōrodokia Legislation in Practice

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CONCLUSION: Rethinking Political Bribery: The View from Athens

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REFERENCES:

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Bribery in Classical Athens

Introduction

In the Shadows of Democracy: Bribery in Classical Athens

In the early summer of 367 BCE two Athenians, Timagoras and Leon, set out on an embassy to negotiate the terms of an alliance between Athens and Persia. Envoys from both Athens and Sparta were making the three-month journey to the Persian capital at Susa to discuss a most pressing concern: the recent aggression of Athens’ northerly neighbor Thebes. Just a few years prior, Thebes had overwhelmingly defeated Sparta and thereby set into motion a seismic shift in alliances. Renouncing her former alliance with Athens and turning instead to ravage Sparta’s allies in the Peloponnese, Thebes quickly became the dominant force in Greek politics. Understandably, Athens and Sparta were uneasy, and they were sending envoys in the hopes that the Persian King might help limit the Thebans’ strategic gains.1 For the Athenians, the Congress at Susa was not without its complications. Timagoras was apparently not at full health, and the trip to Susa in the summer heat would have been hard on the Athenian. When he arrived, he inexplicably refused to room with his fellow ambassador Leon, and the two spent an entire month sleeping in separate quarters. Nor was this clash of personalities Athens’ only cause for concern. Within a few weeks of Timagoras and Leon’s departure, Thebes got wind of the embassy to the King and sent forth her own ambassador, the renowned general Pelopidas, together with envoys from her new allies in the Peloponnese. Given Timagoras’ sickness and 1

Xen. Hell. 7.1.33-8; Dem. 19.31, 137, 191; Plut. Pelop. 30.6-7, Art. 22.4-6; Athen. 6. 251b; Val. Max. 6.3.ext.2. Mosley (1968), Perlman (1976: 228-9), Buckler (1980: 153-8), Lewis (1989: 228-9), Heskel (1997: 101-8), Mitchell (1997: 128-9). For the chronology of this embassy, see especially Heskel (1997: 105-7). Thebes’ ascendancy during the 360’s: Davies (1978: 217-27), Buckler (1980).

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unexpected unfriendliness with Leon, and up against the peerless reputation of Pelopidas, Athens increasingly seemed to be fighting a losing battle at Susa. The city’s hopes were finally dashed when Timagoras supported Pelopidas’ counsel to the King, in effect defending Thebes’ interests, not Athens’, and leaving only Leon to protest the final, proTheban terms of the alliance.2 Even so, Timagoras surely emerged from Susa in good spirits. Given Thebes’ recent ascendancy, it was unclear whether Athens would have any real bargaining power with the King, so the pro-Theban terms of the alliance were not unexpected. And, in any case, Timagoras’ embassy had secured at least the chance for further negotiation, for the King had explicitly invited the Athenians to send another embassy if they found the terms of the treaty unfair. Personally, too, the Athenian fared quite well at the Congress, for the King had held him in esteem second only to the Theban Pelopidas. At his departure he consequently received substantial parting gifts (dōra) from the King. returned to Athens with a number of aids for his ailment:

All told, he

among other dōra, an

amazingly expensive couch made with luxurious bedding so intricate that slaves were provided solely to make it (because Greeks did not know how); 80 cows with 80 cowherds to tend them so that he could have cow’s milk for his illness; and even a litter to ride on from Susa, together with four talents’ pay for the carriers.3 Of course, the rest

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Timagoras’ ailment: Plut. Pelop. 30.6, Art. 22.4-6. Plutarch’s biographies of Pelopidas and Artaxerxes are the only sources referring to Timagoras’ ailment, and both depict the King’s gifts to Timagoras as relief for his illness. Although it is entirely possible that the narrative of an illness was a later rationalization added to the story, it is difficult to understand when or why this element would have been added; one possibility, however, is that, in order to defend himself against Leon’s accusations and suspicions about the King’s gifts, Timagoras himself later claimed that he was sick. Problems during the embassy: Xen. Hell. 7.1.35-38. 3 Plut. Pelop. 30.6, Art. 22.5. Future negotiations: Xen. Hell. 7.1.37 with Heskel (1991: 107-8). According to Demosthenes, the King gave Timagoras the colossal sum of 40 talents, but this figure is more likely an exaggeration by the orator himself or by others (cf. w(j le/getai, Dem. 19.137), a total reached by multiplying by ten the misthos given Timagoras in Plutarch’s account (Pelop. 30.6).

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Introduction

of the Athenians were not so pleased with the ambassador’s efforts. Upon his return to Athens, Timagoras was brought to trial for bribery (dōrodokia) and sentenced to death. No doubt shocked by this turn of events, the King reportedly never gave an ambassador money again.4 To modern eyes, Timagoras’ fate provokes diametrically opposed reactions. In reading our sources, one is struck by how quickly the charming details of the story give way to its macabre conclusion. Particularly in Plutarch’s hands, Timagoras’ embassy becomes a parable writ large: in a dramatic twist of Sophoclean irony, the seemingly innocuous gifts the Athenian takes to cure his illness become the very cause of his demise. Yet in that case it is equally striking just how much the story of Timagoras lurks only in the background of Plutarch’s narrative, in the shadows of the history he crafts. Timagoras’ fate is something of a tangent in Plutarch’s Life of Pelopidas, at best a counterpoint for Pelopidas’ own virtue in taking but few gifts from the Persian King. In this sense, Plutarch uses Timagoras’ bribery as only a narrative foil, an implicit reminder of how things with Pelopidas could have turned out. And this leads to a second reaction, common among ancient historians in particular: no reaction at all. Classical Athenian history is rife with stories of bribery. A

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Conviction of Timagoras: Xen. Hell. 1.38; Dem. 19.31, 137, 191; Plut. Pelop. 30.6, Art. 22.6; Athen. 6.251b. The charge was most likely one of dōrodokia, as given in Plutarch (Art. 22.6) and as accords with Demosthenes’ references (esp. Dem. 19.137). Contrary to this view, on the basis that Xenophon seemingly does not mention any bribery of Timagoras, Perlman (1976: 229) presumes that dōrodokia was not part of the original charge against Timagoras, but was later added to the story. Yet Xenophon does appear to allude to some kind of dōrodokia: in describing how Antiochus the Arcadian ambassador refused the King’s gifts, Xenophon refers to them as ta\ dw=ra (Xen. Hell. 7.1.38). The use of the definite article here presupposes that the dōra had already been mentioned—in other words, that they were, in fact, implicit in the historian’s remarks about Timagoras’ conviction. On this reading, we should understand the w(jclause describing Timagoras’ conviction as an elaboration from Leon’s prosecution of Timagoras, not as the formal charge itself. Similarly, Athenaeus’ explanation that Timagoras was prosecuted for obeisance to the King (w(j basile/a proseku/nhsen, Athen. 6.251b) is most likely just another way of indicating that he had been bribed to join allegiance with the King. On the King’s subsequent refraining from dōrodokia, see Dem. 19.137.

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Introduction

bribe-taker like Timagoras appears on average once in every twelve pages of Greek for the democracy, amounting to well over 450 accusations and descriptions of bribery in extant sources ranging from tragedy and comedy to historiography, inscriptions, forensic oratory and philosophy.5 When we encounter yet another instance of Athenian bribery, the sheer familiarity of the phenomenon, its omnipresence, renders it invisible.6 As the shocking events surrounding Timagoras’ execution call to witness, though, bribery was never so invisible in the democracy. Just as Timagoras’ own politicking serves as a narrative foil to Pelopidas’ virtuous course in Plutarch’s biography—a bad alternative, a reminder of how Pelopidas could have erred—at every incremental step in the development of the democracy bribery seems to have been there, lurking, reminding the Athenians of how their polity might still err. Far from being invisible, instances of bribery always brought to light an important decision for the Athenians to make. Should they follow the course of a Timagoras or of a Leon? Should they punish the purported bribe-taker or legitimate his actions? To chart the course of the democracy, therefore, is to uncover from its shadows a continuous series of historical foils, points at which the Athenians briefly considered which direction their polity should take. 5

Particularly given our dearth of contemporary sources for nearly half of the democracy, this number seems remarkably high. It amounts to, on average, one accusation per oration of Lysias, one account of bribery per year in Thucydides’ Histories (excluding the Archaeology in Book I), and three accusations per Aristophanic comedy. My count is derived from the index of sources in Harvey (1985) as compared to pages of non-fragmentary Greek in the Oxford Classical Text series of classical authors. 6 Within the past 80 years, there have been only a handful of articles devoted expressly to Athenian bribery, despite the fact that each author notes the omnipresence of bribery in our sources: see recently Perlman (1976), Wankel (1982), Cargill (1985), Harvey (1985), Strauss (1985), Kulesza (1995), Taylor (2001); cf. Lipsius (1905-15: esp. 2.401-6), MacDowell (1983a), Herman (1987: 73-81), Mitchell (1987: 181-6), Noetlichs (1987), von Reden (1995: 93-99, 117-20), Mastrocinque (1996), Hashiba (2006). Athenian bribery features in only two footnotes in Noonan’s (1984) otherwise magisterial study of bribery and was absent from Heidenheimer’s handbook on political corruption until the second edition. When Athenian bribery has been analyzed, scholars have been content merely to answer basic questions: what was bribery? who committed it? how prevalent was it, and why was it so prevalent? and how was it kept under control? To my mind these kinds of questions, while undoubtedly helpful, only perpetuate the invisibility of Athenian bribery as a phenomenon, for they do not engage with the more profound ways in which bribery, as practice or idea, fundamentally shaped the democracy.

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Introduction

This dissertation seeks to recover Timagoras and countless others like him from the shadows of the democracy: to restore to mind the significance, for Athenians then as for us now, of viewing bribery as a foil to the desired course of political history. I aim here to uncover how someone like Timagoras understood his own actions: not simply whether they were ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but how they were envisioned as fitting into the workings of the democracy.

Such an inquiry certainly entails examining what the

Athenians thought about bribery. Yet in bringing to light the significance of bribery as an alternate trajectory for democracy—an alternate path for conceptualizing and practicing politics, an alternative that the people could always choose to legitimate at any given time—I am especially interested in uncovering how the Athenians thought with and through bribery. In essence, this dissertation hopes to rid our minds forever of the assumed familiarity of Athenian bribery. My hope is that, for every mention of bribery, we might take to heart both why an Athenian in that position chose to take dōra and why Athens in that context responded as she did. Rescuing Timagoras from the murky shadows of Athenian history is a difficult endeavor, for we must thereby confront our own preconceived ideas about why he might have taken bribes or how Athens should have responded. The more we peer into the story, picking out the details that give it such distinct color—the lingering illness, the infighting with Leon, the extensive list of dōra, the death sentence—the more bizarre and alarming it becomes. Specifically, two glaring incongruities emerge: why, after all, did Timagoras take the King’s gifts, and why did the Athenians kill (!) him for doing so? Our sources note that certain other ambassadors refused to take gifts (Xen. Hell. 7.1.38) while even the Theban Pelopidas limited himself in what he took home (Plut.

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Bribery in Classical Athens

Introduction

Even with the well-documented Persian custom of giving dōra to

ambassadors, then, Timagoras did not need to take any gifts.7 He certainly did not need to take home such an ornate couch, together with 80 cows and 80 cowherds, a litter and attendants. So why did he? Plutarch’s account of Timagoras’ embassy attempts to answer this question, but in so doing it only complicates our efforts at understanding the ambassador’s motivations. According to Plutarch, Timagoras recalled what a certain Epicrates had once said about receiving gifts on an embassy and apparently not being punished. Presumably it was this memory that gave Timagoras confidence in his own gift-taking with the Persian King (Plut. Pelop. 30.7). This Epicrates had been a prominent politician in the 390’s, and here we should understand reference to an embassy to the Persian King in the late 390’s during the Corinthian War.8 On the face of it, the pair had much in common. Both were sent to draft an alliance with the King in an effort to curb the aggression of one power: Sparta in Epicrates’ case, Thebes for Timagoras. And both, apparently, took bribes. Plutarch’s Timagoras recalls Epicrates’ embassy ostensibly as a reminder that the Athenians did not care if an envoy received gifts, but this is a baffling, selective reading of the earlier embassy. Though Plutarch does not indicate this, the specific anecdote that Timagoras purportedly recalled seems to have come from a comedy lampooning Epicrates’ expedition to the King. There, having returned laden in dōra from the King, 7

On bribery and gifts from the Persian King, see especially Perlman (1976), Lewis (1979), and Mitchell (1997: 111-33). 8 Epicrates is called ‘shield-bearer’, sakesfo/roj at Plut. Pelop. 30.7. Ancient scholiasts note that this was the nickname of Epicrates because he had a big beard: schol. Ar. Ec. 71, Harpocrat. ad ’Epikra/thj. This confirms the identification. The embassy of Epicrates and Phormisius, along with Plato Comicus’ Presbeis can be dated to 394/3 or 393/2. The embassies of Timagoras and Epicrates are juxtaposed again in Athenaeus 6.251b. Conceivably, both Plutarch and Athenaeus were drawing on the same source, i.e. the third-century collector of anecdotes Hegesander, but we have no indication that Plutarch had actually read Hegesander’s work. Epicrates’ embassy: Lys. 27.3; Plato Com. frr. 119-27; Hegesander FHG 4.414=Athen.6.251b; Athen. 6.221f, 6.251a-b.

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Introduction

Epicrates wittily remarks that the Athenians should send to Persia numerous ambassadors drawn from the ranks of the poor, that they, too, might share in the King’s wealth and thereby solve the city’s financial woes.9

As Timagoras recalls, the people on that

occasion—that is, at the comic performance—laughed at Epicrates.

By no means,

however, did this laughter signal approval. The entire embassy seems to have been put on trial for dōrodokia; while Epicrates was famously acquitted in that trial, Epicrates’ fellow ambassador Onomasas was found guilty and sentenced to death, just like Timagoras later would be.10 And within two years Epicrates himself would be sentenced to death, again on a charge of dōrodokia while on an embassy.11 If we follow Plutarch, Timagoras’ fatal misstep came in recalling the wrong ambassador, or perhaps the wrong embassy altogether. In that case, though, we are hard-

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That Epicrates is here referred to by his nickname as ‘shield-bearer’ strongly suggests that Timagoras was recalling not a private conversation between himself and his ‘shield-bearer’, but some public event that had involved the well-known figure of Epicrates ‘shield-bearer’. I propose that the event he recalls was the very scene parodied in Plato’s Presbeis, precisely the kind of context in which we would expect the dēmos to ‘laugh’ at Epicrates’ words. Dover (1950) notes, contra the standard view, that the comedy itself need not have referred to any actual expedition but could have been a comic fiction, much like Trygaeus’ private embassy in Aristophanes’ Peace. Yet in response it should be pointed out that even a private fiction could have parodied an actual expedition. 10 Following Lysias 27.3. There are, however, considerable problems with the chronology of Lysias 27 and the reference therein to an expedition with Epicrates and Onomasas. Including these two embassies, there were potentially five different major events involving Epicrates in the second half of the 390’s. In 395 Timocrates was sent by the King to bribe Greek leaders, including Epicrates and Cephalus at Athens, to adopt an anti-Spartan alliance: Paus. 3.9.7-8, Hell. Oxy. 2.2-5, Xen. Hell. 3.9.1-2 with Bruce (1967: 60 ad Hell. Oxy.II.2) and Rung (2004). Epicrates’ envoy to Persia with Phormisius (394/3 or 393/2) is parodied in Plato Comicus’ Presbeis; see also Athen. 6.251a-b. Finally, Epicrates was part of the embassy to Sparta to secure ratification of the King’s Peace (392/1). I follow Davies’ (1971: 181 ad APF 4859) suggestion that the reference at Lys. 27.3 is to the very embassy parodied in Plato’s Presbeis, meaning that that embassy included Epicrates, Phormisius, and Onomasas. The date of Lysias 27 is more problematic. It cannot be from 394/3, for then when would the previous embassy with Onomasas have occurred? It might refer to 393/2, but we would have to posit an otherwise unattested embassy in that case. One difficulty with assuming that the speech comes from the trial of 392/1 is that Philochorus records that Epicrates and the others were tried in absentia (328 FGrH F149a); still, Epicrates potentially was present for his own trial but left before he was sentenced. This accords well with other instances in which those sentenced to death left Athens before the sentence was pronounced: see Chapter Six below. 11 Dem. 19.277-80, Philochorus 328 FGrH F149a, Aristid. 1.283 Dindorff with schol. Our evidence is inconclusive, but possibly Epicrates was allowed to return to Athens: see APF 181 on an early fourthcentury gravestone for an Epicrates of Cephisia (IG ii2 6444).

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Introduction

pressed to answer how Timagoras could have been so wrong or why he would have risked the decision that he did, particularly when the stakes for being wrong were so incredibly high. Framed this way, we have fundamental problems in understanding Timagoras’ intent in taking the King’s dōra. And this leads us to the second apparent incongruity in the story: why were the stakes so high? Given the ascendancy of Thebes, Athens had effectively little bargaining power when Timagoras’ embassy went to Susa; she realistically could have hoped for little more than the negotiations gained her. As a result, any bribes from the Persian King had probably little effect on the resultant terms of the alliance, so it is difficult to see how Timagoras was solely to blame for the treaty. It is hard to understand, moreover, how his offense could have been considered egregious enough to warrant capital punishment. On both counts, we fail to understand the Athenians’ intent in killing Timagoras. Addressing both of these ‘incongruities’ entails placing ancient Athens into critical dialogue with the present: confronting differences between ‘then’ and ‘now’, but also—I would argue ‘especially’—using the past to refocus how we think about the present.

Certainly there were considerable differences between Athenian-style

democracy and the democracy we are used to: notably the exclusion of women, slaves, and resident aliens from the political franchise; direct participation as opposed to representation and delegation; in the second-half of the fifth century the largest Greek empire over other Greeks; and no robust conception of ‘rights’ as we might think of them.12

Still, there were striking similarities as well, particularly in terms of the

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See generally Finley (1973), Ober and Hedrick (1996). On Athens’ treatment of slaves, metics, and women, see variously Whitehead (1977), Cohen (2002), and the essays collected in Hunter and Edmondson (2001). Empire: e.g. AE (passim), Finley (1973: esp. 95-6), Raaflaub (1994). Increased participation: Sinclair (1988a). Rights: Finley (1976), cf. Wallace (2006).

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ideological principles that underpinned political organization. Political and legal equality among citizens, cooperation and collective action, public accountability, and the preservation of certain quasi-rights like personal security or the liberty to speak out in public were all hallmarks of the Athenian democracy.13

In this respect, trying to

understand Timagoras’ motivations does not require stepping into a wholly ‘different’ world; as such, it can allow us to look back and see that our own world might be more ‘different’ than we normally assume. By confronting the assumptions that differentiate ‘then’ from ‘now’, I mean to call into question why we make those assumptions in the first place. In other words, examining the potential trajectories of Athens’ democracy—recovering bribery from its shadows—can be a valuable exercise in re-examining the potential paths of our own government, in rethinking the tenuous line we draw between politics and corruption, and in reconceptualizing the relationship between bribery and democracy. One goal of the chapters to come is to present a different way of drawing these lines, using Athens as an example but always being careful to abstract an analytical framework that can readily be applied to the contemporary world.

That said, this dissertation can provide only

suggestions for future work and ultimately leaves such application to others. There are three main assumptions, three specific ways of thinking about bribery and its regulation that must be set aside if we are to understand the actions of Timagoras and the Athenians. We can group these assumptions into theoretical problems as follows. In order to understand Timagoras’ motivations in taking dōra, we must first clearly 13

Viewing Athens as a case-study in democratization has been recently championed by Ober (2008); cf. Lanni (2006; forthcoming), Karayannis and Hatzis (2008). For detailed studies of the development— though not necessarily the ‘democratization’—of the Athenian polity, see Ostwald (1986) and Sealey (1987); for an overview of the Athenian democracy in the fourth century, Ober (1989), Hansen (1991). Equality: Raaflaub (1996). Quasi-rights: Ober (2005: 92-127).

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Introduction

define what actually constituted his action—was it bribery or not? This is the problem of definition. With that established, we can move on to his intent in performing that action: how did he frame his decision, and what, accordingly, was his motivation? This is the problem of intent. Finally, we must investigate the motivation behind Athens’ use of the death penalty here. Why was Timagoras killed, rather than fined or sentenced to some other punishment? This is the problem of the role of law. Each of these problems will be discussed in a bit more detail here before we turn to a different, more fruitful way of understanding Timagoras’ embassy. When we think of bribery, we tend to think of a kind of abuse of public power for private gain, but how should this ‘abuse’ be defined?14 This problem was hotly debated by political scientists and legal scholars in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Three distinct

definitions of the ‘abuse’ inherent in bribery emerged from that literature, each of which proved helpful as an analytical category, yet none of which was commonly accepted as a comprehensive definition of bribery. Certain social scientists defined ‘abuse’ according to formal, legal regulations: bribery was thus a kind of illegal use of public power for private profit.

Alternatively, recognizing that legal definitions were not always

comprehensive and were sometimes at odds with the interests of the public at large, other scholars posited that ‘abuse’ should be defined according to what is against the public interest: bribery, so defined, was when an official profited from public office in a way detrimental to the public interest. Finally, a third group posited that, in part because the public interest was a complex idea often difficult to gauge, ‘abuse’ was to be defined

14

See especially Johnston (2005: 10-12) and Chapter One below.

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according to prevailing public attitudes about the proper use of public office. On this definition, bribery constituted an illegitimate use of public power for private profit.15 With the rise of a market-centered approach to studying bribery, in recent decades the problem of definition has been eschewed or, to be more precise, thought settled. On a market-centered model, public officials are a kind of agent who, in abusing their power, thereby violate the terms of a contract they have between themselves and their principal (usually the people as a whole). By viewing public office through a principal-agent relationship, political economists have reached some striking albeit conventionally accepted conclusions: namely, that all public officials are inclined to use their office to maximize private gain or influence provided the costs do not outweigh the gains; and that, accordingly, bribery can be minimized but never completely eliminated.16 The significance of this model will be clear in a moment when we examine the problem of intent. For now it is enough to point out that, in reality, a market-based approach is predicated on a legalistic definition of bribery, as ‘bribery’ is always defined in reference to the ‘contract’ between principal and agent.17 Note how all of these definitions focus on the intent of the bribe. By positing that private gain is the reason for the abuse of public power—however we define it—these

15

This is a modification of the categories set forth by Heidenheimer (1989); cf. Caiden and Caiden (1977), Philp (1997, 2002), Johnston (2005) and Chapter One below. Instead of the public opinion, Heidenheimer includes market-based approaches, on which see further below. Legalistic definitions: Leys (1965), Nye (1967), Scott (1972). Public interest approach: Gronbeck (1978). The public opinion model set forth by Peters and Welch (1972) and Gibbons (1989) never gained much traction with other scholars, but see the recent legal anthropological approach in Pardo (2004a), Haller and Shore (2005). 16 Market-based model: Banfield (1975), Rose-Ackerman (1978, 1999), Goudie and Stasavage (1998), della Porta and Vannuci (1999), Lambsdorff (2002). A principal-agent model is also employed in section 1 of the British Prevention of Corruption Act (1906). This kind of approach has been criticized both for failing to explain collaboration and cooperation within politics (i.e. ‘altruistic’ acts at odds with an inherently selfish rational actor) and for failing to predict the efficacy of certain anti-corruption reforms: see DiIulio (1994) for the former and Robinson (1998) for the latter. Sarat and Simon (2001: 11-12) point out that the turn to rational actor modeling is a broader shift in legal studies more generally. 17 On this point, Philp (1997: 445) is particularly helpful.

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definitions hinge on an actor’s self-conscious decision to commit an abuse in order to receive, or because she has already received, a bribe. In this sense, a bribe is constituted by a corrupting intent. This is precisely how numerous laws define bribery.18 When we ask whether or not bribery was committed, therefore, we tend to frame this question in terms of intent. In the case of Timagoras, the question becomes, “Did Timagoras intend to abuse his power in order to receive dōra from the King?” By focusing on the intent of the bribe, these definitions all implicitly answer the very problem of intent: “What was Timagoras’ motivation in abusing his power? To win dōra from the King.” Market-based approaches to bribery have been particularly popular theoretical models, in this regard, precisely because they promise to predict the behavior of political agents who, like Timagoras, are placed into a situation in which they must represent the interests of their agent, here the Athenian people. Perhaps unsurprisingly given that this model was developed by political economists, such predictions stem from rational actor models of behavior. Why, then, did Timagoras take the King’s dōra? A more specific answer would posit that the incentives—the dōra themselves—outweighed the risks of any potential costs, such as death, loss of prestige, or, in Timagoras’ case, prolonged illness. In gauging the intent of someone like Timagoras, the question is thus framed in terms of a cost-benefit analysis, precisely as we asked earlier: “why, given the high risk of death, did Timagoras take bribes?” It should be noted that the most prominent factor in structuring an agent’s costbenefit analysis is usually taken to be the law itself; this is, in fact, a major reason why market-based approaches feature so heavily in public policy debates today. To be sure,

18

See, for example, 18 U.S.C. § 201 (b) and, generally, “Campaign Contributions and Federal Bribery Law,” 92 Har. L. R. 451 [1978]; section 1 of the British Prevention of Corruption Act (1906).

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this assumes that the law plays a particular role in society—namely as a force that deters people from performing certain actions, and as the sole legitimate force in society for doing just that—but ultimately this assumption is presumed to be trivial. Yes, the law seems to act as a deterrent after all; and, yes, it seems reasonable to conclude that laws are intended to be legitimate. Given these assumptions, our question about the use of the death penalty against Timagoras becomes, “why did the Athenians place such a high penalty on bribery? Was bribery that bad? Or was no other punishment acting as a deterrent?” I have reframed each of the problems of definition, intent, and the role of law in terms of questions that might typically be posed by someone, scholar or layman, coming across the story of Timagoras. As we will see shortly, however, these questions are essentially dead-ends in the Athenian context for they incorporate theoretical assumptions that simply do not apply to ancient Athens—ironically, I would argue, they may not apply to most contemporary polities, as well.19 A more particularistic analysis is needed for examining the Athenian case, and this dissertation aims to provide just such an analysis. The above theoretical questions about how to approach bribery provide a skeleton for the dissertation. Turning now to the ways in which Timagoras’ embassy

19

Finally, it should be noted that my account focuses solely on dōrodokia, which, unlike extortion, coercion, or blackmail, was thought to have been devoid of any violence or force (bia). While I do not deny that bribery can often be combined with these other forms of corruption, dōrodokia, as the Athenians conceptualized it, was a discrete problem and will be treated accordingly. It was also a far more prevalent problem, based on the relatively scarce reference made to extortion during the democracy. Note how the practice of sycophancy, in which a citizen blackmailed another citizen by bringing a false suit against him, was in fact depicted in the language of violence and coercion: Christ (1998) is essential here; cf. Osborne (1985) and Harvey (1985). Yet even such blackmail was relegated to the judicial sphere and does not appear to have carried over into other political spheres. That an official like Miltiades might extort money was, by comparison to the frequency of dōrodokia charges, exceedingly rare: Hdt. 6.136, Corn. Nep. Milt. 7; cf. Plut. Them. 21.

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signals a different approach to bribery and its regulation will thus motivate a synopsis of the larger argument to come. In defining what bribery was, the Athenians focused on outcome, not intent. The Athenian word for bribery was dōrodokia, which literally meant “the receipt of gifts in anticipation of some bad outcome.”20 There was no word for ‘bribes’, and without a bad outcome associated with the gifts, there was no bribery to speak of. Thus, the main law against dōrodokia explicitly defined the offense of bribery as whenever someone gives or receives “to the harm of the people” (e)pi\ bla/bh| tou= dh/mou, Dem. 21.113).

The

Athenians conceptualized dōrodokia by focusing on the outcome: what mattered was the result of the gifts, not the context in or intent with which they were given. Gifts with bad outcomes were bribes; and bad outcomes were presumed to be caused by bribery.21 In this sense, the appropriate question we should ask about Timagoras was not whether or not he intended to abuse his power, but whether or not the outcome of his actions was acceptable. Surely disagreements over what constituted an acceptable outcome arose in the democracy: witness Timagoras’ misestimation of Athenian attitudes towards his gifttaking and especially towards the outcome of the treaty he negotiated with the King. These evaluative discrepancies underpin Chapter One, in which I respond to the problem of definition by outlining a relational model of bribery. This model treats bribery not as a class of political actions, but as a political claim about actions. Bribery, on my view, is a kind of social frame:

a normative assessment of a sequence of events positing a

20

This is a controversial translation, defended at length in Chapter One. Usually scholars translate dōrodokia as “receipt of gifts”: Harvey (1985: 83), Kulesza (1995: 11-12), Taylor (2001: 53), Hashiba (2006: 62), but this is inherently problematic: Chapter One below. 21 I thank Arudra Burra for clarifying for me the distinction between these constitutive and denominative definitions of bribery.

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particular exchange as the cause of some normative violation.

Introduction Whether or not an

exchange really did cause the violation is beside the point, I argue, because accusing someone of bribery was a particular mode of Athenian politics. In this sense, it would have mattered little to the Athenians whether Timagoras’ actions as ambassador were caused by, specifically, the dōra he received from the King; all that would have mattered was that he had failed to advocate Athens’ interests enough. Accordingly, we can see how discrete claims that bribery had been committed could be linked up with broader political narratives about bribery and the democracy. This is the value of the ‘potential trajectory’ represented by Timagoras’ bribery. By weighing whether or not Timagoras’ actions should be deemed legitimate, the Athenians transformed an accusation of bribery into a constitutive part of public discourse. As will be outlined in Chapter One, individual accusations of bribery framed a bribe-giver or bribe-taker in terms of a broader social type, the dōrodokos or ‘corrupt man’. By casting an offending individual as a stereotype, each accusation of bribery thus negotiated broad public norms structuring who the dōrodokos was and what role he should play in the democracy. For his contemporaries, Timagoras qua a dōrodokos was an example of a bad friend, a man who betrayed his friend and fellow ambassador Leon for money and the company of others. Timagoras was thus prosecuted in part because he refused to room with his fellow ambassador and because he followed the Theban ambassador Pelopidas’ counsel in all matters (Xen. Hell. 1.35). As Demosthenes clearly indicates, these two accusations were conceptually linked, for both represented the breaking of a “compact”

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Introduction

(spondai/), whether between friends or between a citizen and his country.22

By not

rooming with Leon, Timagoras was thought to be signaling his alignment with a different set of political friends—here, Pelopidas, whose policy recommendations he endorsed even when they proved detrimental to Athens’ interests (Xen. Hell. 1.35-6). Similarly, when the King followed Pelopidas’ recommendations and demanded that Athens beach her warships, Leon warned that the King was no longer behaving like Athens’ friend (cf. fi/lon, Xen. Hell. 1.37). Just as the King’s policy suggested a rupture of the friendship he enjoyed with Athens, Timagoras’ actions towards Leon and his counsel to the King suggested that he was betraying friend and city, alike.23 In Timagoras’ case, the dōrodokos was, specifically, a traitor to the city. So the end of Plutarch’s story hints that it was Timagoras’ implicit treason that explains his punishment, for the Athenians had a hard time accepting that everything had gone to the Thebans’ advantage. This explanation also underpins the more contemporary treatments given by Xenophon and Demosthenes. In both of these accounts, there is considerably more at stake than an unfavorable peace settlement. Instead, these versions underscore that what was Thebes’ gain was explicitly Athens’ loss: in this light Timagoras’ actions reflected a reprehensible readiness to join with Athens’ enemies; he was a traitor.24 From this we can begin to see that the way in which Athenians conceptualized dōrodokia might

22

Note here the parallel structure of Demosthenes’ thought, which syntactically balances public and private compacts: oi9 a)dikou~ntej dhlono&ti ta_j o3lhj lhj ge th~j patri/doj sponda&j...ou) mo&non ta_j i0di/aj (Dem. 19.191). Moreover, the orator underscores how such private bonds emphatically connoted public bonds, as well, for he fronts the word o3lhj (“entire”), which is itself already intensified by , within the articleadjective-noun-noun sequence.  23 In the same vein, Xenophon contrasts Timagoras’ actions in being a bad friend to Leon with those of Antiochus the Arcadian, who refuses the King’s gifts precisely because the Arcadian League was “slighted” by the King (h)lattou=to, Xen. Hell. 7.1.38.). 24 Dem 19.137, 191; Xen. Hell. 7.1.37. Plutarch is even more explicit on this point in calling the King’s gifts a “reproach unto treason more than a token of friendly charis” (o)neidismo\j e)j prodosi/an ma=llon h)\ xa/ritoj u(po/mnhsij, Plut. Art. 22.6).

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Introduction

have a significant effect on how they regulated it. After all, we might be less inclined to query the death of a traitor than that of a venal politician. It is precisely on this point that Plutarch’s juxtaposition of Epicrates and Timagoras becomes so instructive, for accounts of Epicrates’ embassy condemn him not for treason, but for profiteering. With Epicrates, the excessive amount of the King’s gifts seems to have been the only issue. In his comedy The Presbeis, Plato Comicus describes in detail the range of different gold and silver cups that Epicrates took (Plato Com. frr. 119-21K). The comic poet even comments on how many of them there were (cf. plei=sta, Pl. Com. fr. 119.2K) and notes that both ambassadors made off like thieves (cf. e)klepte/thn, Pl. Com. fr. 120K; kle/yaj, Pl. Com. fr. 121K). Indeed, the entire anecdote is framed around how Epicrates had profited, while the rest of the city remained poor (Plut. Pelop. 30.7). Earlier, too, when Epicrates purportedly took dōra from Timocrates, the author of the Hellenica Oxyrhyncia notes that the dōra themselves did not change Epicrates’ mind; they were pure profit (Hell. Oxy. 2.2-5). Instead of being a traitor, Epicrates seems to have been much closer to a thief. In this way we can tease out of Plutarch’s account the idea that conceptions of who the dōrodokos was actually changed throughout the democracy. This fundamental point courses through Chapters Two through Four, which examine how and why political narratives about the dōrodokos changed throughout the democracy. Building on the relational model developed in Chapter One, these chapters explore how changing economic and political circumstances, as well as patterns of social relations in politics all shaped how the dōrodokos was conceived: he changed from a kind of disobedient citizen in the fifth century (Chapter Two), to a thief in the early fourth century (Chapter Three),

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Introduction

and finally to a traitor in the last half century of the democracy (Chapter Four). As will be clear, by focusing on changing social relations and the obligations that inhere therein, we are forced to frame the intent of the dōrodokos in a very different light. Rather than behave like a rational actor pursuing his own (financial) utility, the dōrodokos emerges as a bad friend unsuccessfully negotiating a range of different relationships, in particular his ‘friendship’ with the community itself. In these cases, the ‘motivation’ we seek to explain is not so much why a given individual violated a norm for personal gain as why he failed to frame his actions in those terms. This was true of Timagoras, who delicately balanced relationships with Leon, Pelopidas, and the Persian King, in addition to his civic ‘friendship’ with the Athenian people.

Hence, contemporary accounts of the embassy focused intensely on the

friendships forged and broken in Susa. Timagoras effectively renounced his personal friendship with Leon (a major reason for his subsequent trial) and in doing so signaled that he was renouncing his friendship with Athens, too. In addition, the details of Xenophon’s and Demosthenes’ versions suggest that Timagoras may also have been thought to have conspired with Pelopidas and the King:

this would explain why

Timagoras “testified on behalf of” Pelopidas’ speech and why the King subsequently held Timagoras in such high esteem (sunemartu/rei, Xen. Hell. 7.1.35). On this reconstruction, for Timagoras’ critics, the danger he posed was that he was actively colluding with political friends outside the city in order to do damage to the city itself. As Plutarch notes, the gift given by the King was not in itself considered bad, but the exchange was blamed because of the collusion and treason it concealed. For all we know, however, Timagoras simply viewed things differently: he might have thought

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Introduction

Athens had little negotiating power, and he might have blamed his sickness for why he would not room with Leon.

In short, we must take seriously the possibility that

Timagoras never considered himself a traitor. To that extent, a rational actor model simply fails to understand his motivation. Timagoras was not alone in being wholly ignorant of the ways in which he was unsuccessfully negotiating his relationship with the community. The first four chapters reveal how Athens’ greatest politicians—Themistocles, Cimon, Pericles, Cleon, Aeschines and Demosthenes—were all accused of dōrodokia, yet few seemed to think of their actions as ‘bribery’. Indeed, if Timagoras and countless other officials like him were somehow unaware that they had failed the Athenians, they must have understood their own actions as benefiting the democracy in some way. They must have slotted their own actions into some larger political narrative about how a ‘good’ democracy functions. This claim will be taken up extensively in Chapters Two through Four, which collectively show how dōrodokia operated very much in the shadows of democracy: the monies taken by the dōrodokos were constantly weighed against the monies of democracy as two sides of the same coin. In effect, Timagoras and other dōrodokoi may have thought they were dealing in legitimate political monies, only to discover, too late, that the Athenians considered them bribe monies. Considerable disagreement arose, in large part, because within both dōrodokia and the democracy, monies were used as metaphors for the relationships they negotiated. Bribes signified corrupt social relations in politics, just as the legitimate monies of the democracy—e.g. state pay, public honors, tribute—signaled the proper social relations constitutive of the democracy itself. Such ‘weighing’ of monies, then, underscored a more profound weighing of how politics

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should be conducted. Whereas the dōrodokos might have thought his actions were legitimate, even downright beneficial to the polity, his opponents called them dōrodokia and corruptive of the democracy. It is in this sense that discursive shifts in the figure of the dōrodokos reflected changes in broader political narratives about the democracy. As the polity developed, new monies were used to negotiate new social relations within politics, and these new monies reflected new ways to conceptualize the ideal relationship between citizen and community. What we will discover in these chapters, though, is that the Athenians essentially thought through such discursive shifts by thinking with the figure of the dōrodokos.

Bribe monies signaled illegitimate relations, processes or outcomes; by

articulating what constituted such illegitimate monies, the Athenians implicitly outlined the contours of the legitimate practice of politics. In detailing how the Athenians conceptualized dōrodokia, the first four chapters illustrate just how far removed we are from intent-based, rational actor approaches to bribery. Indeed, the Athenians focused on outcomes, and they located bribery squarely within the framework of gift exchange and the relationships it negotiates. The relevant questions they would have posed of Timagoras would have been: “was the outcome of his actions good?” and “what made him think he was successfully negotiating his relationship with the community?” Answering these questions would have answered, for an Athenian, whether Timagoras’ actions constituted dōrodokia, and what his ultimate motivation was. Again, accusing someone like Timagoras of dōrodokia was a way to signal that a given political outcome was bad. It opened up public discussion about

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whether or not the ‘potential trajectory’ constituted by his actions was, in fact, a desirable path for the democracy. Judging by the rates of bribery trials in the democracy, the Athenians apparently thought that a lot of just such ‘potential trajectories’ in their democracy had been bad; in this sense, the outright presumption of bribery was perhaps not entirely unwarranted. Scholarly estimates of the prevalence of Athenian bribery have varied considerably, but the number of bribery prosecutions and convictions, to say nothing of instances that never came to trial, is enormously high by Western standards.25 Even with considerable gaps in our evidence, we have attested 32 different prosecutions of bribery with an additional 22 cases of varying degrees of certainty; all but a handful of these cases fall during the period 430-322, the best-attested period of the democracy.26 At least 36 of these 54 trials resulted in conviction.27 Although extrapolating from our evidence is hazardous, we can plausibly estimate that roughly 6-10% of major public officials would have been brought to trial on accusations of bribery, and roughly half of these officials would have been convicted.28 25

Kulesza (1995: 39-40) rightly remarks that, given the tremendous gaps in our sources, the unusually high prevalence of bribery attested in our sources is most likely only the tip of the iceberg. Scholarly estimates run the gamut from positing widespread peculation—MacDowell (1983), Cargill (1985), Strauss (1985)—to claiming that dōrodokia was “more [frequent] than would be regarded as acceptable in our own society” (Harvey [1985]) or, in the exceptional view of Perlman (1976: 231), “not very widespread.” Estimating the prevalence of bribery is notoriously difficult even in non-historical societies and cannot be our aim here. Still, it is worth considering that, by the standards defined by political scientists—on which see Chapter One—bribery was probably a regular occurrence in the democracy: cf. Cargill (1985: 79). 26 For the catalog of bribery trials, see Kulesza (1995: 85-90) and, for a slightly modified list in English, Taylor (2001). 27 For the 34 known dōrodokia trials (32 known plus 2 for which dōrodokia is mentioned in our sources but not at the trial), 19 resulted in conviction, 4 resulted in acquittal, 6 presumably resulted in acquittal, and the result for 5 is unknown. Of the remaining 20 trials, 17 resulted in conviction, 1 probably did so, there was 1 acquittal, and 1 with unknown outcome. Of these latter 17 convictions, however, 9 come from the trial of the Treasurers of Hellas (Hellēnotamiai), who reportedly were convicted unjustly; the tenth was saved from certain death when proof of their innocence was discovered during his trial (Ant. 5.69-71). 28 The vast majority of our attested bribery trials are prosecutions of generals, public speakers (rhētores), or ambassadors (the latter two categories after 411). If we assume roughly 100 rhētores during the 90 or so years after the introduction of an eisangelia for bribe-taking by a rhētor and, on average, a total of roughly

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Introduction

Our sources suggest, moreover, that the Athenians enacted and modified more legislative and institutional reforms dealing with bribery than for any other offense. They created no fewer than seven legal processes for prosecuting the gift or receipt of bribes, whether generally or involving specific officials in specific contexts; some of these were modified more than once over the course of the democracy. The penalties attached to these legal processes—a tenfold fine, disfranchisement, or death—were considerable. There were, in addition, public curses and oaths against taking bribes, as well as numerous changes to the jury and magistrate allotment procedures, reportedly to reduce the potential for corruption. And in the fourth century, on at least one occasion the entire registry of citizens had to be re-ratified under suspicion that some residents had bribed their way into the citizenry.29 These legal and institutional reforms certainly suggest that dōrodokia was a persistent problem at Athens, but is that all they suggest? Were the severe penalties for dōrodokia indications that the Athenians had trouble deterring it? Timagoras’ embassy provides two clues to the contrary. First, it is important to note that, in all of our accounts, the only person who was ‘deterred’ by these laws was the Persian King, not Timagoras or any other potential dōrodokos. Demosthenes remarks that, once the King saw how serious the Athenians were about dōrodokia—by killing Timagoras—he 15 unique ambassadors and generals per year over the same time period, this amounts to around 1500 possible bribery cases during this time for the most prestigious public positions, of which we have attested in one form or another 45 trials. Given the tremendous gaps in our evidence—with the high frequency of trials in the early fourth century (so Strauss [1985]), the general dearth of evidence for the 370’s is particularly striking—let us assume that these trials represent only half of the actual number of trials, or about 90 (6%) out of 1500 possible cases. By contrast, Hansen (1975; cf. 1999: 217) points out that, for the most important position, the generalship, we know of only 289, or 37%, of the 770 generalships held between 432 and 355 BCE. A more accurate assessment of the prevalence of bribery trials thus might be closer to 10% (or even 15%) of the major political positions held. This figure excludes prosecution of minor officials, for an example of which see Ant. 6.49-50. 29 On these legal procedures, penalties, and institutional reforms, see most recently MacDowell (1983), Hashiba (2006). All of these developments will be treated in detail below in Chapters Five and Six.

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Bribery in Classical Athens

decided never to give anyone dōra again (Dem. 19.137).

While we might take

Demosthenes’ words with a grain of salt, it is significant that an Athenian like Demosthenes viewed the law’s deterrent effect in terms of bribe-givers, not bribe-takers. At the very least, we should reconsider our assumption that the law was intended primarily to deter potential bribe-takers. Second, it is also significant that, at least in Plutarch’s account, Timagoras weighs his decision not in terms of the letter of the law— i.e. what the law actually says—but in terms of the law in action. He recalls how Epicrates happily took dōra and went unpunished, and it was this purported legal result, rather than the law itself, that influenced his own decision. Accordingly, Chapters Five through Seven show that, in order to understand why the Athenians created the specific anti-dōrodokia legislation that they did, we need to move beyond thinking about the law solely in terms of deterrence.

Chapter Five

develops a theoretical framework for examining Athenian legislation on dōrodokia. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which such legislation ‘translated’ the figure of the dōrodokos into a legal entity. This framework will then be used, in Chapter Six, to trace a legal history of dōrodokia: both the kinds of legal spaces created for dōrodokia, and how those spaces were used to articulate ‘democratic’ legal and political institutions. Finally, Chapter Seven considers the function of those laws and legal processes in action, specifically how dōrodokia trials might be used not only to educate Athenians in civic values, but even to legitimate policies, political processes, and even political players. Given the sheer number of attested dōrodokia trials as well as the extensive breadth and depth of reforms geared towards dōrodokia, this legal history provides us with a uniquely detailed look at the changing relationship between law and society at

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Athens throughout the democracy. As the second half of the dissertation shows, in the same way as the dōrodokos was articulated in opposition to the good democratic citizen, the Athenians used the dōrodokos in law to think through what ‘democratic’ institutions and legal processes should look like.

We find, then, a complex process of norm

articulation whereby legal and institutional changes both reflected and influenced social norms governing the dōrodokos. In particular, picking up on the idea of bribery as an alternate trajectory for the democracy, these chapters suggest that the Athenians actively sought to create a political space in which the power of bribery as a distinct mode of politics could be leveraged for the good of the democracy. The Athenians took seriously the idea that political outcomes were neither good nor bad until they were so legitimated (or delegitimized) by the people. And one prominent way to legitimate outcomes was through dōrodokia trials. Hence, the reason why the Athenians killed dōrodokoi like Timagoras often had more to do with this process of legitimization than with any inherent desire to deter dōrodokia. There are numerous areas of Athenian political practice that will always be frustratingly beyond our reach. How often were dōra given with the explicit intent of changing an official’s mind? Were dōra given and received only within the context of pre-existing relations, or were one-off bribes also common? What were the real-life political and economic effects of undeniable cases of dōrodokia? These are big questions for any account of bribery. As often, even in modern case-studies, they will regrettably be left unanswered. For a host of reasons, there is no systematic way to gather evidence on bribery, ancient or modern, including records of bribes received or testimonies of the parties involved. The Athenian case, though frustratingly incomplete, might nevertheless

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be of just as much use as any contemporary study in shedding light on current models used to examine bribery. On the whole, the goal of the following seven chapters is to paint a picture of how dōrodokia shaped the development of the Athenian democracy: representing an alternate trajectory that the democracy might take, instances of purported bribery were significant political and cultural moments at Athens. The Athenians consequently enacted a range of legal and institutional measures to weigh these moments and leverage them for the collective good. Each time dōrodokia was thought to have arisen, the Athenians decided as a collective body whether a particular outcome associated with dōrodokia was legitimate—and hence consonant with the democracy—or illegitimate—and hence bribery. And in looking back at the development of the democracy, they repeatedly looked to the dōrodokos as the conceptual bogeyman of their polity: the anti-citizen who violated his ‘friendship’ with the community. As we will consider in the Conclusion, even though dōrodokia appears to have been quite frequent, it need not have been detrimental to the polity. In fact, this dissertation suggests that we should take seriously the idea that more frequent bribery, playing the specific role it did in Classical Athens, actually may have helped, not harmed the emergence and persistence of democracy.

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Chapter One

Bribery, Politics, and the Problem of Definition

Every inquiry into bribery must grapple with the question of definition: what is bribery? Typically, bribery is assumed to be an illicit payment to an official to obtain services or to avoid costs; that is, bribery is considered a particular type of abuse of public power for private gain.1 So, for instance, paying a policeman not to write a speeding ticket, paying a legislator to vote a particular way, or paying a bureaucrat for a public contract or to expedite some public service are all classic examples of bribery in action, according to this definition. But what about paying a student to get good grades, a referee or athlete to throw a sporting event, or a bureaucrat who demands additional compensation for the provision of a public service? Are these not bribery, as well? Are they somehow qualitatively and meaningfully distinct from the above definition? One response might be to narrow our scope to include only ‘political’ bribery—so that pay-for-grades and athletic bribery are not included—and to differentiate between bribery and extortion, which might eliminate the last example given. In this way, we might arrive at a satisfactory set of actions, all firmly located within the public sphere (however that is defined), and all readily described as bribery. This is, in fact, the course adopted by most scholars, and there is much to recommend it, as it allows us to compare cross-culturally what does and does not constitute bribery. In the case of ancient Athens,

1

On this definition, see the recent discussion in Johnston (2005: 10-12). Alternatively, bribery is conceptualized as a means to corrupt a person’s (sc. public official’s) judgment, a definition used by Harvey (1985: 77) and Taylor (2001: 53) in their examinations of ancient bribery. Such a definition, however, quickly blends into an “illicit payment”: if it were licit, there would be no corruption of judgment; and the payment would not be necessary if the official was already going to do what was being paid for. The definition of bribery given above can thus be taken, simply, as an elaboration of why a corrupting payment is successful (because it succeeds in creating an abuse of public power for private gain).

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for example, by obtaining even just a rough approximation of what the Athenians considered an ‘abuse’, ‘public’, ‘power’, ‘private’ and ‘gain’, we might begin to understand which actions did and did not constitute bribery at Athens. From there we could more accurately differentiate between those actions that were really bribery at Athens and those that only seem (to us) like bribery but were perfectly licit for the Athenians, and so forth. Or so the theory goes. There are immediate, salient problems with taking a definition like “abuse of public power for private gain”—already laden in specific normative terms, it seems—and trying to translate it from one normative context to another.

Even within a given set of cultural norms, it is unclear on what grounds

‘abuse’ should be defined. Is it a violation of formal (legal) rules regarding the conduct of public officials, an action that goes contrary to the public interest, or one that goes against the public’s conception of what is acceptable?2 Again, we could simply limit ourselves to one way of defining ‘abuse’ (or ‘power’ or ‘gain’, for that matter). But doing so obscures the crucial political work done by, say, limiting our scope to formal regulations of official conduct while disregarding both public opinion about what the law should say and the extent to which the law is seen to foster the public interest. This is not just an issue of asking, when a particular law is thought unjust, whether it should be 2

These three options correspond to a modified version of Arnold Heidenheimer’s (1989) threefold typology of definitions of corruption. Heidenheimer differentiates between defining ‘abuse’ according to the norms of public office (i.e. legal norms) or the public interest; alternatively, under a market-based approach, public officials qua rational (utility maximizing) agents always tend to use public office to maximize private gain or influence. As Philp (1997: 445) has convincingly shown, however, market-based approaches always already incorporate legalistic definitions insofar as they presume that proper official conduct is determined by the law. In place of the market-oriented approach, therefore, I have included Gibbons’ (1989) definition based on public opinion even though this approach has not gained much traction; see also Peters and Welch (1978). Legalistic approaches can be found in Leys (1965), Nye (1967), Scott (1972). Public interest approach: Gronbeck (1978). Market-based model: Banfield (1975), Rose-Ackerman (1978, 1999), Klitgaard (1988), Goudie and Stasavage (1998), della Porta and Vannuci (1999), Lambsdorff (2002).

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considered bribery if officials follow public opinion and the public interest by regularly accepting bribes not to heed the law; or, conversely, whether perfectly legal lobbying efforts or campaign contributions should not, in fact, be considered legalized bribery. Rather, I am calling into question what is at stake—what is actually being measured—by terming such instances ‘bribery’. Certainly it is valuable to try to reduce bribery to an essential core which can then be compared across normative contexts, but the standard definition seems to misunderstand the nature of that core. In positing an apolitical, neutral definition of bribery that need only be adapted to a particular culture’s norms, the standard view misses the fact that every definition of bribery is a political claim: by marking out what is considered ‘bad’ government, the actions that constitute bribery negatively define the contours of good government.3 To that extent, the standard definition actually posits a specific normative framework for understanding bribery, while allowing only the contents of that framework to vary cross-culturally; far from being apolitical or normatively neutral, the standard definition is, itself, a political, normative definition. Definitions of ‘abuse’ likewise hinge on the terms by which we define the workings of good government: whether it functions in accordance with the law, public interest, or public opinion. While it might be illuminating to measure to what extent different countries adhere to a given definition of good government, this is ultimately a bizarre comparison, not least because different polities can be organized under different guiding principles. Phrased this way, the standard approach to defining and measuring

3

Euben (1989), Philp (1997), Génaux (2004) and, with reference to US campaign contribution debates, Burke (2006). Harrison (2004) highlights the importance and power entailed in naming something ‘corruption’.

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bribery seems an odd approach to take particularly for historical societies like ancient Athens. This chapter presents a different approach to how we should define and measure bribery, one that treats bribery not as a class of political actions, but as a political claim about actions. The first section will present an overview of this approach, examining how bribery, as a social frame, creates distinct normative patterns in every polity. The following section will apply this approach to the case of democratic Athens by focusing, in particular, on the language of bribery and the practice of politics. There it will be shown that the medium of bribery, the bribe, is emblematic of a host of different ways in which the Athenians leveraged social relationships in the practice of politics.

In the

third and last section, we will consider how the normative value of the bribe often shifts depending on whether one adopts the frame of an insider—someone part of the bribe relationship—or an outsider. In turn, public discourse on what did and did not constitute bribery was, itself, composed of numerous, competing accusations of bribery. Understanding how this public discourse was constructed will enable us, in the chapters to come, to measure how and why Athenian conceptions of bribery changed over the course of the democracy, and how bribery played an integral role in how the Athenians thought through their democracy.

A Relational Approach to Bribery The relational approach adopted here begins with the simple claim that bribery entails both social relations and norms. First, bribery is never conducted in a social vacuum: there are always at least two participants linked by some kind of social tie, even

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if that tie is as bare as an arms-length bureaucrat-citizen relationship. Second, and this is precisely the phenomenon captured by defining bribery as a kind of “illicit payment” or “abuse,” bribery implies a violation of some norm. The crucial distinction between the standard view and my own is how these two components—social relations and norms— are combined with each other to create the category ‘bribery’. On the standard view, the norms are taken to define the social relations involved in bribery. As noted earlier, once we define the categories of ‘abuse’, ‘public’, ‘power’, etc., we purportedly can determine the class of actions that constitute bribery. The social relations that pertain in these actions are thus wholly incidental, but they are also, themselves, determined by how we define the prevailing norms concerning ‘abuse’, ‘public’, etc. For an illicit payment to constitute bribery, in the sense that we want, it would necessarily entail some counterbalancing of ‘public’ and ‘private’. In other words, bribery would be possible only among those social relations that involve a ‘public’ individual. This may seem like an acceptable result, but note how quickly it can both underdetermine and over-determine what scholars are actually trying to measure. Where a strong informal network holds considerable power in society, for example, even if it does not control the formal organs of government, within the network there may be no ‘public’ individuals, proper. Hence, the use of bribe-like payments within the network should not strictly be considered bribery under the standard definition. Conversely, it is not always an ‘abuse’ of power for a public official to receive some kind of gain in exchange for a favorable vote:

again, vote-swapping, campaign financing, and lobbying by special

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interest groups may be perfectly legal modes of conducting politics, even if to most observers such payments may look like bribes. What we find, then, is that by forcing actions into an already culturally determined framework, scholars have defined a pattern of actions that only imperfectly approximates the phenomenon they wish to study. It should be noted that the same problem will recur given any attempt to define bribery in apolitical terms: bribery is a political phenomenon, so we should expect that there are as many definitions of bribery as there are of polity. Accordingly, bribery qua a pattern of actions defies rigorous definition. I propose, instead, a relational approach to bribery in which the social relations, not the norms, assume a prior role in definition; in this way, we should think of bribery not as a distinct pattern of actions generated by specific cultural norms, but as a normative pattern generated by distinct social relations.4 My approach follows on recent work by economic sociologists, who have sought to break down the orthodox divide between ‘economic’ and ‘social’ modes of behavior, traditionally considered to occupy separate spheres of action and hence to be predicated on different logics of action.5

4

By ‘relational’ I intend to move past the concept of ‘embeddedness’, as classicists might recognize from the influential work of Polanyi (1968)—e.g. Finley (1977), von Reden (1995a), Kurke (1999)—and as underpins the work of recent economic sociologists like Granovetter (1985), Uzzi and Lancaster (2004). Embeddedness points towards how social relations shape economic activity. Yet these social relations are largely taken to be a flat structure within which ‘economic’, as distinct from ‘relational’, activity is carried out. On a relational view, within this structure the only work that occurs—the only meaning that is defined, contested, and negotiated—is relational work. In this sense, ‘economics’ does not occur within social relations—it is not simply “embedded” in them. Rather, economics is about social relations and is, in this sense, constitutive of them. For a helpful overview of the differences and similarities between a relational approach and Polanyi’s work on embeddedness, see Steiner (2009). 5 People have persistent fears over mixing money and relationships, as if the former are destructive or corruptive of the latter. Zelizer calls this fear “Hostile Worlds” and discusses it at length in Zelizer (2005b). In terms of ‘economic’ activity, this dichotomy had until recently amounted to scholars’ polarization of gifts and commodities—that is, inalienable goods exchanged between interdependent actors and alienable goods exchanged between independent actors, in Gregory’s (1982) influential formulation— which are, accordingly, exchanged according to different logics: see also Sahlins (1972: 277-314). As

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Instead of claiming, like neo-classical economists, that economic behavior is not shaped in any significant way by social context or prevailing social norms, economic sociologists posit that economic actions are constitutive of social relations and the cultural meanings attached to them.6 Production, distribution, and consumption, the traditional spheres of ‘economic’ activity, are always already relational activities, playing a valuable role in the relational work people perform every day.7 In particular, Viviana Zelizer has developed a relational framework for analyzing economic activity, one that will lay the foundation for our investigation of bribery. Zelizer defines economic transactions by the presence of a transaction medium, called a ‘money’: “a representation of rights to goods and services, usually in the form of concrete tokens.”8 Just as important as the transaction medium (the money given or received) are the transaction context and the social relation of the transactors. While the relations of the transactors can vary almost infinitely, Zelizer distinguishes among only three types of transaction contexts—gift, compensation, and entitlement—which

Bourdieu (1977: 171-7) points out, however, transacting even in gifts requires misrecognition; ‘economic’ calculation can and does factor into how or what gifts are exchanged. See further discussion at Appadurai (1986: 13), Bloch and Parry (1989: 8-12). What economic sociologists like Zelizer have done, therefore, is to posit that the logic of the exchange is oriented around the social relations of the transaction, not necessarily the exchanged goods, themselves. 6 To be sure, recent literature in the New Institutional Economics and the contextualist camp of the New Economic Sociology has modified the neo-classical model tremendously: see the overview in Lambsdorff, Taube and Schramm (2005), with examples in della Porta and Vannuci (1999) and Warburton (2001) on networks and corruption. Still, the essential core of these models is assumed to be the traditional homo economicus rational actor. It is here, in dissolving a rational actor approach, that the alternative camp of economic sociologists makes its boldest and most stimulating claims. 7 See further Abolafia (1996), Tilly and Tilly (1998), Biggart and Delbridge (2004), Fourcade and Healy (2007). 8 Quote from Zelizer (2001: 9992). Zelizer (2001) provides a helpful overview of the sociology of money summarized here; see also Davis (1992), Zelizer (1994; 2005b), Zelizer and Tilly (2006).

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correspond, respectively, to whether or not the transaction medium represents a voluntary bestowal on another, direct exchange, or rightful claim to a share.9 Building on Zelizer’s ideas, I argue that bribery should be understood no less as a way of negotiating social relations. After all, bribes are commonly taken to be just such a form of money, as it is the bribe itself—whether in cash or in kind, explicit or not—that establishes someone’s right to a particular good or service. Given that bribery is thought of as a kind of quid pro quo, we can readily classify it as a transaction of compensation (direct exchange). More specifically, I propose, something is ‘bribery’ if and only if there is an exchange, a violation of an obligation inhering in a social relationship, and a causal link between the two such that the violation is thought to occur because of the exchange. These three components should be uncontroversial given that they are always implicit whether we define bribery as a kind of “abuse [violation] of public power for [causality] private gain [exchange]” or as an “illicit [violation] payment [exchange] meant [causality] to change one’s mind.” Yet bribery occupies a special role within Zelizer’s typology because the relevant, violated social relationship is usually not that between bribe-giver and bribe-taker (i.e. the two transactors); instead, it is usually a relationship between the bribe-taker and some third party.10 Note how extending the frame in this way to encompass the perspective of a thirdparty creates the potential for a crucial conflict between social frames. In part because of uncertainty surrounding what constitutes bribery, in part because of the high risks 9

This is a different typology than the schema of general, balanced, and negative reciprocities developed by Sahlins (1972: 185-230, esp. 191-6) and which classicists typically use: see most recently Herman (2006: 30-8). 10 Of course, this is not always the case. I would argue that, in the case of ‘bribing’ a child to get good grades, the child is thought to have violated an obligation either to herself or, more likely, to her parents. In this case, the exchange constitutes the violation: thereafter the child presumably would be striving to get good grades not because she owed it to her parents, but because she would be compensated for doing so.

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associated with bribery, transacting in bribes—i.e. violating social norms—requires an enormous amount of trust.

Typically, high-risk transactions are conducted through

previously existing social relations, as the social relations themselves act to diffuse the risk associated with the transaction.11 Where there are no previous social relations to guide transactors, local norms can guarantee the security of the transaction: where bribes are expected, there is little risk that they will be punished.12

The majority of bribe

transactions is thus conducted between actors who are either already linked through some social network or who can rely on prevailing institutional norms to know that the transaction is safe. This confines the giving and taking of bribes predominantly to welldefined networks of actors; people are either ‘in’ the network, or they are ‘out’ of it.13 Conflicting social frames arise when ‘insiders’ view the actions in terms of one frame, ‘outsiders’ another. On the one hand, bribe-giver and bribe-taker (the insiders) regularly frame the bribe and the service for which it is purportedly exchanged as distinct media for negotiating, contesting, and constituting a local relationship amongst themselves. As such, bribe and service can readily be framed as reciprocal gifts, not as quid pro quo compensation14; often, too, they are understood as part of a longer sequence

11

DiMaggio and Louch (1998), and, on bribery, Humphrey (1991), Ledeneva (1998, 2008), Lambsdorff (2002), Uslaner (2004), Pardo (2004b). 12 Graeff (2005). 13 Pardo (2004b)’s study of Italian corruption demonstrates this point well in illustrating how low-level corruption requiring relatively little trust was conducted among individuals outside of any network whereas high-level corruption, requiring much higher levels of trust, was conducted via networks. Of course, in the case of prevailing local norms, simply entering into the correct institutional context—e.g. interacting with the appropriate governmental office, widely known to demand bribes—can be all it takes to become an ‘insider’: see further Humphrey (1991) on outsider distinctions involving bribery. Ledeneva (1998: 3942) differentiates bribery from blat (personal influence) by the presence or absence of networks, but she takes too narrow an understanding of bribery as entailing the use of money (qua cash). Instead, I would point out that the currency of blat networks can appear to be bribes to outsiders. In this sense, blat and bribery on Ledeneva’s definition are gradations of a range of collaborative activity that can be termed ‘bribery’ on my definition. 14 Indeed, when there is frequent reciprocal giving within a relationship, the particular ‘bribe’ and service may be thought by insiders as completely unrelated to each other. Note how the reverse is usually the case

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of reciprocal exchanges that define the dynamics of that local relationship.15 Within this frame, the transactors readily view their own actions as unproblematic or, at worst, normatively ambiguous. Even when it is recognized that some kind of non-local ‘line’ has been crossed, this short-term violation is frequently justified on the grounds that it is necessary or will bring a benefit in the long-term.16 On the other hand, outsiders might frame the transaction as a bribe, that is, as compensation constituting or resulting in a violation of broader societal norms—though precisely which norms have been violated is often contested. On this view, too, the bribe performs crucial relational work, but the proper field for that relational work is often viewed as a bribe-taker’s relationship not to some bribe-giver, but to society as a whole.17 For precisely this reason, public officials who take bribes are thought to have breached some kind of public trust or to have transgressed the formal rules for office.18

in bureaucratic contexts where bribery is expected. There, ‘bribe’ and service can be closely correlated as direct exchange precisely because the local bureaucrat-citizen relationship being negotiated is an armslength tie in which market norms (like direct compensation, not gifts) prevail. On the distinction between market and social frames, see especially Heyman and Ariely (2004); as MacKenzie, Muniesa, and Siu (2007) point out, however, an arms-length tie is nevertheless a relational distance that must be constantly negotiated by two social transactors. 15 Ethnographic accounts of bribery are particularly helpful on this point, as they point to how the discourse of friendship pervades how transactors frame the transaction: e.g. Ledeneva (1998: 59-66), Parry (2000: 33), Pardo (2004b: 40), Rigi (2004: 111), Sedlenieks (2004: 125), Smith (2007: 85-6). 16 American legislators frequently justify lobbyists and campaign contributions from special interest groups on precisely these grounds as necessary, if ambiguous, means for them to stay in office; after all, they can represent their constituents well only by remaining in office. Cf. Thompson (1995: 66). In examining US federal laws on campaign financing, Lowenstein (2004) underscores the role corrupt intent plays both in the law and in how people negotiate the giving and receiving of campaign contributions. I would reframe his question of intent (is quid pro quo intended?) as a question of framing (according to the transactors, is it quid pro quo or gift exchange?). 17 Alternatively, some set of non-universal norms might provide a competing frame. So a local high-school athletic team might be let down if one of the teammates is bribed to throw the game, but we probably would not say that a societal or universal norm had been transgressed. Schweitzer’s (2005) analysis of bribery through the lens of particular vs. universal norms should thus be modified, as there is no requirement that bribery be framed from the perspective of universal, societal norms. Often times, in fact, which norms should be considered universal, which particular, is precisely the kind of political question that is negotiated through practice. 18 This is, of course, where public-office and public-interest definitions of corruption derive their normative force. For the relationship between corruption and the breach of trust, see especially Uslaner (2002, 2005), Graeff (2005).

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In the final section we will address some of the crucial implications that emerge from this conflict in social frames, but for now I would like to point out two advantages that a relational model of bribery has over the standard view. First, thinking of bribery as a social frame allows us to underscore the contiguities between bribery both inside and outside the practice of politics. Bribing a legislator is structurally homologous to bribing an agent, corrupting an athlete, or simply bribing a child to get good grades; that the one happens within the ‘political sphere’, while the others do not, is incidental to a large degree. English readily uses the same verb, “to bribe,” in each context, after all. Because there is little reason to think that political bribery is somehow unique among social practices, a proper understanding of bribery would locate political bribery within the larger context of norm violations purportedly induced by gain. This is precisely what a relational approach does. Even so, what does change among these last examples is the normative value of the bribe.19 In other words, within each distinct social (hence normative) context this social frame takes on different normative values. For Zelizer, the ‘social meaning’ of money—whether we understand it as gift, sale, salary, bonus, bribe, allowance, tip, etc.— derives from the precise combination of transaction medium, transaction context, and relationship between the transactors. Though partially independent, these categories must always be ‘matched’; a mismatch can result in an undesirable, even an immoral, exchange.20 For example, pretend you come across a man handing a woman $100 in 19

Underscored by Pardo (2004a: 4-7) and the essays collected in the same volume; see also Sahlins (1972: 196-9). 20 Zelizer (1994; 2001: 9993-4). That the ‘meaning’ of money thus stems from the context in which it is transferred is likewise highlighted by Appadurai (1986: 3-6) and Bloch and Parry (1989: 19-23), who emphasize the role played by cultural context in specifying which ways money can be represented, i.e. which specific ‘meanings’ money can have. See also the essays collected in Parry and Bloch (1989), DiMaggio (1994) and Levin (2008).

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Bribery in Classical Athens

how do you evaluate that scene normatively?

Chapter One Understanding the pair’s

relationship—husband/wife, father/daughter, citizen/politician, store-owner/customer, to name but a few examples—is absolutely necessary. So, too, is understanding whether the cash represents a gift, payment, loan, kickback and so forth. Just as the social meaning of money hinges on the other two categories, the social meaning of a relationship or even of the transaction context can hinge on how much money is given, of what kind, to whom or from what source.21 In the case of bribery, therefore, for different outcomes (i.e. when different obligations have been violated), for different social actors or for different relationships between them, the degree of illicitness varies.22 This is a second crucial advantage to the standard view’s focus on what does and does not constitute bribery, an advantage that allows us to assess why there might be a normative distinction between, say, bribing an opponent in court to drop a lawsuit and bribing a bureaucrat to obtain a public contract. On the standard view, identical actions within two different normative contexts (e.g. two different countries) are very difficult to compare. Often scholars must resort to the blanket assumption that there are ‘different values’ involved, without clearly pinpointing what exactly motivates the change in normative value. By contrast, as we will see in the

21

Zelizer (1994: esp. 208-16) focuses on the social meaning of money and analyzes how people ‘earmark’ currencies with specific meaning, making the currencies non-fungible so that the specific content of discrete social ties can be maintained. Thus, an allowance is different from a gift, which is different still from payment for chores—all of which transactions can signal different aspects of a parent-child relationship. Note, though, how the amount of payment for chores, including whether or not such ‘payment’ is distinct from an allowance, can signal a distinctively parent-child relationship and not, say, that between employer and employee, as in the case of hiring someone to do the same chores. 22 Rigi (2004: 105-8) makes a similar point in isolating the various social variables—like relational distance, amount of trust, power dynamic between transactors—that influence how and when bribery occurs.

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sections that follow, with a relational approach we can directly obtain how and why normative assessments change across social contexts.23 Two caveats before moving on to how this relational approach can be applied to Athens. Perhaps the most controversial difference between my own approach and the standard view of bribery is that I am taking bribery to be a social frame for understanding actions, not a class of actions per se. In this sense I am defining bribery by its outcome (normative violation) rather than assuming its outcome by focusing on intent (corrupting payments). When I claim that a particular transaction was an instance of bribery, I am saying, merely, that one could construct a narrative of events such that A paid (or promised to pay) B to do C, and that either C or this payment (or both) constituted a violation of some norm. This is only a narrative frame. It does not establish any fact of the matter; I think, and doubtless most scholars would agree, that normally it is

23

Although this will play little role in my analysis here, it should be noted that a third advantage to a relational approach to bribery is that it allows us to be more precise about the relationship between bribery and other forms of corrupt activity, specifically extortion and conflicts of interest. I do not focus on either extortion or conflict of interest largely because the former seems to have been rare at Athens—except under the Thirty, on which see Chapter Three—and the latter was simply a non-issue, as the Athenians were concerned not that officials might take gifts, but that they might take gifts from the wrong source: e.g. Plat. Leg. 955c8, Hyp. 4.24-5, pace Humphreys (1978b). Contemporary scholars frequently confess difficulty in distinguishing among these three concepts. When something is given to a politician, is it a ‘gift’ (without any specific strings attached) that thereby creates a conflict of interest, or is it a ‘bribe’ (with specific strings attached)? When a bureaucrat must be given an inducement to do her job, is this bribery (meaning the bribe was voluntarily initiated on both sides) or extortion (meaning the payment was expected, not voluntarily given)? Our relational approach would point out that these distinctions stem from differences in framing: bribery (compensation), extortion (entitlement), and conflict of interest (gift) fundamentally differ in terms of perceived transaction context. Moreover, and this is the crucial advantage gleaned from our relational model, to the extent that differences in transaction context are shaped by the social relationship of the transactors, these differences stem, in part, from the patterns of social relationships that configure them. We simply would not expect a gift between relative strangers, just as we would not expect direct exchange between close friends. This is one reason why there is often a difference between how participants (who might be close friends) and observers understand a particular transaction. Finally, a relational model allows for shades of distinctions between these categories: surely there is a difference—different causes, different effects, and different meanings—between explicit extortion and when a citizen thinks a bureaucrat is extorting money, while the bureaucrat views the money as a bribe. Rather than having to call such a situation either bribery or extortion, a relational view helpfully explains how and why there might be different understandings of the events. With a relational approach, we can thus gain tremendous insight into when and where we might expect bribery, extortion, and conflicts of interest to arise.

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impossible to establish any fact of the matter. Hence, I am not saying that A actually paid B to do C—meaning both A and B considered the transaction context a ‘payment’, as opposed to a ‘gift’ or ‘entitlement’—nor am I saying that C actually constituted some norm violation. Instead, I am indicating that, according to one perspective, ‘A bribed B to do C’ is a valid way to construe the events in question, meaning it is a valid way to understand C and the causal link, if any, between C and the transaction between A and B.24 Adopting the social frame of bribery necessarily assumes that A paid B to do C, and it accordingly assigns these events a particular normative value; but, again, note how A and B, or anybody else for that matter, might adopt a different frame for understanding the situation and thus might evaluate it differently. This is an inevitable agnosticism in assessing any individual’s real motivations, I think, and for this reason intention-based models of bribery have a critical problem in that they can rarely, if ever, be accurately measured. As a corrective, therefore, the relational view I am espousing focuses on the outcome, not the intent, of the ‘bribe’. Shifting our focus in this way from bribery qua a set of actions to bribery as a political claim—and, specifically, allowing that different frames might prevail among participants and observers—can have major implications for how we think about anti-corruption agendas.

Although these implications will be

addressed formally at the end of the dissertation, it is hoped that insights on this question will emerge periodically throughout the chapters that follow. A second disclaimer that should be mentioned is that following a relational model of bribery necessarily moves us away from rational actor explanations for bribery as a

24

On this point, I have benefited greatly from extended conversations with Arudra Burra, whose own work on coercion takes a similar approach.

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form of behavior. It is, after all, a premise of relational models that ‘economic’ actions really are about negotiating social relationships. Moreover, because we are focusing on outcome, not intent, our relational model seeks to uncover why individuals might frame an action as bribery, not necessarily why they might decide to pursue bribery as a course of action. Indeed, if they do not think of their own actions as ‘bribery’, it is difficult to understand in what sense they could be said to have ‘decided’ to takes bribes. One significant shortcoming of rational actor models, I suggest, is that they simply presume that individuals always frame the transaction as bribery. Undoubtedly this is true some of the time, but, as was noted above, the prevalence of conflicting social frames suggests that it is not true a significant amount of the time. In those cases, explaining the person’s exact ‘intent’ is almost impossible; by contrast, explaining why somebody might be inclined to frame the situation as bribery is almost always measurable. This is precisely what we will seek to do in outlining a relational model of bribery in democratic Athens.

Bribery and Relational Work in Athenian Politics In 480, the Athenian stratēgos Themistocles was in charge of the Athenian fleet as it fought against the Persians. According to Herodotus, when the Greeks arrived at the town of Artemisium in Euboea, they feared the size of the Persian fleet and wanted to leave. The Euboeans tried to convince the Spartan leader Eurybiades to stay, but they could not persuade him. They turned instead to Themistocles, offering him 30 talents of silver should the Greeks stay and defend Euboea. With this money, Themistocles gave five talents to Eurybiades, three to the Corinthian admiral Adimantus—purportedly more

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than the Persian King would have offered—and kept the rest for himself. So the Greeks remained at Artemisium.25 The details of this story are bizarre and defy interpretation under the standard view.

If we think of the thirty talents and subsequent payments as bribes given and

received by rational actors, we are left with a few puzzling facts. First, if Eurybiades could be bribed by Themistocles for only five talents, why were the Euboeans unable to persuade him? Why did they not simply offer the Spartan general five—or thirty!— talents from the beginning? Second, if the Persian King would have paid Adimantus less than three talents to betray the fleet, then we would expect that three talents would have been the going price for treason in this case. So why would it have taken a full five talents to persuade Eurybiades? And third, why was Themistocles’ price so high? Why did he require 22 talents, when the others required only 3 or 5 talents? Why did the Euboeans not pay him, instead, a more modest bribe of, say, 20 talents, or even 15? In theory, if Eurybiades, Adimantus, and Themistocles were rational rent-seeking politicians, we would expect that their bribe-price would have been set at a marketclearing price just above whatever the Persian King would have paid. Anything below such a price would have been irrational for themselves because they could have always received more money from the King; anything above such a price, though, would have been irrational for the Euboeans, since theoretically they should always desire the lowest price possible. Neither the bribe prices nor the eventual series of payments seems ‘rational’ under the standard model. Thus, even if these details have little historicity, at

25

Hdt. 8.4.2-8.5.3; cf. Plut. Them. 7.5-6=Phanias fr. 24 Wehrli.

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the very least we are hard-pressed to ascertain why Herodotus, or one of his sources, would have accepted, let alone passed on, the story at face value.26 Understanding the significance of the events at Artemisium requires moving past the standard view. This section presents a case for how a relational approach can help. Two aspects of a relational approach to bribery lend themselves particularly well to the Athenian context.

Because the Athenians had no word for ‘bribe’, the Athenian

vocabulary of bribery focused on compensation and the violation of social norms. As we saw in the previous section, these were the two critical components in a relational model of bribery.

Moreover, as has been underscored by much recent literature on gift

exchange and economic activity in ancient Athens, gifts like those given to the Greek generals at Artemisium were consistently used to negotiate social relationships.27 We have good reason to think, therefore, that the Athenians themselves understood bribery through the relationships that structured it. Both claims will be treated in this section as we investigate the vocabulary of bribery and the social contexts in which it could have appeared at Athens. The next section will examine how contested claims about bribery implicated broader public discussions about politics. 26

The historicity of the scene at Artemisium has been seriously questioned for a number of reasons, not least of which is the curious problem that, because the fleet was stationed at Artemisium explicitly in order to back up the Spartan land forces at nearby Thermopylae, it is odd that the Spartan leader Eurybiades would have wanted to leave. See further Cawkwell (1970: 41), Wallace (1974: 22-5), Podlecki (1975: 17-18), Frost (1980: 107-8 ad 7.6-7), Kurke (2002: 90). Cf. Plut. De Hdt. Mal.872BC. Doubts of historicity aside, many scholars paint Themistocles as a venal profiteer: see discussion, including ancient testimony, in Kurke (2002). Recently, Blösel (2001; 2005: 135-44), Baragwanath (2008: 292-4) and, less so, Fornara (1971: 66-74) have attempted to salvage Themistocles’ reputation as a cunning patriot. Blösel’s proposed scenario in which Herodotus uses Themistocles as a metaphor for Athens’ imperialism is possible—similarly, Cresci Marrone (1986), Balot (2001: 99-135 esp. 117-20)—but he goes too far in trying to model this scene off of, specifically, Pericles’ bribing of Pleistoanax: cf. Steinbock (2006). While I do not come down on either side of this issue, I would like to underscore that these normative assessments are all inherently political claims. 27 By ‘negotiate’ here and throughout I intend reference to some kind of relational work. Two social actors ‘negotiate’ a relationship in defining, redefining, adjusting, calibrating, or rejecting the obligations that inhere in their relationship. That is to say, they negotiate a social relationship in performing the work necessary to create, maintain or end it.

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The Athenians had no word for a ‘bribe’, no noun that signified that something— whether a gift, a tip, a wage, perquisite or inducement—was a ‘bribe’. They had only the word dōron (plural dōra), which should always be translated as ‘gift’. This is not to say that the Athenians had no concept of bribery; clearly they did, as witnessed by the verbs dōrodokeō (“receive bribes”), dekazō (“bribe”) and the noun dōrodokia (“bribery”). Nor is it to suggest that the Athenians euphemistically described all ‘bribes’ as ‘gifts’—they did not. Rather, when the Athenians wanted to mark something linguistically as bribery, they did so through context, usually with a verb or attendant prepositional phrases; they never marked the noun, the ‘bribe’ itself.28 Classicists regularly complicate this picture by claiming that the Athenians in fact used the same word dōra to denote both gifts and bribes, but this idea is untenable.29 On their view, if an Athenian wanted to talk about any ‘bribes’ given or received, she would have used the word dōra or, occasionally, lēmmata (“takings”), and context would have dictated whether the dōra were ‘gifts’ or ‘bribes’.30 But if context always indicated that something was a bribe, it is curious to assume that, nevertheless, the word dōra continued to denote an explicit ‘bribe’ on its own. By analogy, note how, whereas we might distinguish ‘dog’ from ‘animal’ either by using distinct words (‘dog’, ‘animal’) or by 28

On the vocabulary of Greek bribery, Harvey (1985: 82-9) is indispensable and see further below. Here, it is telling that when the Athenians did use a noun for “a bribe” (dwrodo/khma), not only was it exceptionally rare—attested once in Comedy (Pl. Com. fr. 119K)—but its meaning was also not clearly defined as a “bribe” given or received. It sometimes referred, instead, to an instance of bribery: e.g. Dem. 18.29, 31. 29 It would be entirely unexpected for the same word—whether dōron or lēmma—to connote, on its own, dramatically opposite meanings within a language, particularly given the social and political significance of a concept like bribery. After all, having the same word denote both ‘gift’ and ‘bribe’ would create a tremendous amount of confusion; we would expect, instead, that the two would always be distinguished, if not with different words—just as our word ‘bribe’ is always a marked term distinct from ‘gift’—then by some other linguistic means. 30 The comments of Harvey are characteristic in this regard: “It is important to stress that dōron means both what we call a gift and what we call a bribe…one and the same word is used for both types of transaction” (1985: 82, emphasis retained). Cf. Herman (1987: 85), Lewis (1989: 229), von Reden (1995a: 94), Taylor (2001: 53).

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context (“The animal that is furry and barks...”), we would never use both at the same time (“The dog that is furry and barks…”) merely to convey the idea of ‘dog’.31 Given that the Athenians always provided some additional indication that something was a ‘bribe’, we should think not that the Athenians used the same word for both ‘gift’ and ‘bribe’, but that they had no word for ‘bribe’.32 As in a relational model of bribery, there was nothing that could inherently be considered a bribe; it was the outcome of the gift, the way in which it was framed, that determined its normative value. The language of gift exchange and persuasion was regularly used to describe the workings of Athenian politics and society.33

Indeed, scenes of bribery were often

described in much the same language—a curious yet understandable result given that the Athenians had no word for ‘bribe’. Note how the entire scene at Artemisium is couched in the neutral language of gift exchange and persuasion and thus provides no indication that Themistocles’ actions would have constituted bribery (Hdt. 8.4-5). The Euboeans unsuccessfully tried to “persuade” Eurybiades (e1peiqon), but successfully “persuaded” Themistocles (pei/qousi), who then “won over” Eurybiades and Adimantus (a)nepe/peisto; a)napepeisme//noi). In each case, Herodotus says that persuasion was successful because it was coupled with either the giving of “gifts” (dw=ra dw=sw; dw/roisi) or “money” (e.g. tw=n xrhma/twn metadidoi=) or, in Themistocles’ case, the

31

Thus, in the sentence, “The dog that is furry and barks is mine,” we do legitimately use both kinds of linguistic markers, yet they do not perform the same function. While “dog” marks out that the subject is a dog—not, say, an ‘animal’ generally—the limiting phrase “that is furry and barks” signals which dog is intended, much like “the animal that is furry and barks” signals which animal is intended (a dog). 32 On comparative grounds, too, this interpretation may be preferable. For instance, the French language notoriously lacks a word for ‘bribe’; but, like ancient Greek, it successfully conveys the notion of ‘bribery’ through verbs, euphemisms, and context. Outlining the Russian vocabulary for blat (personal influence) and bribery, Dunn (2000) shows how the popular language of bribery is neither identical to the language of everyday transactions, nor is it aligned with vocabulary used in criminal circles; it is marked off in some way from both categories because it fits neither. 33 Harvey (1985: 82-3), Strauss (1985: 72-3), Taylor (2001: 160-2).

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provision of a “payment” (misqw|=).34 Although we might think of bribery when someone persuades with gifts or money, as in Themistocles’ case, we should be aware that such a phrase by itself did not denote bribery, as it need not entail a violation of norms.35 Again, just as we might expect, the exact same description of an unproblematic giving or receiving of dōra never denoted, on its own, the highly problematic idea of bribery.

Instead, there was always some additional clue to indicate that a speaker

intended ‘bribery’ (compensation + norm violation): additional phrase, or contextualizing details.

a distinct verb, euphemism,

What we are after, therefore, is those

additional clues, a set of lexical tools that an Athenian had at his disposal to communicate the social frame of bribery. Let us call this the Athenian vocabulary of bribery. It was noted in the Introduction that, in evaluating a scene, the Athenians stressed the outcome of any transaction. This outcome was conceptualized in two different ways. The Athenians measured the result of a gift, meaning they tried to establish whether something had been given in exchange for something else (i.e. compensation); and they measured the acceptability of the final result, whether the outcome was to be deemed good or bad (norm violation).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, we find that the

vocabulary of bribery was broken down into two groups of words, each consonant with a different way of conceptualizing an ‘outcome’: those that conveyed compensation, and those that signaled a violation of some norm. In other words, the Athenians’ focus on outcomes inclined them well towards a relational model of bribery. 34

Even the verb anapeithein (cf. a)nepe/peisto, a)napepeisme//noi, Hdt. 8.5), though often used in dōrodokia contexts—e.g. Ar. Pax 622, Eq. 473, V. 101—is no clear indication of wrongdoing: LSJ s.v. a)napei/qw 1-2. 35 Far from it: as Baragwanath (2008: 292) plausibly argues, Themistocles’ reputation may have been enhanced, not hurt, by the fact that he profited while reconciling Greek and Euboean interests; similarly, Frost (1980: 10). Persuasion with gifts or money need not entail bribery: e.g. Hom. Il. 9.112-13, Hdt. 8.134.1, Lys. 21.10, Xen. Cyr. 1.5.3. Cf. Theog. 192-3.

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As in English, in Greek the word for ‘bribery’ and its cognates conveyed both compensation and norm violation: so dōrodokia (“bribery”), dōrodokeō (“be bribed”), and dekazō (“bribe”), all of which are attested only from the classical period onward.36 The literal translation of dōrodokia is commonly taken to be “the receipt of dōra,” taken from dōra (“gifts”) + dekhomai (“receive”).37 Note how this derivation implies neither compensation per se nor normative violation. As we will see, however, this literal translation is misleading because it misses crucial nuance in the verb dekhomai. In fact, the morphology of ‘bribery’ words in Greek points toward a semantic meaning closer to “the receipt of dōra in expectation of something bad.” Just as we might expect, therefore, dōrodokia, dōrodokeō, and dekazō were a marked class of words that conveyed, specifically, direct exchange (compensation) and a bad outcome (normative violation). Let us take a closer look. Both dekazō38 and cognates of dōrodokia39 (dōra + dekhomai) stem from an early Greek verb *dekmai (“receive what is given”).40 The literal translation of dōrodokia 36

Dekazō first appears sometime between 440 and 420 (sundeka/sai, rightly emended from the manuscripts’ sundika/sai, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 3.7), dōrodokeō around the same time (Hdt. 6.72, 6.82). 37 E.g. Harvey (1985: 83), Kulesza (1995: 11-12), Taylor (2001: 53), Hashiba (2006: 62). This seemingly innocuous translation is highly misleading, however, as dōrodokia never has such an innocent meaning in the classical period, and there is no evidence that it ‘originally’ meant “the receipt of dōra.” 38 As the factitive form of the thematic verb de/komai, deka/zw literally meant “to cause someone to receive in exchange for something,” but it always has connotations of bribery in the classical period: cf. Szemerényi (1964: 126-8), Chantraine s.v. deka/zw. Note how Hesychius defines de/kwn as “the one who has been bribed” (o( dekazo/menoj). Some scholars have followed an ancient folk etymology in positing a different derivation of deka/zw from the way that jurors supposedly lined up in groups of ten (deka/j) to receive their bribes: Frist s.v. de/ka, MacDowell (1983: 63-8), Harvey (1985: 88-9). Certainly this derivation n is preferable from a formal perspective, but semantically it is not at all clear that deka/zw is the correct formation from de/ka. After all, it is the jurors, not the bribe-giver, who ‘make a decad’; we would thus expect deka/zw to describe the jurors. Moreover, the force of the prefix sun- in sundeka/sai is redundant if we assume that ‘tenning’ entailed bribing the entire jury. sun- is perfectly understandable, however, if we derive deka/zw from de/komai. This is to say nothing of the dubious value of Eratosthenes as our source—pace Harvey (1985: 88)—or the implausibility of an etymology which, as Szeremerenyi (1964: 126) aptly notes, “explains nothing and clearly bears the stamp of desperate invention.” At best, Eratosthenes’ testimony might be a good indication of how entire juries were bribed—although MacDowell’s (1983: 63-8) reconstruction seems fanciful—but we should seek the origins of deka/zw in de/komai, not de/ka. Cf. Lipsius (1905-15: 174), Calhoun (1913: 67-70), Boeghold (1967: 113-14).

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straightforwardly follows this derivation and posits that the word literally meant ‘the receipt of gifts’. This etymology is dangerously simplistic, however, and overlooks crucial details about the peculiar morphology of dōrodokia and its cognates. In fact, the morphology of dōrodokia suggests strong affinity to the verb dokeō. To make matters a ̂ albeit in the bit more confusing, dokeō, like dekhomai, was also derived from IE*dek-, ̂ form IE*dek-eye (cf. Gr. dokeuō).41 So was dōrodokia derived from dokeō?

Not exactly.

Dokeō is actually a

relatively late verb formed in the classical period. Even before the archaic period, the early Greek verb *dekmai began to split into two verbs: dekomai (dekhomai in the Attic dialect), from which dōrodokia is usually taken, and a group of iterative forms that would eventually converge in the verb dokeō. In other words, in the archaic period the forms 39

For the sake of clarity, throughout this discussion I transliterate x as ‘kh’. Throughout this discussion, I use the standard linguistic convention of an asterisk (*) to indicate a form ̂ but the that is unattested yet hypothesized. Gr. *de/kmai comes from an Indo-European root *dek̂- or *dēk-, precise meaning of this original root has been hotly contested. There is still no consensus on how to sequence the subsequent morphological and semantic change. At issue are how and why the athematic, acrodynamic Greek verb *de/kmai transformed into the thematic verb de/komai, or de/xomai in the Attic dialect. Were the latter formed from a root aorist which became generalized and lost its aspect (cf. García ̂ Ramón [2004: 506n.40])? Or do they represent subjunctive forms—de/ketai > *dék-e-toi, an IE subjunctive—which later became a thematic present (cf. Tichy [1976])? Amid semantic shifts in reduplicated forms, aorists that work like presents and presents that look like aorists, to say nothing of the semantic swamp of dek̂- verbs ranging in meaning from “wait” or “honor” to “receive” and “watch”—the linguistic problems behind dōrodokia are thorny indeed. For a guide through the quagmire, see Szemerényi (1964: 170-6), Chantraine s.v. de/xomai, Frisk s.v. de/xomai, with treatments of various aspects of the problem by Tichy (1976), Forssman (1978), García Ramón (2004), and Ruijgh (2005). I offer here a plausible new alternative, although I am not qualified to explain precisely how it may have arisen. 41 LSJ s.v. doke/w I, Chantraine s.v. doka/w II, Frisk s.v. doke/w. With the sole exception of dōrodokia and its cognates, for every compound formed from the e-grade de/xomai (“receive”), there is a combination of aspirated and unaspirated forms based on the –dek root: nouns end in –doki/a or –doxi/a, adjectives appear as –do/koj or –do/xoj, and compound verbs end in –doke/w or –doxe/w. So we find cenodoxi/a, cenodo/xoj, cenodoxe/w with cenodo/koj and cenodoke/w; qewrodo/xoj with qewrodo/koj and qewrodoke/w; oi)nodoxei=on and oi)nodo/xoj with oi)nodo/koj. For all forms related to dōrodokia, however, there is never any aspiration, as every compound retains –dok–: dwrodoki/a, dwrodoke/w, dwrodo/koj, dwrodo/khma, a)dwrodo/khtoj. Strikingly, these latter compounds have a morphology identical to that of compounds derived from the classical o-grade verb doke/w (“expect, await”): thus karadoke/w (“eagerly expect”), karadoki/a, a)karado/khtoj and prosdoke/w (“expect”), a)prosdoki/a, prosdokh/toj, and especially a)prosdo/khtoj next to a)pro/sdektoj from prosde/xomai (“receive favorably”). 40

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that would become dokeō were crucially linked to dekomai as iterative forms of that verb: “receive again and again” (iterative) later turned into “expect, await.”42 Over time, therefore, a special meaning of dekomai (“expect, await”) came to be attached to an entirely new verb (dokeō). But was there anything left behind? When these iterative forms broke off from Gk. *dekmai, did any of their semantic meaning (“expect, await”) subsequently remain attached to the verb dekomai? I propose that, yes, a meaning akin to “expect, await” was preserved in dekomai and the Attic form dekhomai—and that this meaning was later preserved in the noun dōrodokia and other similar compounds.43 Positing this kind of semantic affinity to the verb dokeō explains why dōrodokia follows the morphology of

42

Note how the rare verb dokeuō (“watch, observe”), off of which dokeō is based, appears in contexts that suggest that it, too, functioned as an iterative form of Gr.*dekmai.Cf. Tichy (1976: 81-2). Homeric evidence for de/xomai (“expect, await”) unquestionably proves that the classical meaning of doke/w (“expect, await”) was formed as an iterative of de/komai and hence is derived from Gr. *de/kmai: e.g. Hom. Il. 4.107, 5.228, 238, 20.377. This has no bearing on the problematic relationship between Homeric dei/dex- (“greet, honor,” e.g. dei/dekto, Hom. Il. 9.224) and de/dex- (“await,” e.g. de/deco, Hom. Il. 5.228, Od. 20.377, 22.340), the former of which has been derived alternately from IE *deik̂- (“show”)—see most recently Forssman (1978)—or from IE *dēk̂- (“accept”): e.g. Frisk s.v. doke/w, Chantraine s.v. doka/w, Tichy (1976). My derivation is motivated by the following observation: instead of beginning with de/xomai and asking why dōrodokia compounds follow the morphology of doke/w, it is fruitful to ask why, if dōrodokia compounds look like doke/w, the verb doke/w does not also mean “receive” or “receive illicitly.” We need to account for this. For my argument, it is sufficient to point out only that Homer evinces semantic convergence of forms of de/xomai and dokeu/w (later doke/w). What I propose here is that in the shift from Gr.*de/kmai (“receive”) to its iterative meaning in reduplicated forms (“expect, await”), an intermediary semantic form—“receive” + “expect”—was also retained. This meaning subsequently inhered in the verb de/xomai; when compounds were formed from this particular meaning, they were marked in a formally distinct way by following the morphology of the distinct yet closely related verb doke/w. Ruijgh (2004: 58-9) traces a similar development from *de/khti to doke/ei (“it seems good”) through influence by doke/w (“think”). This morphological divergence, suggesting as it does that dōrodokia was derived not solely from de/xomai but was also influenced by doke/w, cannot be explained simply in terms of distinction in dialect or time. That Attic consistently aspirates –dok- compounds is clear enough from a wide range of compounds, many of which are attested only once or twice. By contrast, dōrodokia and its cognates, by far the most prevalent –dok- compounds, are attested hundreds of times in Attic, yet not one of these compounds is aspirated. Perhaps in recognition of this point, both the Suida (s.v. dwrografh/) and Thucydides (dw/rwn do/khsin, 5.16.3) derive dwrodoki/a not from dw=ra + de/xomai but from dw/ra + doke/w (“be suspected of [the legal suit of] dōra”). My own derivation follows the spirit, if not the content, of their etymologizing. 43

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dokeō, not dekhomai. After all, all other –dok- words with similar morphologies connote “expect, await,” not “receive.” If this derivation is correct—and no other derivation satisfactorily accounts for these problems in morphology—then dōrodokia conceals a meaning of dekhomai used to mark out a category of transactions expecting a specific return (“receive [what is given] in expectation of something”).44 As the above reconstruction indicates, this meaning probably dates back to early Gk.*dekmai, when the iterative forms that would much later become dokeō began to diverge from those that would become dekhomai.45 Incidentally, such a reconstruction compellingly explains why dekomai/dekhomai was often used in scenes of bribery in archaic poetry.46 So already in the archaic period dekomai/dekhomai could, on its own, denote compensation. What about normative violation? Certainly by the classical period, the verb on its own could unambiguously signal bribery (i.e. “receive what is given in

44

Cf. von Reden (1995a: 93-5). de/xomai (“receive gifts”): Hom. Od. 8.419-20; Hes. WD 86-7; Hdt. 3.39, 3.135; Eur. Alc. 375-6, Med. 958, 973, 1003; Soph. Aj. 662-3. Likewise, de/xomai (“receive gifts in return for something”): Hom. Il.11.124, 24.420, Od. 11.327, 18.286-7; Hes. fr. 76.10; Sapph. 1.22; Pi. O. 2.62; Hdt. 9.91. Cf. Frisk s.v. doko/j. 45 Dating this meaning of de/xomai back to Gr. *de/kmai is preferable for the following reason. By the time of Homer, the expectation of receiving dōra—and in a bribery-like scenario, at that—can be represented not only by de/xomai/de/komai (“receive what is given”), but also by iterative forms of the earlier Gr. *de/kmai (“expect”). For the latter, note how in the Odyssey Eurymachus rebukes Halitherses’ speech on the grounds that he had spoken “looking for a gift for [his] home, whatever [Telemachus] might provide” (sw=| oi1kw| dw=ron potide/gmenoj, menoj ai1 ke po/rh|sin, Od. 2.186). Here, Halitherses is thought to provide counsel in expectation of receiving dōra from Telemachus, and the result is considered explicitly bad counsel (cf. Od. 2.188-93; similarly xruso\n…dedegme/noj, Il.11.124). Likewise, when Priam tries to give gold to Achilles’ guard to be let into the Greek camp, Homer uses the verb de/cai (Il.24.429; cf. de/xesqai, 24.434). Note here how it is the verb de/xomai, not any of the other verbs of giving and receiving, that differentiates this scene from regular, unproblematic gift exchange, and it does so, specifically, by indicating that the gift of Priam’s goblet was to be conducted behind Achilles’ back (pare\c 0Axilh=a, 24.434). Positing a shared semantic root in Gr. *de/kmai (i.e. “receive what is given in expectation of something”) would help explain why two different meanings of the same verb—meanings that later split into two different verbs—might be used to describe similar situations. 46 Hom. Il. 24.429, 434, Od. 11.327; Hom. H.Mer. 549. Without the additional semantic nuance of “receiving in expectation of something given,” nothing would have distinguished de/xomai from other verbs of receiving; with this addition, however, the verb became a natural choice for describing bribery.

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exchange for something bad”=“receive as a bribe”), just like cognates of dōrodokia.47 How, then, did dekhomai come to acquire such an association with bad outcomes? One likely source of influence was the law. Early codification of dekhomai in law could have subsequently conditioned, though not caused, the word’s semantic shift outside of legal contexts.48 Whatever the reason, by the time of the classical period, the verb dekhomai and its cognates—like dōrodokeō and dekazō—were used, on their own, to denote “receive in exchange for something bad.” Likewise, dōrodokia should be translated literally as “the receipt of dōra in exchange for something bad”, i.e. “bribery.” In this way, the Athenians’ main vocabulary for bribery all indicated quid pro quo compensation and normative violation. Dōrodokeō and dekazō represent distinct ways of using a single verb to signal the frame of bribery; by contrast, if the regular verbs of giving, receiving, or persuading were used, an Athenian could still signal ‘bribery’ by indicating both that the dōra were a kind of compensation and that this compensation had caused some bad result. In those cases, commercial metaphors and prepositional phrases could be used for the former, while the verb diaphtheirō (“corrupt”) and alimentary metaphors could be used to indicate the

47

Cf. Harvey (1985: 83). There are two notable exceptions to this rule: Harvey (1985: 83n.30) notes how at Ar. EN 1163b11 dōrodokos refers to someone who receives gifts, not bribes, but see also Ar. Eq. 403, Pl. Rep. 390d7, Dem. 18.61; similarly, Sosiades lists in his Maxims of the Seven Sages that one should “usefully receive gifts that demand a return” (Dwrodo/kei xrhsi/mwj, Phil. Sent. 215.27). In all likelihood, however, this is a late fabrication. A few examples where dw=ra + de/xomai does not appear to indicate bribery can be found at Xen. Cyrop. 8.5.18 and in Plato’s Laws, where taking gifts from good sources is contrasted with taking gifts from bad sources or with an eye to bad results: para\ de\ miarou= dw=ra…de/xesqai, Leg. 716e3; w(j e)p’ a)gaqoi=j me\n dei= de/xesqai dw=ra, e)pi\ de\ flau/roij ou!, Leg. 955c8; cf. Leg. 905d4. This distinction helps affirm the Athenian focus on outcomes. 48 For the (early sixth century) use of de/xomai in Athenian law, see below Chapter Six. In the same vein, deka/zw might represent a similar crystallization of semantic meaning due to its codification in the law governing the graphē dekasmou: cf. Dem. 46.26 for the text of a compilation of laws including that for the graphē dekasmou, with discussion in Chapter Six below. Ultimately, it is impossible to prove these kinds of correlations. If this reconstruction is correct, it would be a rare instance in which explicitly legal language at Athens influenced the semantic field of a word used in popular contexts: so Todd (2000a: 26-31) and see further discussion in Chapter Seven.

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latter. Of course, contextualizing details could also make it clear that one or both of these components was present.49 When the language of gift exchange was used—‘giving’, ‘receiving’, ‘gifts’, etc.—usually the transaction context was closer to gift than to compensation. In order to signal that, in fact, some kind of quid pro quo had occurred, commercial language was frequently used. Verbs like priamai (“buy”) or pōlō (“sell”), and nouns like misthos (“payment, wage”) or kerdos (“profit”) and their cognates all clearly shifted the transaction context from gift to compensation.50 Likewise, a dative of instrument or prepositional phrases like e3neka + gen. (“for the sake of X”), e)pi/ + dat. (“with an eye towards X” or “for the price of”), or i3na + purpose clause could reframe a voluntary gift as compensatory exchange.51 These prepositional phrases played a particularly important role in legal regulations of dōrodokia: archons swore never to receive gifts “for the sake of [their] office” (th=j a)rxh=j e3neka, AP 55.5, cf. Pollux 8.86); jurors swore never to take gifts “for the sake of [their] role on the jurycourt” (th=j h(lia/sewj e#neka, Dem. 24.150); and the law against dōrodokia specified that no one could give or take “to the harm of the people” (e)pi\ bla/bh| tou= dh/mou, Dem. 21.113); similarly, the law against judicial bribery

49

One or the other of these components could just as easily be implicit—and not clearly evident in the language used. Hence, I do not maintain that, in order to employ the frame of bribery, both of those elements must be included. I would argue, instead, that explicit inclusion of any of these elements can, but need not, indicate that a scene is being viewed through the frame of bribery. What I would like to avoid, however, is the common scholarly mistake of reading a scene of gift exchange—with no explicit markers of compensation or normative violation—and calling it ‘bribery’ simply because it involves a public official. As a social frame, bribery has tremendous social significance, so any time the frame of bribery is employed we should expect to find some linguistic trace of this significance. 50 Harvey (1985: 84-6) comprehensively surveys the commercial language of bribery; see also von Reden (1995a: 89-92) on misthos. 51 I list a few examples of each. Dative of instrument: Hdt. 5.63, Plut. Cim. 14.3, Thuc. 4.65.3. e3neka + gen.: Hom. Od. 11.521, 15.247, Theog. 46 West. e)pi/ + dat.: Pl. Rep. 590a2, Leg. 955c8; Dem. 21.113, 46.26. i3na + purpose clause: Hom. Il. 23.297, schol. ad Ar. Ach. 6.

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prohibited giving money to anyone on a judicial body “for the sake of dōrodokia” (e)pi\ dwrodoki/a|, Dem. 46.26). All of these contextual markers focused on the explicit return expected for the dōra, thereby characterizing the transaction as quid pro quo compensation.

In

Herodotus’ story of Themistocles at Artemisium, for example, the thirty talents given to Themistocles are explicitly called a “payment” (e)pi\ misqw|= trih/konta tala/ntoisi) given “on the condition that” (e)p’ w{|) the Greek fleet stay and fight the Persians. Similarly, the historian later juxtaposes the gifts to the Greek generals with the return (cf. e)kexa/risto) given to the Euboeans (Hdt. 8.4-5). Such characterizations sometimes also implied a negative evaluation of the scene. For instance, prepositional phrases denoting “against X” or “against the interests of X” (e.g. kata/ + gen.) could be used, while compounds derived from misthos always indicated the speaker’s disapproval.52 Alternatively, Athenians might denounce a particular exchange by saying that its outcome constituted some sort of bad (violation of norms). It should be noted that no explicit condemnation can be found in Herodotus’ story. Whereas commercial language and prepositional phrases differentiated the transaction context, alimentary metaphors and the verb diaphtheirō (“to corrupt”) could signal that some kind of norm violation had occurred. For the Athenians, alimentary metaphors usually conveyed some negative value about a particular exchange.53 We hear of “gift-devouring” kings who judged cases unjustly (dwrafa/goi, Hes. WD 11, 202,

52

The use of kata/ + gen. implied both exchange and a bad outcome: taking gifts “against the dēmos’ interests” was shorthand for taking money in return for a specific outcome that ended up harming the dēmos. Harvey (1985: 85) on the use of misthos compounds exclusively to connote censure and abuse: e.g. mistharnia, misthōtos. 53 These metaphors recur throughout the Aristophanic corpus: see Taillardat (1962: 310-11, 414-18) and generally Davidson (1993).

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238); “stuffing” someone’s mouth with money (xrusi/w|…e)bu/noun to\ sto/ma, Aristoph. Pax, 645; to\ sto/m’ e)pibu/saj ke/rmasin, Aristoph. Pl. 379); and vomiting up bribe monies received (Aristoph. Eq. 1149). In fact, in a different version of the scene at Artemisium, the Athenian leader Architeles reportedly wanted to leave because he did not have enough money to pay his men. Themistocles hid a talent of silver beneath Architeles’ dinner and bid him to dine on it and feed his men in the morning (Plut. Them. 7.6-7=Phanias fr. 24 Wehrli). Consuming the food became a metaphor for taking the talent of silver.54 Likewise, the verb diaphtheirō (“corrupt”=“bribe”), itself the most negative Greek word for bribery, indicated a bad outcome; frequently, it also indicated a causal link between the means of corruption and the outcome itself. The verb phtheirō, at the root of diaphtheirō, meant “to destroy,” and diaphtheirō consequently had a range of meanings, including “to destroy,” “to seduce,” and finally “to corrupt.”55 The semantic range of diaphtheirō is not easily explained, but by the end of the fifth century we find it repeatedly denoting a deterioration—one might say a ‘destroying’—of the nature or

54

In the same vein, the Rhodian poet Timocreon censures Themistocles for serving “cold meats” (yuxra_ krei=a) or “leftovers” to others (PMG 727.10). Timocreon seems to suggest that these leftovers were monetary in nature when he insinuates that Themistocles was “full of silver” at the Isthmus (a)rguri/wn d' u(po&plewj, following Bergk at 727 PMG 9). This appellation works nicely on two levels: first as a straightforward indication of how Themistocles had the means to serve cold meats to everyone (he had a lot of money after receiving so many bribes); and, second, as a euphemistic signal of the food imagery to come (though himself ‘full on silver’, he served but leftovers to everyone else). 55 Accordingly, the development of this semantic field, specifically its extension to the realm of bribery, has troubled scholars. Wankel (1976: 315) has suggested that the ‘corruption’ at the root of bribery is a kind of ‘seduction’, while Harvey (1985: 86-7) has posited that diaphtheirein represents a surrendering of free will, an idea extended to bribery more generally by Ober (1989: 236-8), von Reden (1995a: 95), Euben (1997: 103). Yet Harvey’s interpretation gives too much weight to select evidence (e.g. Dem. 19.118, his only cited example) and I disagree with his interpretation of Lys. 1.33 (tou\j de\ pei/santaj ou#twj au)tw=n ta\j yuxa\j diafqei/rein). There the point is not that a seduced woman surrenders her free will, but that she no longer belongs exclusively to her husband—a morally unacceptable outcome. In other words, her subordinate role in the household is destroyed and changed for the worse. Note how nearly identical syntax is used at Xen. Symp. 8.21—cf. o( de\ pei/qwn th\n tou= a)napeiqome/nou yuxh\n diafqei/rei—where the concern is not about the surrendering of free will, but about changing the character of a lover.

53

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Given that the emergence of diaphtheirō (“bribe”) was

contemporary with this shift towards the destruction of character, I suggest that this is the conceptual link between the two meanings of diaphtheirō as “to bribe” and “to destroy.”57 What ‘corruption’ (diaphtheirō) does, therefore, is to change the character of an outcome so that it is bad; when a payment is the source of this corruption, we have bribery. So the Athenians used a relational vocabulary for bribery, couching descriptions of politics in the language of social relations. We can push this point even further, however, and this brings us to the second reason why a relational approach is particularly well-suited to the study of Athenian bribery. For the Athenians, describing politics in the vocabulary of gift exchange and persuasion belied a close conceptual affinity between

56

I find this meaning of diaphtheirein more likely a product of late fifth-century nomos-physis debates. Just prior to this time, in Sophocles’ Antigone dated to around 440, Creon complains of the potential evil that money can cause: “by its teaching perverts men’s good minds so that they take to evil actions!” (to/d’ e)kdida/skei kai\ paralla/ssei fre/naj/xrhsta\j pro\j ai)sxra\ pra/gmat’ i3stasqai brotw=n, Soph. An. 298-9). The concern that something might change one’s nature or character emerges later in the play when erōs, too, smashes men’s wits unto ruin (Soph. An. 791-2). Euripides likewise talks of ‘corrupting’ the name or physis of something: Hec. 398, Or. 297, fr. 377.3, 411.1, 526.2; cf. Aesch. Ag. 932; Isoc. Paneg. 151, Areo. 47, Panath. 32, 196. In the fourth century, we often find mention of ‘corrupting’ the nature of something, including archai (Lys. 30.28), the polis (Pl. Rep. 415c5), legal documents (Isoc. Trap. 23, 24, 31, 33), and the laws (Isoc. In Call. 11, Pl. Crito 50b5, 53b7, Leg. 788b6, 864d2, 891b5, 913c6). Harvey (1985: 87n.44) rightly points out that ideas of ‘impurity’ may have something to do with the extension of the semantic field of diaptheirein to bribery: see Thuc. 7.84.5, Lys. 30.28; Aristotle’s explicit comparison of political corruption and the muddying of water at Pol.1286a31-5; and instances where the character of someone or something is so corrupted, e.g. Isoc. Antid. 30, Xen. Mem. 1.2.8, Pl. Ap. 25d5, Men. 89b6, Rep. 421d1, Leg. 894a7. I would note, in addition, that in other vocabulary for bribery we find this same idea of ‘changing’ the status or outcome of something. The verb anapeithein, for instance, literally means to persuade someone to do ‘the reverse’ of what might be expected or intended: LSJ s.v. a)na/ F2 with Harvey (1985: 83n.32). 57 Harvey (1985: 86-7), followed by Hashiba (2006: 70n.31), has claimed that the use of diaptheirein at Hdt. 5.51 implies that the meaning “corrupt by bribes” was current in the mid-fifth century, but I find this unlikely. The passage could simply intend that Aristagoras would “corrupt” or “change” Cleomenes’ mind or character; that money was the reason for this change was implicit and need not have been explicit in the verb diaphtheirein (as we would need for it to signify “corrupt by bribes”). The meaning “corrupt [by bribery]” is not again attested until the fourth century, and then frequently at that: Lys. 2.29, 28.9; Xen. Hell. 7.3.8; Isoc. 8.50, 17.12; Pl. Leg. 768b; Theopompus FGrH 115 F81; and twenty times in Demosthenes and Aeschines. Cf. Lys. 20.38. The absence from Old Comedy is striking, and Harvey unsatisfactorily suggests that the verb was originally slang of a sort, at first used only in spoken discourse; yet such an explanation would make its absence from comedy all the more unexpected.

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political and social relations. As we will now see, Athenian politics, including actions framed as bribery, was rooted in the cornerstone of ancient Greek society: reciprocity. For this reason, a relational model of bribery is a natural choice for Athens. Reciprocity

fundamentally

guided

how

relationships—social,

political,

commercial—were forged and negotiated in Athens.58 The common expression, “Help friends, harm enemies,” concisely expressed the ethos of reciprocity that underpinned the exchange of gifts (dōra) between friends (philoi).59 Gifts could be given for a variety of reasons between a variety of relations, including friends, family members, and political allies; in this sense, they were the fundamental currency of social relationships. When someone gave a gift, it created an obligation, for it was a symbol of the relationship itself: one had to return gift with counter-gift or else risk marring the dynamics of the relationship.60 Dōra were thus calibrated to the dynamics of the relationship or the circumstances of the exchange. Giving more or more valuable dōra might signify greater social standing or a greater request (reward, thanks, honor) being made.61 As in our

58

The scholarship on gift giving and reciprocity in Archaic and Classical Greece is vast. I list here the works that have had the greatest impact on my thinking: Finley (1977), Humphreys (1978a: 107-74), Donlan (1981-2; 1989), Herman (1987), Seaford (1994), von Reden (1995a), Millett (1997), Mitchell (1997), Gill, Postlethwaite, and Seaford (1998), Knippschild (2002), Domingo Gygax (2007, forthcoming). It should be noted, with Will (1954), that the reciprocal justice forged by gifts was also created by other monies, including currency. 59 See further Sinclair (1988a: 187), Seaford (1994: 7-10), Domingo Gygax (2007: 113-19). This ethos readily shaped how political networks were constructed: Lys. 9.13, 14, 21; Pl. Rep 362b, Men. 41e; Xen. Mem. 2.4.6, 2.6.25, 3.7.9. Connor (1971: 35-47), Dover (1974: 180-1, 304-6), Sinclair (1988a: 187). 60 Hence the frequent injunctions in Greek literature to match gift with gift, to give when one has given to you: Hom. Od. 24.283-6, Hes. WD 353-5, Epicharmus fr. 273K, Hdt. 1.69-70, Xen. Cyr. 5.3.31, Aristot. EN 1167a14-16. Cf. Mauss (1990: 47-8), von Reden (1995a: 18-24), Domingo Gygax (2007: 113-19; forthcoming: 23-5). 61 Cf. Arist. Rhet.1.5.9, Mastrocinque (1996: 9). The exchange of armor between Glaucus and Diomede at Iliad 6.234-6 has been taken as the locus classicus for discussions of how dōra are calibrated to a relationship. See further Donlan (1989), Brown (1998), and generally Mauss (1990: 43-6), von Reden (1995a: 18-31). von Reden (1997) rightly extends this point to say that all money takes its meaning and value from the (social) context in which it is used.

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relational approach to bribery, the logic of the gift accorded with the logic of the relationship in which it was given. Take the case of Themistocles and the thirty talents. Recall how, under the standard view, the payments in Herodotus’ depiction of the Greek fleet’s deliberations at Artemisium seemed baffling; on a relational view, by contrast, these dōra are perfectly ‘rational’. As Herodotus writes, Themistocles successfully persuades Eurybiades, but only by giving money as if “in fact” it were coming from himself (w(j par) e(wutou= dh=qen didou/j, Hdt. 8.5). In other words, Themistocles lies about the source of the money in order to leverage his own friendship with Eurybiades. After all, we can imagine how Eurybiades might readily accept money from Themistocles—who personally yielded his command to the Spartan (Plut. Them. 7.3)—but might balk at the idea of taking money from (or simply being persuaded by the entreaties of) the Euboeans, whose shores Eurybiades in particular wanted to abandon (Plut. Them. 7.4).62 Similarly, Themistocles and Adimantus were not on the best of terms—note their bickering before the Battle of Salamis (Hdt. 8.59-62)—and the dōra given and received reflect this enmity. Themistocles couches his offer of dōra within a thinly veiled threat: he flat-out commands Adimantus that the Corinthians not abandon the Greek fleet; and he ominously refers to bribery by the Persian King, in effect suggesting that, unless Adimantus were to comply, he would be accused of taking bribes from Xerxes. In an alternate version, in fact, Themistocles makes precisely this threat to one of his own men (cf. Plut. Them. 7.4.6).

The dōra were calibrated to the dynamics of a specific

relationship in each case. 62

Even if we assume that Eurybiades simply wanted to move the Greek fleet elsewhere to give the Spartans at Thermoplyae a better chance—so Frost (1980: 106 ad 7.6)—it is crucial that he could not have been paid by just anyone to do so. Themistocles still had to leverage his own relationship with the Spartan.

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Because dōra were used to negotiate the relationship itself, the obligation they incurred need not be repaid immediately.

Often, in fact, outside of the ritualized

exchange of dōra on-the-spot, a gift entailed only a general return, that is, a return unspecified in terms of both quality (what kind of gift, how valuable it was) and time (when it would be given).63 In this sense, assuming they were gifts not quid pro quo compensation, we should not causally link the gifts given to Eurybiades and Adimantus with their decision to stay and defend Artemisium. Rather, both the talents of silver and the generals’ subsequent decision to stay could be viewed as independent ‘gifts’—we might say ‘favors’—that separately negotiated a friendship. Much like we saw with ‘insider’ framing in the previous section, within the framing of the relationship it would have been difficult to construe the gifts as bribes, for they likely would not have obligated a specific return. This reciprocity—gifts obligating non-specific returns—created a continuously off-set equilibrium by which dōra could symbolize and strengthen relationships. The Athenians had a preference to give rather than to receive, meaning it was better to obligate others than to be so obligated.64 As a result, when someone gave a gift, often the counter-gift would not simply repay an obligation, but would seek to off-set the equilibrium of the relationship by further obligating another, as well.65 The exchange of gifts was not a series of immediate, equal exchanges, but was a continuous string of gift/counter-gift/gift (counter-gift)/counter-gift… Although an Athenian often claimed to give dōra spontaneously and unprompted as a way to initiate a new sequence of 63

Mauss (1990) is seminal on this point. Finley (1957), Seaford (1994: 7-23), von Reden (1995a: 1824), Domingo Gygax (2007: 119-20; forthcoming: 29-30) helpfully lay out these concepts out for an ancient Greek setting. 64 E.g. Aristot. EN 1124b. 65 Millett (1992: 32-3), Domingo Gygax (2007: esp. 120-2).

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reciprocal exchanges, more often than not his ‘gift’ was actually both a ‘counter-gift’ repaying a previous obligation and a ‘gift’ incurring a new obligation. In practice, therefore, the distinction between gift/counter-gift was usually blurred.66 So gifts and the reciprocity that governed them symbolized a long-term relationship between two social actors. In this sense, dōra could be used not only to reinforce existing social ties, but even to forge new ones: by accepting dōra, one was obligated to repay them, thereby setting off a potentially long-term sequence of gifts and counter-gifts. To an observer looking in, the acceptance of a single gift might signal a long-term relationship of reciprocal exchanges. For the Athenians, where there were dōra, there were friends; and where there were friends, there were dōra. In this respect, dōra acted as a kind of social glue, a way to bind people together into long-term, reciprocal relationships. Certainly these kinds of long-term relationships were the fabric of Athenian society, but the story of Themistocles highlights how such ‘friendships’ (philia) also played an important role in the practice of Athenian politics, whether we call these ‘friendships’, ‘political friendships’, or ‘associations’.67 Indeed, a range of evidence supports the claim that much of Athenian politics was conducted through the leveraging of personal relationships.68 This makes sense at first glance, as the majority of Athenian

66

Duly noted by Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 86-90) in a discussion of the epinikion as both gift and reward. Cf. Mastrocinque (1996: 12-13) on the difficulty in distinguishing between ‘gift’ and ‘tribute’ in archaic Greece. We can see this idea in practice in the way that public honors were represented sometimes as payment for past deeds, sometimes as encouraging (obligating) future benefactions, on which see most recently Liddel (2007: 160-82). 67 The semantic field of philia and its cognates, especially philos/philoi, was broad. Philoi could range from family members to friends to fellow citizens, while philia was more restrictively applied only to kin or lovers: Konstan (1996); cf. Goldhill (1986: 88-106), Blundell (1991: 26-59). 68 Connor (1971), Dow (1976), Whitehead (1986: 301-5), Strauss (1987), Sinclair (1988a), Littman (1990), Mitchell and Rhodes (1996), Mitchell (1997), Ober (2008). Cf. Calhoun (1913), Hunter (1994), Rubinstein (2000) for the leveraging of social relations in the courts.

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officials were not professionals per se, but were amateurs serving one-year terms; that they would leverage their own social relations could only help them be more effective.69 Here I would like to point out three different areas in which specific social configurations pertained in politics so that we can get a better idea of the kinds of transactions that could have been used to negotiate those relationships. Of the relatively few elected officials in Athens, frequently those dealing with foreign policy—like military generals (stratēgoi) or ambassadors—were selected in part because their personal relations might provide a strategic advantage for Athens. This strategic advantage might entail securing resources, funds, or simply more favorable negotiations. The stratēgos Alcibiades thus used Thracian men in his army—troops whom he later called his philoi or ‘friends’—in order to besiege Byzantium in 409; and in 413 Nicias hoped to overthrow Syracuse specifically through insiders who knew him.70 Demosthenes, Aeschines, and Philocrates were elected and re-elected as ambassadors to the Macedonian King Philip in part because of the relationship they had and continued to develop with him.71 Examples can be multiplied.72 To be sure, the Athenians realized 69

This principle is manifest in the selection of paredroi, two of which assisted each of the eponymous archon, the archon basileus, and the polemarch: Dow (1976), Whitehead (1986: 301-5), Kapparis (1998). AP 56.1 records that the three archons selected their paredroi on their own accord, meaning that their philoi were likely the primary beneficiaries: Whitehead (1986: 304-5) collects the sources on this practice; cf. Kapparis (1998: 388-9). Even if such an arrangement were simply a holdover from the archaic period— so Rhodes (1981: 622 ad AP 56.1) and recently Kapparis (1998: 385-6)—it nevertheless made sense in the democracy if the Athenians actually wanted the archons’ work to proceed smoothly and efficiently (a necessity given the wide range of their tasks): cf. [Dem.] 59.81. So, for example, several sources attest that an inexperienced archon should be balanced out by an experienced paredros: schol. ad Dem. 21.178, schol. ad Aeschin. 1.158; Anecd. Bek. 288.16. 70 Philoi: Diod. 13.105.3, cf. Plut. Alc. 36.6-37.3. Nicias: Thuc. 7.48.2, 7.73.3, cf. Diod. 13.27.3. 71 Cf. Dem. 18.51-2, 18.284, 19.167. Conversely, foreign ambassadors were frequently invited to institutionalize some kind of tie to the city through xenia: Dem. 19.234-5. On the preference for a connection between an ambassador and the polis to which he would be sent, see especially Mosley (1973: 43-9, 55-62). 72 E.g. Dem. 19.166-7; cf. Dem. 18.50-2, 18.109, 18.284, 19.138-40 and generally Herman (1987) and Mitchell (1997), who collect the sources. Note how Pericles confirms his xenia with the Spartan general Archidamus, but explicitly mentions that this relationship had never brought any ill upon the polis (Thuc. 2.13.1).

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the potential danger of these relationships—a point which will prove pivotal in the next section—but the dēmos was happy to elect magistrates who would use their personal connections for the public’s interest.73 A second area in which social relations were regularly leveraged in politics was in the provision of essentially public services through private initiative. Taxes were farmed out to enterprising individuals who would collect them on behalf of the polis.74 Grain, too, was collected by citizens who bid on public contracts for the responsibility to ensure that a certain amount of grain made it to the Piraeus port.75 Elite citizens (and sometimes resident aliens) spent enormous amounts of money on public liturgies, like hosting and training a dramatic chorus (chorēgia), fitting out and commanding a naval ship (triērarchia), or a property tax (eisphora) that was collected, from 378/7 onwards, by means of share-groups (symmories) of about 15 members who shared the burden of the tax.76

73

Badian (1987: 14), Herman (1987: 156-61), Mitchell (1997: 65-71). No Athenian seemed to mind, for instance, when Pericles gave dōra to the Spartan king Pleistoanax not to invade Attica. On the contrary, in his description of Pericles’ actions, Plutarch writes that some people, including Theophrastus the philosopher, thought that this was one among a number of payments that Pericles made to the Spartan leaders over a ten-year time period (Plut. Per. 23.1). Plutarch’s additional testimony is instructive, for he says that in this way Pericles ‘paid court to’ the Spartans (qerapeu/wn, Plut. Per. 23.1), meaning the stratēgos was giving money within the context of an ongoing exchange relationship. When Pericles’ accounts for the year came up for scrutiny at his euthynē, he reportedly said that he ‘lost the ten talents out of necessity’, and the people did not press the issue further: ei)j to\ de/on a)pw/lesa, as Aristophanes quotes at Clouds 859 (cf. schol. ad loc.). On Pericles’ dealings with Pleistoanax, see Thuc. 2.21.1, 5.16.3; Eph. 70 FGrH F193; Diod. 13.106.10; Plut. Per. 22-3, Nic. 28; Arist. Nu. 859 with scholia. For further discussion, see also Rhodes (1981: 313 ad AP 25.i), Dover (1968: 204 ad Nu. 859). 74 Tax farming: de Ste. Croix (1953), Brun (1983), Hansen (1991: 113-14), Liddel (2007: 279-80). 75 Grain provision: See Stroud (1998), Osborne (2000), Moreno (2007), and most recently Ober (2008: 260-3). 76 On the liturgical system: Davies (1981), Sinclair (1988a: 64-5). Chorēgia: Wilson (2000), Liddel (2007: 264-70). Triērarchia: Sinclair (1998: 61-2), Liddel (2007: 270-4). Eisphora: Sinclair (1988a: 62-3), Liddel (2007: 274-5). In the 340’s the symmory system for the eisphora system was expanded to create 60 groups of roughly 20 members; at the same time, these groups could also be held collectively responsible for paying for a trierarchy. On the symmory system, see Ruschenbusch (1978), Rhodes (1984), Gabrielsen (1985: 36), MacDowell (1986).

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For each one of these services, there was a single output—an amount of tax or grain, a naval ship, or a trained chorus—that was the product of enormous collaboration among an entire network of people. The richest three members from each eisphora symmory were responsible for providing the tax owed by the symmory as a whole; how they collected reimbursement from the other members, however, is something of a mystery. It is clear that there were considerable disagreements over the most equitable distribution of contributions: in order to make the actual payment owed by the symmory, therefore, there was doubtless interpersonal negotiation within the symmory—friends helping each other out, signaling their own status within the group by the payment they could contribute, etc.77 Likewise, tax collectors, grain distributors, and liturgy performers could not have performed their obligations single-handedly: they would have had to rely on friends to ensure that all the necessary provisions were in order, that a certain amount of the tax would be guaranteed to be collected, and so forth.78 For all public contracts, as well as for the trierarchy, there would have been the opportunity to recoup some losses and even profit; in that case, we can readily imagine that the proceeds were redistributed among friends who had been a part of the collaboration.79 Each one of these areas of politics thus leveraged a different configuration of social relationships, ranging from one or two immediate, close friends to more extensive

77

Of course, those in charge of a symmory might consequently force the other, less wealthy members of the symmory to pay more—e.g. Dem. 18.104, Hyp. fr. 160—and this could cause tremendous problems at wartime in trying to secure a fleet quickly. Cf. Dem. 4.36. On in-group distribution and remuneration, see also Dem. 37.37, 50.9. 78 Wankel (1982: 46-7), Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 102-6). That groups of people, not individuals, might bid on amounts of grain is clear from Agyrrhios’ grain-tax law of 374/3: see SEG XXVI 72.31-3 with Stroud (1998: 65-6 ad 31-6), Osborne (2000: 173). Millett (1992: 69-71) notes that elites would often borrow money from friends in order to pay a liturgy up-front. 79 For the redistribution of booty as prizes (aristeiae) or misthos, see Pritchett (1972: 1.85-92).

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networks of informal ties and formal associations, as in the case of the symmories. Accordingly, we can posit that each area, too, would have admitted the giving and receiving of dōra within its own specific configuration of relations. These dōra could represent anything from well-defined shares of profit—that is, specific monetary sums— to general charis (“thanks”) recognizing a contribution to a collaborative effort; or, in the case where collaboration was itself a favor repaying a previous relational debt, subsequent dōra may not even have been ‘earmarked’ as thanks for any specific gift. Even without getting into any specifics, therefore, we can see how wide-ranging the intent, use, and meaning of these dōra could be. All of these dōra were essentially informal payments (or gifts) that both initiated and sustained the collaboration entailed in the above political domains. Yet there were also formal payments made, and these constitute our third area of politics in which important social configurations might emerge. In contrast to the above situations in which a pre-existing social relationship was leveraged in the interests of accomplishing some political task, where there were regular, formal payments, we need not assume that the transactors already knew each other. The social relationship negotiated in these cases usually would have been merely an arms-length tie. Thus, even if a particular general, say, did not know any of the leaders in a foreign city, he might still receive a payment from them as compensation for defending the city.80 This is precisely what seems to have happened with Themistocles and the Greek fleet at Artemisium.

Although Themistocles leveraged his own relationship with

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Wallace (1974: 25n.8) on these payments; cf. Hdt. 7.158.4. Even if a payment from the Euboeans would have been irregular, Themistocles’ contemporaries probably would have viewed his payments in light of money from Athens to finance the expedition: Hdt. 8.5.3, Ephorus FGrH 70 F193. Certainly by the end of the fifth century, when the Persian King was financing a number of Spartan expeditions, this practice had become more regular: Lewis (1989).

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Eurybiades and Adimantus by providing them with dōra, the Athenian himself seems to have been given veritable compensation, a “payment” (cf. misqw|=, e)kexa/risto, Hdt. 8.45) in order to stay at Artemisium. No close relationship need be presumed here, and the use of misthos might signal both the particular frame of compensation and especially a formal payment by the Euboeans. On this point Phanias’ alternate version—in which Themistocles offers a talent of silver to the trierarch Architeles—is explicit, for Themistocles’ offer could readily be interpreted in light of the regular payment of misthos made by a general like Themistocles to a trierarch like Architeles (Plut. Them. 7.6).81 On one reading of the scene, in fact, the ‘bribes’ given were no more than payments often given to generals to ensure that their men would be fed.82 Examples can be multiplied. Trierarchs who did not wish to command their ship could hire out someone to take their place.83 Although Athenian ambassadors were given a per diem for the duration of an embassy, they were often still provided accommodation by proxenoi living in the city they were visiting.84 From the mid-fourth century onwards, magistrates were publicly honored on an increasingly regular basis simply for performing the duties of their office.85 In addition to various rates of pay for public officials including

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On the regular payment of a misthos for military service, see Pritchett (1971: 3-27); for the distribution of this misthos by the stratēgos, Pritchett (1971: 85-92). Although there are chronological problems with positing that a stratēgos might provide a monetary wage in the 480’s—so, Pritchett (1971: 11), Frost (1980: 107 ad 7.6-7), Blösel (2001: 182)—it is enough for our purposes that later Athenians hearing of Themistocles at Artemisium would have understood his payment to Architeles in light of regular payments in political practice. 82 Cawkwell (1970), Wallace (1974), though cf. Blösel (2001: 135-6). The explicit purpose for which funds were accepted was often hard to determine, as monies collected for the tribute, say, were nevertheless used to provide provisions or misthos for soldiers: Pritchett (1974: 40-1). 83 Lys. 21.10, Dem. 21.80, 51.7. Given the purported reputation of the helmsman hired in Lysias 21.10, we need not presume that the speaker had known him before hiring him. 84 Mitchell (1997: 29). 85 See the examples provided by Whitehead (1983: 73n.32). Note how, by the time of Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens (late 330’s to early 320’s), the Council regularly received a dōrea of a gold crown after successfully submitting its accounts: AP 46.1; Aeschin. 1.111-12, Dem. 22.36, 22.38-9; cf. Dem. 22.8-20.

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councilors, judges were provided small court fees by litigants at the preliminary hearing of suits (Poll. 8.38, Dem. 47.64), while jurors were paid at the end of each day for which they served on a jury (Ar. Eq. 225, AP 62.2). These last payments were made by the polis and certainly, to that extent, signaled a formal political relationship between citizen and polis. It is important to remember, however, that the polis seems to have had a monopoly over the legitimate provision of these kinds of pay; these particular transactions were strongly associated with the specific, fixed transactors of citizen (or official) and polis. If somebody else tried to provide the same kind of compensation, it was often considered bribery, where the bribe monies were viewed as a substitute for the pay normally provided public officials.86 As suggested by a relational approach to bribery, simply changing one of the transactors— allowing a regular citizen, say, to give a payment to a public official in return for a particular service—could shift the normative value of the transaction considerably. By the same token, it should be noted just how often informal gifts to an official within the context of a social relationship would have flowed side-by-side with formal payments from the polis.87 How the scene was evaluated thus often hinged on whether one adopted the perspective of an ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’.

Again, consider how

Themistocles leveraged reciprocal relationships with both Eurybiades and Adimantus in 86

Public officials were paid certainly in the fifth century and perhaps in the fourth century as well. The issue of fourth-century pay for public office is a vexed one among Greek historians: for an introduction to the debate, see Gabrielsen (1981) for and Hansen (1979, 1980) against the idea that fourth-century officials were regularly paid. I tend to side with Hansen: see Chapter Four below. Note how in the Heliastic oath, the jurors swore never to take gifts on behalf of their office from anyone in any way whatsoever (Dem. 24.150). Although the pay was modest—intended mainly to pay for meals and as an honorarium, on which see Markle (1985) and Chapter Two below—we never hear of officials taking bribes expressly because they were paid too little. 87 We can reframe this idea in terms of the rewards or perquisites of office, treated in detail by Hansen (1980) and Sinclair (1988a: 179-86) and see also Lys. 19.57, 25.9, 25.19, 30.25; Dem. 3.29, 19.215, [Dem.] 58.35; Aeschin. 3.173; Din. 1.41, 1.77. Cf. Lys. 28.9, 29.6; Ar. V. 669-77, Pl.377-9, 567-70. The central issue of perquisites is whether they are legitimate or illegitimate (i.e. bribery, as oft). In this sense, legitimate rewards might come from either a formal or informal source.

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order to get the leaders to stay and defend Euboea. We can imagine that the dōra he gave were viewed among ‘insiders’—himself and anyone else part of the same relational context—as just one installment in a long series of gift/counter-gift reciprocal exchanges. Similarly, each general contributed his own ‘counter-gift’ to Themistocles: a pledge to stay and defend Artemisium. But note how, in that case, the counter-gift itself was a political service that represented its own set of obligations in a different social context:

the ‘outside’

relationship between public official and community, for example. The services provided by the generals to Themistocles (and, for that matter, those provided by Themistocles in return for the Euboeans’ payment) performed relational work within the twin contexts of an inside and outside relationship.

In other words, both sets of relationships were

negotiated at the same time; the generals’ ‘counter-gift’ to Themistocles was also a gift/counter-gift to some third party. By using a political service, normally used to negotiate the outside relationship, as a token to perform relational work in the inside relationship, all the generals at Artemisium thus lay themselves open to the claim of bribery. The issue faced by Themistocles and his associates was one of dual framing, a conflict between insider and outsider perspectives discussed in the previous section. The monies that did relational work in one relational context simultaneously entailed obligations within another context.

Realistically, people encounter these kinds of

scenarios all the time and unproblematically negotiate both relationships simultaneously through compromise. A problem arises, however, when one relationship is not given its proper due, that is, when the relative balance between the two relationships too much

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favors one or the other.88 In that case, it can appear that some inherent obligation has been broken and, crucially, that this normative violation has resulted from how someone has tried to negotiate the other relationship. Because such relational work is often performed through monies—gifts, counter-gifts, cash, favors, entitlements, etc.—the normative violation is often blamed on the transaction, the very site and means of relational negotiation.89 Examining Athens from a relational perspective allows us to push our relational model yet further. As the case of Themistocles suggests, dōra in political collaboration can negotiate two relationships simultaneously; when one of those relationships is thought to outweigh the other unjustly, outsiders readily frame the actions as bribery.90 We can generalize this claim as follows: wherever there was political collaboration, there was the possibility that someone might look at the scene and call it bribery. After all, Athenian politics did not merely leverage these configurations of social relations, but was in fact constituted by them. Hence, politics at Athens, like politics anywhere, should be viewed as a specific subset of all the social relations that attain in society. Each political 88

Hence ‘private gain’ at ‘public loss’ shows an undesirable favoring of private over public regard. The imbalance between a bribe-taker’s profit while the rest of the polis suffered was central to the topos of “profiting at your [sc. the people’s expense,” treated in Chapters Three and Four below. 89 This is precisely what occurs in Zelizer’s (1994; 2005b) ‘Hostile Worlds’ scenarios, on which see above. 90 Cf. von Reden (1995a: 94). It should be noted that such dual framing always arises in political situations, but can be found in other social contexts, as well. To return to Timocreon’s abuse of Themistocles, the Athenian is called a “liar, con, traitor...won over by roguish silver” (yeu&stan a1dikon prodo&tan…a)rguri/oisi kobalikoi=si peisqei\j, 727 PMG 4-5) for having taken money from Timocreon’s enemies to keep Timocreon in exile, rather than to restore him as he had pledged to do. Timocreon was Themistocles’ guest-friend (cf. cei=non, 727 PMG 4), and the entire poem details how, in repeatedly committing bribery, Themistocles harmed not only Timocreon, but a number of other friends, as well. There, not restoring Timocreon from exile is a service that negotiates two distinct sets of relationships—Themistocles and Timocreon, Themistocles and Timocreon’s enemies. Although Timocreon blames this service on “roguish silver” and thereby assumes Themistocles had been bribed, in theory Themistocles may have been given this silver as a ‘gift’ with no strings attached and may simply have been showing more favor to one set of friends (Timocreon’s enemies) than to another (Timocreon). The poem has been much discussed: see especially AE 415, Fornara (1966: 260), Stehle (1994: 510-11) on historical issues and Podlecki (1975), Scodel (1983), and Stehle (1994) on the thorny issue of the poem’s genre.

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system is constituted by a different constellation of social relations, and each has its own constellation of social obligations that inhere in those relations. As a result, wherever there is politics, there is the possibility of dually-framed dōra and, consequently, the possibility of bribery. In those cases, trying to disentangle which dōra or services negotiated which relationship is misguided, even impossible, because they can be construed as performing relational work in both relationships. Themistocles’ actions at Artemisium helpfully show the problems in trying to fix only one kind of social framing; instead, there as elsewhere we should ask what is at stake in adopting one social frame, hence one normative evaluation, over another when both really seem to apply simultaneously. In terms of politics, certain practices are considered legitimate, others not, but ultimately this evaluation hinges on how we frame the social relationships involved and on how we define the social obligations entailed by those relations. So, I underscore, the normative value of vote-swapping in the legislature, paying a public official to win a public contract, or accepting money from an ally and redistributing it among friends is not absolute, but is subject to contestation among competing social frames. This contestation of frames is a crucial part of politics. In the next section, the last part of the relational model of Athenian bribery we have been developing, we will examine how these competing frames tied into broader political narratives within the democracy.

From Definition to Discourse: dōrodokia and the Commerce of Bad Friends Any relational approach to bribery must begin with identifying configurations of social relations within a society. From there, by examining the vocabulary of bribery, the

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mechanics for assigning and contesting value, we can begin to uncover the patterns of normative values generated by those social relations. But what happens when these values are contested? What happens when the meaning of a relationship is negotiated, or when competing social frames are brought to bear on the same actions? At that point, people turn to broader cultural norms to guide how they should assess such competing political claims—in short, people determine the narrative of a specific sequence of events by looking to broader cultural narratives about how similar events are typically framed. In this way, the frame of bribery interlocks with larger narratives about how politics is conducted, at Athens as in any other polity. Exactly how this interlocking of social frames and political narratives plays out will be the focus of this section, one that will lay the groundwork for our relational approach.91 In this last section, therefore, we must shift our focus from social relations to political norms, with an eye towards understanding how political norms can change over time. As we just saw, there were a number of different ways in which social relations could be leveraged in Athenian politics, but one of the critical problems the Athenian democracy faced was the inherent danger in allowing certain kinds of social relations to pertain in politics. A well-connected general or ambassador was certainly in a good position to obtain a favorable result for the community, but he was just as able to obtain a less than favorable result, as well. There was, accordingly, a pressing need for the

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Although bribery functions as a narrative about politics in practice in other cultures, too—see, e.g. Gupta (1995), Ledeneva (1998), Sedlenieks (2004), cf. Thuc. 2.97.4 about the Odrysians in Thrace—it is nevertheless remarkable that the Athenians adopted it. After all, the presumption of bribery can be a major distortion of the causality of events. Even if there had been a long sequence of gift and counter-gift in the transactors’ eyes, in which case no particular ‘bribe’ could be associated with the specific counter-gift of the political service provided, within the frame of bribery this long sequence was narrowed down to a single quid pro quo transaction, the exchange of bribe for service. Likewise, to presume that politics was conducted through bribes entails a considerable amount of civic distrust: see especially Chapter Four below.

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Athenians to define when leveraging a social relation was okay, when it was not. As the Athenian democracy developed, there was also a need to be able to redefine these broad political norms over time. As we will examine here, bribery qua a social frame was the political narrative par excellence for conceptualizing what had gone wrong in a particular case and why this was ‘wrong’ in the first place. To frame something as bribery was a way to contest its legitimacy; in this way, competing claims over which social frame should become social fact were competing claims over how best to understand the democracy. Bribery was a popular explanation for political injustice at Athens. When a public official’s obligation to the community was breached, bribery was usually assumed to be the cause. These assumptions pervade Athenian political history as public officials’ failure to do what was expected of them—their violation of the obligations inherent in their relationship with the community—were blamed on bribery.92

Yet in order to

assume that a specific outcome was caused by bribery, an Athenian had to have had the idea that most bad outcomes were caused by bribery. How a particular outcome was framed was therefore shaped by prevailing norms and expectations about politics. In short, each time an Athenian assumed that bribery had occurred, the very choice of social frames hinged on broader political narratives. There are two parts to this idea that the social frame of bribery at the individual level was interlocked with common narratives of polity. First, bribes were associated with ‘bad friends’; to claim that someone had taken bribes was to identify him with a specific social type, what I will call the dōrodokos or corrupt man. In this way, the 92

Strauss (1985: 71-2), Todd (1993: 306), Kulesza (1995: 42-4), Taylor (2001: 161). Pritchett (1974: 2.24) on generals’ responsibility for everything, as well as prosecution of generals for major defeats (1974: 2.20); cf. Roberts (1982), Elster (1999).

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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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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. 19.1968), 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. 514). 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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There were specific reciprocal obligations that defined a public official’s relationship to the community. Under Solon a century before the democracy, public office was conceived of as a tax, a contribution to the polity proportional to one’s income: the more affluent the citizen, the greater his expected contribution and the more important his role in the polity.97 In this sense, public office was conceptualized as a public service, a good work or benefaction, much like liturgies familiar from later in the democracy.98 Indeed, all would-be public officials had to undergo a public scrutiny, or dokimasia, in which their legal qualifications were assessed and, crucially, their past good works to the city were vetted.99 The dokimasia ascertained that the reciprocal relations between citizen and community had been well-established and would presumably continue during that citizen’s tenure in public office.100

Although the

Athenians did not conceptualize these reciprocal relations as a ‘friendship’ per se, it is clear that the relationship between citizen and community was a reciprocal one constantly negotiated by civic obligations.101

97

Following Ostwald (1995: 374-6), who understands Solon’s ‘property’ (telē) classes as tax classes. Finley (1977: 96-7) on the similar reciprocity between kings and communities in Homeric society; this was part of a broader reliance on elite contributions to the polis in the archaic period, on which see most recently Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 91-107). 98 Xenophanes (fr. 2 DK) explicitly compares elite political wisdom to the benefaction of an athletic victory: cf. Pl. Ap. 36d, Rep. 465d and see Doming Gygax (forthcoming: 110-15) for discussion. Not coincidentally, in the second half of the fourth century, serving in public office was regularly awarded public honors just as liturgies were: Whitehead (1983: 65) lists the sources. In the fifth century, too, certain extraordinary successes in public office were rewarded exceptional honors: Themistocles was awarded a statute in the Temple of Artemis Aristoboulē (Plut. Them. 22.2); commemorative herms were erected in the agora for Cimon and the other generals at Eion (Aeschin. 3.183, Plut. Cim. 7.4); and Cleon received proedria and sitēsis after Pylos (Ar. Eq. 573-80). It is more striking, however, how the achievements of prominent leaders of the fifth century are characterized as elite benefactions: Sinclair (1988a: 34-6), Schmitt-Pantel (1992: 179-208) are fundamental on this point. 99 MacDowell (1978: 168), Ostwald (1995: 325-6). Specifically, a candidate was asked whether he treated his parents well, paid his taxes, and had fulfilled his military obligations (AP 55.3). Broader considerations of goodwill towards the community could be brought up by accusers: see esp. Lysias 16, 25, 26, 31, all presented at dokimasiai. 100 Adeleye (1983: esp. 30), Hansen (1991: 218-20); cf. Todd (1993: 285-9). 101 Plato’s Crito is fundamental on this point. Aristotle EN viii-ix, esp. viii.10-11 posits that the reciprocal exchange relationship at the heart of political friendship—though not strictly philia—nevertheless exhibits

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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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Remarkably, what is distinct about the dōrodokos as a social type is that there were never any generic features that uniquely identified him.103

Theophrastus’

Characters provides short character sketches of 30 different social types that could be found in Athens just after the democracy: the flatterer, the garrulous man, the oligarch, the miser, the greedy man, the coward, the busy-body—all of these types had defining features by which each character could be picked out in a crowd. The dōrodokos is nowhere to be found.104 Aside from perhaps being a ‘bad friend’, the dōrodokos was essentially an empty set, an open sign that could be filled in as needed. Sometimes he was assumed to be poor, other times rich.105 Sometimes he was assumed to have a bad character through and through; other times his transgression was considered an isolated affair.106 He could be working alone or part of a vast network of dōrodokoi.107 When I speak of the dōrodokos, then, I intend it as a heuristic that signals the ideal type with which a bribe-giver or bribe-taker was identified. When someone was suspected of dōrodokia, he was identified with a social type—a kind of person in the democracy—but the exact contents of this type shifted over time. 103

Ober (1989: 237) notes in passing the reverse of this claim, that the Athenians never had a topos of the adōrodokētos or unbribable man. Wankel (1982) and Kulesza (1995: 48-83) examine the generic construction of bribery accusations, but are unable to identify any unique characteristics beyond lack of loyalty to the polis. Again, we might call the dōrodokos, simply, a ‘bad friend’. Cf. Kulesza (1995: 81). Accordingly, the dōrodokos, though idealized, never claimed the status of a range of other ‘bad citizen’ anti-types in the democracy, like the military shirker or avoider of liturgies—on which see Christ (2006, 2008)—or the whore, the flatterer, and the sykophant, helpfully discussed by Fisher (2008). For the affinities between bribery and prostitution, again in terms of character types, see von Reden (1995a: 11720). 104 Bribery appears but once in the Oligarch’s complaint about how the courts are corrupt: Theoph. Char. 26.5. 105 Poor: Xen. Hell. 2.3.48, Aeschin. 1.88, Dem. 18.131, Arist. Pol. 1270b6-13, Din. 3.18. Rich: Aeschin. 3.94, Hyp. 3.35, Din. 1.40, Dem. 21.112, 23.201. 106 Character: Ar. Pl. 569-70, Lys. 28.10-11, Dem. 23.146 and see Chapter Three. Isolated incident: Aristides, nicknamed ‘the just’ for his apparent refusal to seek personal gain in his public service, was reportedly convicted of dōrodokia for once taking money from the Ionians when assessing their tribute (Plut. Arist. 26.2-5=Craterus FGrH 324 F12). 107 Working alone: Timagoras (Plut. Pelop. 30.6-7) and Arthmius (e.g. Din. 2.24) were isolated incidents of bribery. Network: Euxenippus (Hyp. 4.39), those involved in the Harpalus Affair (Ath. 8.341f-342), Ant. 6.49-50, and see generally Chapter Four below.

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As the next three chapters will detail, during each of three different periods in the democracy a different conception of the dōrodokos prevailed: the disobedient citizen, the thief, and the traitor. Each one of these latter types, and the dōrodokos by extension, had its own distinct characteristics, but we will find that the choice of which type or which characteristics to assign to the dōrodokos was determined in large part by how dōrodokia was conceptualized. At the end of the dissertation, we will return to the question of why the Athenians treated the dōrodokos uniquely as an ideal type yet one which never had any distinct features of its own. For now it is enough to note that the dōrodokos played this role in the democracy and that the next chapters examine in greater detail how this process actually worked. So calling someone a dōrodokos identified him with a social type within the democracy, although this type shifted over time along with changing conceptions of dōrodokia.

This brings us to the second point I would like to highlight about the

normative construction of narratives of bribery in the Athenian democracy. In public discourse, the stereotype of the dōrodokos was used to tell a larger story about politics and society at Athens. This idea will play a prominent role in the second half of the dissertation, where we will see how distinct narratives of dōrodokia became legitimated in public discourse through legal institutions. It is worth outlining the contours of this claim here, however, so that in the chapters to follow the reader can glean hints of the broader role played by narratives of dōrodokia. We have been focusing on competing social frames, on the difference between an insider’s and outsider’s potential framing of a sequence of events. To an outsider, the monies used to negotiate a relationship of political collaboration could quickly blend into

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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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Now we can begin to see what was considered so bad about dōrodokia and why adopting the frame of bribery (or not) was an inherently political act. By taking what his opponent called ‘bribes’, the dōrodokos effectively represented a change to the logic of an existing relationship. At best he was re-negotiating, at worst rejecting, the norms governing the relationship between public official and the people, citizen and community. Potentially each side viewed the other as trying to establish a new ideal, a new standard by which political friendships with the community were to be negotiated. For this reason, dōrodokoi are often portrayed as weighing the currency of one relationship against another, esteeming the bribes as more valuable than any rewards inherent in benefiting the community.109

This process of weighing was both literal and symbolic:

the

dōrodokos had to determine not only which social frame would be given greater weight in his simultaneous negotiation of two relationships, but especially which normative context, which set of ideal types, was more important to him. Such weighing of currencies often resulted in the alignment of bribe monies with cash, that is, the currency of the marketplace. No doubt some of the time the form of the bribe was in actual Athenian drachmas; to this extent, calling the bribe monies ‘cash’ could form a purely descriptive role. But often, too, referring to the bribe monies as ‘money’ played a crucial discursive role: it was a way to signal that the relations, practices, or outcomes associated with the bribe were illegitimate. In this light, bribe monies functioned as an ‘anti-currency’ to the legitimate monies of democracy; the former derived their full social meaning as conceptual opposites to the latter. In both cases, then, the monies used to negotiate political relationships, whether legitimate or

109

E.g. Lysias 21 (philotimia weighed against bribery), Dem. 19.142 with Dem. 19.223, Din. 1.21. Subsequent chapters will illustrate this point in more depth.

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illegitimate, acted as a conceptual frame for thinking about politics. Encoded within each was a lens for understanding how politics should or should not be conducted. Herein lay the importance of bribery as a political narrative. In claiming that an insider had committed bribery, or in defending oneself against an outsider’s accusation of bribery, an Athenian implicitly (or explicitly) tried to legitimate one set of political norms—one way of understanding the dōrodokos or the ideal public official—while delegitimizing another. As was suggested in the first section of this chapter, he was aligning himself with a particular narrative about how politics should be conducted. This narrative both framed what the norms governing the moral community of the people should be and cast an opponent—whether the dōrodokos himself or his accuser—outside that moral community. Within the practice of politics, accusations of dōrodokia could thus be used to (de-)legitimate new ways of conducting politics.

As new social

relationships were leveraged in new ways in the democracy, whether they had been leveraged in a good or a bad way was framed through the idea of bribery. As will be crucial in the story we will trace, acceptable outcomes were defined as ‘democracy’, unacceptable as ‘bribery’. Crucially, these attempts at legitimization or delegitimization focused on the currency of political relationships: the monies of one were counterpoised against the monies of the other. Tracing these monies will tell us much not only about dōrodokia, but especially about dēmokratia.

Looking Ahead: The above framework for understanding bribery will form the basis of the next three chapters, which will take a diachronic look at the figure of the dōrodokos in the Athenian democracy.

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democracy, a figure aligned with a number of distinct social types at specific periods within Athens’ history. Through most of the fifth century, the dōrodokos was like a disobedient citizen (Chapter Two). A different type emerged in the last quarter of the fifth century and especially in the decades after the rule of the Thirty Tyrants, as the dōrodokos became a thief of sorts, someone who was plundering the polity for his own gain (Chapter Three). And finally, in the middle half of the fourth century, amid the constant threat of civil conflict throughout the Greek world, the dōrodokos was a traitor (Chapter Four). On a relational view of bribery, there are a number of factors that contributed to the dōrodokos’ transformation from a disobedient citizen to a thief and traitor, and our focus in these chapters will be on understanding precisely why this diachronic development occurred. Changing social configurations, both inside and outside politics, created different patterns in which the frame of bribery might arise. This, in turn, created changing patterns of how social relations were leveraged within politics—for what kinds of duties, how often or how thoroughly they were leveraged—and, consequently, shifted the frames through which Athenians conceptualized the civic obligations of public official and citizen, alike. Of course, these factors shifted the ways in which the regular, legitimate monies used to negotiate social relationships in politics were conceptualized, as well. One of the most striking stories we will trace, then, is how the monies of dōrodokia were constantly counterpoised with the monies of democracy.

There are two components to this

argument, each of which will be fleshed out in the chapters to come. First, the dōrodokos was consistently thought to weigh illegitimate bribe monies against legitimate political

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payments (honors, gifts, tribute, etc.). What is more, each set of monies, whether legitimate or not, was used as a conceptual metaphor for the relationship between official (and often citizen) and community. The monies of dōrodokia and democracy, alike, were thus used as conceptual proxies for the relationships they signified.

By tracing the

changing ways in which dōrodokia was configured, we will thus throw into relief how the Athenians used political monies—and above all their dark twin, dōra—to think through relationships within their polity. For each period of the democracy we will ask who the dōrodokos was and what role he was thought to play amid these shifting social, political, and economic circumstances.

By no means was ‘the’ Athenian perspective on the dōrodokos

monolithic; again, for each distinct notion of polity, there was a distinct view of bribery, as well. However, within each period the views of a range of Athenians tended to converge on who the dōrodokos was; in turn, these narratives were used to think through broader political commitments about what the democracy should be. Accordingly, in Chapters Five, Six, and Seven we will examine how such narratives factored into public policy, helped shape public discourse, and thereby constituted a vital part of politics in practice.

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Dōrodokia, Elites, and the People’s Authority 508/7-404 BCE

In 463/2 the Athenian stratēgos Cimon returned to Athens after a successful campaign fighting the Persians in the Chersonese and subduing a revolt by the Thasians. Apparently not everything had gone according to plan. Upon his return, the people elected special prosecutors to bring a charge of dōrodokia against the general.

As

Plutarch records, Cimon apparently had had it “within his grasp” (parasxo/n) to “easily” (r(a|di/wj) mount an attack against Macedon (Plut. Cim. 14.3). He withdrew, instead, and the Athenians assumed that he must have received dōra from the Macedonian king (Plut. Cim. 14.2-3). Though convicted by the Assembly, he was subsequently acquitted by the Areopagus Court and soon elected to a new command as general.1 Despite its oddities, the trial itself is remembered perhaps more for its aftermath than as a significant historical moment in its own right. As Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens explains, when Cimon was acquitted, there was considerable public outcry at Athens (AP 25, 27.1). In particular, one Ephialtes led the charge, first publicly accusing members of the Areopagus court of corruption because they had acquitted Cimon and then moving to pass legislation that stripped the Areopagus of certain powers, including the oversight of officials. Read this way, with the benefit of hindsight Cimon’s trial becomes a critical catalyst in the development of the democracy:

not so much an

important or unusual event in itself, but a legal means to a political end. As the story has

1

Plut. Cim. 14.1-4; Plut. Per. 10.6; cf. AP 27.1. For scholarly accounts of Cimon’s trial, see Roberts (1982: 55-6), Ostwald (1986: 41-2), Carawan (1987: 202-5), Raaflaub (2007: 113, 137-8). I follow Carawan’s reconstruction of the procedure of the trial; see further Chapter Seven below.

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gone since at least Aristotle, that political end was the assertion of the dēmos’ authority within the courts. In other words, Cimon’s trial is best remembered for ushering in the democratic hallmark of public accountability.2 The issue of the people’s authority was an important theme in the democracy from its inception under the leadership of Cleisthenes in 508/7.

In Herodotus’

Constitutional Debate, mass rule (plh=qoj a1rxon) is distinguished by public accountability, use of the lot in selecting public officials, and policymaking by the people themselves (Hdt. 3.80.6). Within 50 years of Cleisthenes’ reforms, all three marks of the people’s authority were present in the Athenian democracy. As suggested by Cimon’s trial and the public accountability it fostered, the story of dōrodokia in the fifth century is closely tied to the growing institutionalization of rule of the people at Athens. Accordingly, this chapter has twin aims: both to read dōrodokia in light of the development of the dēmos’ political authority and to re-read the democracy in light of issues raised by examining dōrodokia. As we will see, inasmuch as the story of dōrodokia and bribe monies shadows important trends in the democracy, examining what kinds of monies were used to negotiate legitimate political relationships can help us see how the nature of political power changed over time.

Cimon’s trial will act as a

touchstone throughout our investigation: first, for establishing two thematic trends in the fifth-century democracy that underpinned how the dōrodokos was conceptualized; second, as a counterpoint to how these interrelated trends subsequently shaped the development of the democracy. The image of the dōrodokos that emerges from Cimon’s trial is one that is reflected and refracted throughout the fifth century, as we will

2

Ostwald, Raaflaub, Bauman (1990: 28-31), and Carena, Manfredini, and Piccirilli (1990: 250 ad Plut. Cim. 14,12) underscore the political utility of Cimon’s trial, but see further Chapter Seven.

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investigate in Sophocles’ Antigone and Aristophanic comedy. Tracing these changes through a character as ubiquitous, if marginal, as the dōrodokos will provide, it is hoped, greater historical insight into why the democracy developed as it did.

Cimon and the Politics of Power: Despite its idiosyncrasies, Cimon’s trial is representative of the handful of fifthcentury dōrodokia trials that survive in the historical record. The great majority of these trials were of Athenian stratēgoi like Cimon: military generals elected ten per year to command the polis’ navy and hoplite soldiers.3 In part this preponderance reflects the bias of our sources, which tend to focus on the most important political actors and therefore are less inclined to report dōrodokia among minor public officials. Yet such bias is nevertheless indicative of the crucial role played by stratēgoi in the fifth-century democracy. Indeed, throughout the century Athens’ military leaders were also her policy leaders, the very men who would persuade the Assembly of the best course of action.4 Men like Cimon were the lynchpins of the democracy, and some of the more monumental political changes in the fifth century thus focused on the delicate relationship they maintained with the dēmos.

3

In addition to Cimon’s trial we hear of dōrodokia prosecutions of the stratēgoi Laches (Ar. V. 240-2, 8947, 960-1); Sophocles, Pythodorus, and Eurymedon (Thuc. 4.65.3-4, Philochorus FGrH 328 F 127); Pericles (Per. 32.2); and Cleon (Ar. Ach. 5-8 with schol.). Dōrodokia trials are also attested, less securely, for the stratēgoi Miltiades (Nep. Milt. 7.5); Phormio (Ar. Pax 347-8, Androtion FGrH 324 F 8); Themistocles (DS 11.27.3); Aristides (Plut. Arist. 26.2-5, Craterus FGrH 342 F 12); and Alcibiades (Nep. Alcib. 7). Nonstratēgoi prosecuted for dōrodokia include the Hellēnotamiai (Ant. 5. 69-71), the unnamed magistrate of Lysias 21, various minor officials in Ant. 6.49-50, and the ambassador Callias (Dem. 19.273) if the Peace of Callias is not spurious. 4 It was only in the fourth century that we begin to see any significant separation of policy formation by public speakers (rhētores) from policy execution by military generals (stratēgoi): Davies (1981: 124-31), Hansen (1983). Still, as the career of the fourth-century politician Phocion witnesses, this trend was not a hard-and-fast rule.

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Cimon’s trial was no exception. Though we have but few sources on the trial, it seems clear that it was in some sense ‘about’ his relationship to the community. After all, the dēmos had initiated the suit by appointing ten public prosecutors—a rarity in Athens—and at least part of the trial was held before the Assembly (Plut. Per. 10.5-6, Cim. 14.5). More telling is Cimon’s defense, a brief portion of which Plutarch records, in which the stratēgos defended his relationship to the community. The excerpt is worth quoting in full here, for it raises a couple of points to which we will return frequently: [Cimon] said that he was the representative (procenei=n) not of wealthy Ionians and Thessalians, unlike others who were their representative in order to be fawned over and to receive [dōra] (i3na qerapeu/wntai kai\ lamba/nwsin), but of Spartans, whose thrift and moderation (eu)te/leian kai\ swfrosu/nhn) he loved and imitated. These were more valuable to him than any amount of wealth (h{j ou)de/na protima=n plou=ton). Instead, he delighted in enriching the polis from her enemies (plouti/zwn a)po\ tw=n polemi/wn th\n po/lin). Plutarch, Life of Cimon 14.4

Cimon does not directly address the charge of dōrodokia here, and it is impossible to assess how, if at all, he did so elsewhere in his defense speech. Nevertheless, we are fortunate to possess this one record of the trial, for it juxtaposes Cimon’s actions against those of other purported dōrodokoi, namely proxenoi of Ionia and Thessaly. In that light, it helps orient us around what Cimon, at least, thought was problematic about dōrodokia and, by contrast, how he thought an upstanding citizen should act.5 Cimon frames the dōrodokos both positively and negatively. On the one hand, he suggests that proxenoi of Ionia and Thessaly were themselves dōrodokoi precisely

5

Given Plutarch’s use of Ion elsewhere in the Life of Cimon (e.g. Plut. Cim. 5.3, 9.1, 16.10), Cimon’s speech probably comes from Ion, who admired Cimon and disliked Pericles (cf. Plut. Per. 5.3, 28.7) and was likely in Athens at the time of the trial: Blamire (1989: 15). Theopompus may also have been a source for the trial, but it is unlikely that he would have reported the details of Cimon’s defense: cf. Sandys (1912: 113 ad AP 27.1).

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because they had assumed their political role as proxenoi in order to receive dōra.6 The i3na clause of purpose contrasts with the general’s own stated reason for engaging in politics: he derives his glory from enriching the polis.7 On the other hand, therefore, the dōrodokos is negatively depicted as enriching himself instead of the polis. Note how, in Cimon’s eyes, the difference between himself and the dōrodokos hinges not on whether or not money was received, but on where that ploutos, once received, was then directed. In effect, he evaluates the dōrodokos according to the path that the ploutos took; it is ultimately the dora’s meaning within the domestic sphere of the polis that fixes the assignation of dōrodokos or praiseworthy politician. In tracing the path of the dōra, rather than their mere presence or absence in politics, Cimon subtly points to two different political spaces they come to occupy. First, the currency of proxeny relations, be that with Ionia, Thessaly, or Sparta, helps negotiate Athens’ relation to other poleis. This is the realm of foreign politics, one marked in the first half of the century by Athens’ rise as an imperial power under the auspices of the Delian League. The second space is the realm of domestic politics, specifically the relationship between individual officials like Cimon and the rest of the community. Here, the particular ways in which Cimon acts as the polis’ patron by enriching it help shape the meaning of the ploutos he acquires. In other words, Cimon suggests, if we peel away the Athenians’ contemporary concerns with the people’s political authority, we find that such authority was actually 6

Cimon’s choice of Ionia and Thessaly appears to be random, but it should be noted that Thessaly was known for its wealth and merchants, and Ionia already had a reputation for bribery, if Craterus’ record of the bribing of Aristides is to be believed (Plut. Arist. 26.1-2). Both regions, therefore, could have been thought prone to bribery, as Cimon suggests. Of course, the authority of Plutarch and his source should be taken with a grain of salt: within ten years, Cimon himself became a proxenos of Thessaly (and named his third son Thettalos!). Plut. Cim. 16.1, Aristid. 3.515. Dindorff with Connor (1967). 7 Cimon was commonly linked to Athens’ wealth in this way: cf. Plut. Cim. 9, Them. 2.3.

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intertwined with two other developments in the fifth-century democracy:

Athenian

imperialism and the politics of patronage. As Cimon suggests, the relation between the two intimately shaped the figure of the dōrodokos.

Let us take a brief step back, then,

and trace the narrative arcs of these two developments before returning to how they were combined in the figure of the dōrodokos. Cimon’s fateful campaign was conducted under the auspices of the Delian League, an offensive and defensive alliance formed among Athens and a large number of Greek poleis in the years after the Persian Wars.8 While Thucydides records that the pretext for the League’s formation was to gain revenge on Persia by ravaging the Great King’s territory (Thuc. 1.96), in fact almost from the League’s formation Athens appears to have used the League to pursue its own agenda of controlling Aegean trade routes to the Hellespont.9 Indeed, the League had a peculiarly Athenian flavor to it. Allies contributed either money or military forces—men and ships—to the League’s campaigns, but the size of a polis’ contribution was assessed and then collected by Athenians.10 As the demands of the League heaped up, more and more of the allies chose to pay money

8

AP 23.5 calls it an offensive/defensive alliance. Background to and formation of the Delian League: Thuc. 1.94-97.1. 9 Certainly, the Spartan-run Hellenic League that preceded the Delian League appears to have focused on driving the Persians out of the Aegean and the coast of Asia Minor: note in particular the expeditions against Cyprus and Byzantium (Thuc. 1.94.2), continued under Cimon (Plut. Cim. 12.1, DS 11.60-2). Yet under the Delian League, even attacks against a Persian outpost like Eion (476/5?) seemed less about ravaging the King’s land and more about gaining financial footholds in the region. Within a decade, Athens had founded a colony at Amphipolis a bit further up the Strymon river from Eion, and even the siege at Skyros may have been over disgruntled trade relations (cf. Plut. Cim. 8.4). While doubtless a number of anti-Persian campaigns were launched by the League—as in the Chersonese (Plut. Cim. 14.1)—it is crucial how the non-Persian campaigns changed the character of Athens’ relations to her allies, and from the first years of the League, at that. On the meaning of ‘pretext’ (pro/sxhma, Thuc. 1.96) here, I follow Rawlings (1977) in positing that Thucydides offers the (false) reason for the formation of the Delian League; my argument is not affected if we follow Kallet-Marx’ (1993: 44-5) interpretation of the passage as understanding the reason for collecting tribute. 10 The Athenian leader Aristides first assessed the tribute, or phoros (AP 23.5, Plut. Arist. 24). The Hellēnotamiai who ministered the phoros were elected by and from the Athenians: Thuc.1.96.2. Additionally, Athenian leaders were the commanders of League expeditions.

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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 nonleague 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 i3 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 i3 40=ML 52; either 440’s or 420’s); IG i3 21 on judicial affairs in Miletus, dated probably to 450/49 BCE. Democracies were set up in Erithryae (IG i3 14=ML 40; 460’s or 450’s) and Samos (Thuc. 1.115.3; 440 BCE).

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historian’s focus on Thasos does underscore a crucial aspect of Athenian foreign policy throughout this period, one that Cimon brings out in proudly reporting that he enriched Athens from her enemies (plouti/zwn a)po\ tw=n polemi/wn th\n po/lin, Plut. Cim. 14.4). Athens’ archē, her power over her allies, was thus intimately bound up with the economic rewards of exerting that power. Yet so long as other allies were contributing men and ships to the cause, they, too, might expect economic rewards from the League.13 Once those allies began providing monetary payments, though, the nature of the payments effectively changed into a contract for protection by Athenian forces.14 Precisely because Athens continued to provide an increasingly greater share of the League’s navy, she deserved a greater share of the rewards from the League’s expeditions. This explains in part why Athenians assessed, collected, and administered the tribute; Athenian citizens colonized conquered territories; and Athens so frequently assumed control over local resources in subjecting a particular ally.15

As Thucydides’

account of the 50 years after the Persian Wars suggests, money equaled power and Athens’ power directly translated into more money. Lisa Kallet has persuasively illuminated the striking extent to which this equation of money and power infused Athenian political debates and policies throughout the fifth century; with more power, Athenian stratēgoi like Cimon could directly and indirectly

13

At the League’s inception, the allies, too, would have anticipated tangible rewards from ravaging Persian territory. It was only after they stopped providing men and ships that the nature of the alliance shifted. Sealey (1966: 233-55). Cf. Kallet-Marx (1993: 53-4). 14 Cf. Thuc. 1.99. Kallet-Marx (1993: 65-7) is essential on this point, but it should be noted that cause and effect here are still somewhat murky. Doubtless some of the allies, disillusioned by the League’s expeditions—which, in benefiting Athens predominantly, already reflected her near hegemonic position— shifted to monetary payments as a pragmatic matter. In a sense, therefore, the switch to monetary payments could have both anticipated and responded to Athens’ changing relationship to the League. 15 Like Thasos, Aegina was also forced to surrender her warships and mainland possessions in 458 (Thuc. 1.108.4).

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bring more money into the polis.16 She rightly points to 483/2 as the pivotal year in this discursive archaeology at Athens, for it was in that year that, with a sudden boon from the local silver mines at Laureion, the Athenians chose to invest that silver in their navy rather than to receive distributions for themselves.17 This decision marked the navy as explicitly publicly-owned (dēmosia) inasmuch as it served as a substitute for the handouts that would have otherwise fallen to the Athenians.18 As Aristotle notes in his Consitution of Athens, the decision to build a fleet and thereby to pursue hegemony over the other Greeks increased the livelihood of all Athenians (AP 24.1), and arguably the Athenians in Themistocles’ day debated the issue on these very terms. Underpinning the formula money=power, therefore, was a conceptual link between possessions and archē. Within the context of the League, ‘power to’ slowly came to mean ‘power over’, as the allies themselves became ‘property’ or ‘subjects’ of Athens.19

16

See Kallet-Marx (1993, 1994), Kallet (2001); cf. Kurke (1999, 2002). Financing the navy: Hdt. 7.144; Thuc. 1.14; AP 22.7; Plut. Them. 4.1-3, Arist. 46 with Gabrielsen (1985), Kallet-Marx (1994: 244-5), Kurke (2002: 95-6). 18 Kallet-Marx (1994: 244) points to similar distributions after a surplus in Siphnos (Hdt. 3.57.2) and perhaps Thasos (Hdt. 6.46). Even if such distributions were not the norm, it is nevertheless emblematic of their public nature that the dēmos as a whole would vote on how to manage them. As we will see, this scene of employing political authority to control the flow of financial resources encapsulates fifth-century attitudes towards the monies that were used to negotiate politics. In a similar story—probably apocryphal, as Hamel (1998: 47n.20) rightly argues—after the campaigns at Sestos and Byzantion, Cimon rounded up the Persian prisoners and asked the allies whether they wanted to take the men or their belongings; the allies chose the belongings, so Cimon took the men as slaves and sold them, profiting enough to supply his ships for four months and give some leftover gold to the city (Plut. Cim. 9.3-6). Again, note how the mode of conquest—an Athenian divvies up the rewards of conquest and ultimately takes that which is most profitable—tellingly signifies the absolute authority of Athens’ position qua manager of resources and master of slaves. 19 Cf. Thuc. 1.99.1, which attributes Athens’ growing despotism to a need to police allied contributions to the League. Allies as ‘property’: Thuc. 2.63.2, 3.37.2; IG i3 156.2, 15. Allies as ‘subjects’: e.g. Thuc. 1.121.5, 1.22.2, 4.87.3; cf. Thuc. 1.8.3, 2.6.3. By mid-century, inscriptions could refer to the allies as “cities which Athens [controls]”: IG i3 19.8-9, 27.14-15. The equation of ‘power to’ (authority to distribute) and ‘power over’ (oppressive control over) is clearest in the Athenian siege of Thasos, one reason why Thucydides might have picked that siege as the decisive turning point in the League’s history (cf. DS 11.70.3-4). As Thucydides relates, the rebellion was caused by a dispute with the Athenians about the Thasian mines and a trading post on the shore opposite Thasos (Thuc. 1.100.2); transparently, when the Thasians lost, they were required to give up both the mainland and their mine (Thuc. 1.101.3, Plut. Cim. 14.2). 17

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The equation of money and empire should by now be clear—indeed, for Athens’ imperial heyday in the second half of the century, it has long been obvious—but one oft neglected component of this pairing is the money of empire, or, to be more precise, the monies of empire.

Whenever our sources juxtapose Athenian hegemony with its

consequences, especially its baldly economic returns, we find the monies of empire. Tribute,20 cleruchies,21 naval pay,22 cows and panoplies23—all functioned as monies of empire, media that were transacted and used to negotiate Athens’ relationship with her allies. Crucially, all of them symbolized Athenian hegemony: it is in that sense that I call them monies of empire, even though some of them were transacted from the earliest years of the Delian League.24 Ultimately the monies used to negotiate foreign political relations signified the imperial power of Athens, the power her people had over the resources of empire.

20

phoros: Plut. Cim. 11.3. Kallet-Marx (1993: 44-9) underscores the novelty of a long-standing phoros and rightly connects it to the Persian system of taxation and compulsory gifts. As Brasidas remarks in Thrace, the allied tribute was a mark of friendship and slavery (cf. doulei/aj, Thuc. 4.87.3). 21 Cleruchies: Plut. Per. 11.5-6; cf. DS 11.88.3, Paus. 1.27.5 all connect the establishment of cleruchies with the need to control disloyal allies. IG i337=ML 47 (Colophon, 440’s or 420’s), IG i346.43-6=ML 49 (Brea, 440’s-420’s). Cleruchies, in particular, connoted imperialism; when the Second Athenian League was formed in the fourth century, the charter contained a clause explicitly banning the establishment of cleruchies and Athenian private ownership of land in allied cities: IG ii2 43.35-41; cf. Cargill (1981: 60, 148-50). Although land owned by individual Athenians is not well attested for the empire, Oionias’ considerable property holdings abroad—over 81 talents’ worth according to IG i3 422.311-14—suggest that it was extensive. Cf. IG i3 426.45-6. 22 Naval pay: AP 24.2-3. This came directly from tribute monies and was one of the ways in which empire was thought to have supported the democracy: AP 24.3. 23 From perhaps the 440’s, Athens required allies to send “a cow and a panoply” to Athens, to be escorted in the procession of the Greater Panathenaea festival as if they were colonists: IG i3 34.41-3=ML 46 (447/6?) appears to be the earliest inscription; see also IG i3 71.56-8=ML 69, IG i3 46.15-17=ML 49.11-13. For discussion, Meritt and Wade-Gery (1962: 69-71), AE 292-4; Smarczyk (1990: 549-69) is particularly helpful on the Panathenaea as a symbol of Athenian military power. Along the same lines, the requirement that subject cities send the aparchai or ‘first fruits’ of corn and barley to Eleusis—cf. IG i3 78=ML 73— also reified an image of Athens as patron over her empire: Isoc. 4.28-31 with Smarczyk (1990: 224-52). 24 This claim should be uncontroversial for Athens’ imperial heyday in the second half of the century. What I would like to argue here is that such social meaning was invested in political monies even in the earliest years of the Delian League.

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If I am right about the social meaning of the monies used to negotiate foreign politics at this time, then we are halfway towards understanding Cimon’s presentation of the dōrodokos at his trial. Recall that Cimon contrasts himself with the dōrodokos according to the path that the dōra took: while his own wealth is directed towards enriching the city, the dōrodokos’ is not. Yet because for both Cimon and the dōrodokos the source of that wealth derives from Athens’ foreign relations, we should expect that the proper use of that wealth would reify its social meaning as a money signaling Athens’ power. This is precisely what Cimon’s enriching of the city ‘from her enemies’ (a)po\ tw=n polemi/wn) signifies, as it assigns to Athens possession over and ultimately benefit from those monies. By contrast, rather than channeling his monies into services that benefit the city, the dōrodokos keeps them for himself and thereby manifestly assigns them a different meaning. For the dōrodokos, the monies used to negotiate politic relationships end up asserting the authority of himself—or, worse, his foreign friends—to distribute the rewards of empire. What I would like to suggest, in short, is that by differentiating the path of the dōra, Cimon also differentiates their meaning. The stratēgos points to one critical way the Athenians signaled their control over the rewards of empire: public works at Athens, or ‘enriching the polis’, as Cimon calls it. Indeed, we find a series of public buildings with clear links to Athens’ hegemony and the wealth it brought in: the Temple of Artemis Aristoboule, the Stoa Poikile, the Piraeus and Long Walls, and the Theseion all date to the first few decades of the League. In the same vein, we might add the later

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Periclean building programme on the Acropolis.25 Contemporary sources consistently link these public works to Athens’ military success; again, Athens’ control over the monies of empire was reified by financial outlays on public works that signaled her powerful position.26 Even if the actual monies used to construct these buildings came from separate financial accounts—more on this in a moment—the Athenians nevertheless posited an economy in which the monies of empire, i.e. monies symbolizing empire, were converted into public buildings redolent of Athenian archē.27 As Cimon’s reference to the proxenoi of Thessaly and Ionia suggests, the dōrodokos short-circuited this economy.

By pocketing the monies of empire, the

dōrodokos removed them from circulation and hence prevented Athens from asserting control over their distribution. In this way, the dōrodokos posed a significant threat not just to Athens’ acquisition of imperial monies, but especially to the processes by which those monies were re-invested with meaning as tokens of Athenian power.28

25

On the Periclean building programme, see Plut. Per. 12-13, IG i3 436-51 (Parthenon), 453-60 (gold and ivory statue of Athena), 462-6 (Propylaea), completed in 434/3 BCE according to the decree of Callias (IG i3 52=ML 58). Stadter (1989: 157-63 ad Per. 12.6), Kallet (1998: 49-52). 26 See generally Plut. Cim. 13.6-7. Temple of Artemis Aristoboule: Plut. Them. 22.1-2. Piraeus: explicitly connected with Athens’ naval empire at Plut. Them. 19.2. Plutarch also records how part of the wall of the Acropolis was constructed from war booty (Cim. 13.6), and the Marathon Base and statues of Athena, Apollo, and Miltiades set up at Delphi were paid for from a tithe of spoils from Marathon (Paus. 10.10.1). 27 On this point, see generally Kallet (1998). 28 Plutarch records an anecdote about Cimon that affirms the lines of this argument (Plut. Cim. 10.9). A Persian defector named Rhoisakes came to Cimon’s home, seeking exile. He placed two bowls of gold and silver at Cimon’s door, to which Cimon asked whether Rhoisakes wanted Cimon as a friend or as a hireling (misqwto\n h2 fi/lon). When Rhoisakes said a friend, Cimon gave him back the money, telling him that, as his friend, he would be able to use it whenever he needed it. Apart from Plutarch’s dubious framing of the story—in contrast to the named sources he provides elsewhere in the same paragraph, the biographer writes simply that ‘it is said’ (le/getai)—Rhoisakes is otherwise unattested, and we know of only one other Persian defector from this time period: cf. Hdt. 3.160.2; Ctes. Pers. 43. It is, then, at least possible that the story is apocryphal. Reading the tale along those lines, it is striking how Cimon’s dealings with a Persian defector (i.e. a Greek polis that had been under Persian control during the Persian Wars) are framed as a choice between being a philos and being a bribe-taker, as misthōtos regularly connotes: see Chapter One above. These are precisely the two possibilities Cimon presents in his trial when he contrasts his own civic services with those who took bribes from Thessalians and Ionians (both Persian defectors, incidentally). In the story of Rhoisakes, Cimon’s choice is split not between taking the money or rejecting it—in both cases he makes

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Yet if the dōrodokos played such a pivotal role in this economy of imperial monies, so too did an elite figure like Cimon. The stratēgos is unabashed about his central position within this economy of money and power: he himself “derives honor” by enriching the city (a)ga/llesqai, Plut. Cim. 14.4). Indeed, he confesses, the pursuit of such honor is more important to him than the riches themselves. Cimon’s claim points to a second space occupied by the dōra—the realm of domestic politics—and hence to a second relationship negotiated by those monies:

that between elite citizen and

community. Strikingly, the dōra in this second space took on the same valence of political authority as the monies of empire. So, for example, Plutarch draws an analogy between Athens’ relation to the rest of Greece and Cimon’s famed generosity toward the Athenians (Plut. Cim. 10.6).29 Such generosity was considerable, as he spent vast unprecedented resources on public works and feeding his fellow citizens. In addition to constructing the Theseion and helping finance the Long Walls, he planted trees in the Agora and gardens in the Academy (Plut. Cim. 13.8); opened his fields to all (Plut. Cim. 10.1); gave money to the poor (Plut. Cim. 10.3); and provided dinner every night, it is reported, for either his demesmen (AP 27.3) or any Athenian (Plut. Cim. 10.1-2).30

use of it—but in being able to control when and how that money is used. Like Athens’ use of the monies of empire, Cimon accepts Rhoisakes’ friendship so that he can control how the gold and silver is distributed. 29 Plutarch compares the golden age under Cimon with the civilizing effect other Athenians—and, by extension, Athens herself—had on the rest of the Greeks. Such Athenian mythologizing—emphasizing the autochthony of the Athenians, the civilizing conquests of her first king Theseus, or her patron-like role over the rest of Hellas—was a potent political metaphor for empire: see variously Herter (1939), Barron (1964), Loraux (1981b), Walker (1995), Miller (1997: esp. 1-86). Important here is the way that elite citizens inserted themselves into the iconography of empire: Miltiades was given a statue alongside Apollo and Athena at Delphi (Paus. 10.10.1); under his son Cimon’s influence, he was featured in a painting of the Stoa Poikile next to Theseus’ defeat of the Amazons (Paus. 1.15.1-4); likewise, a statue of Themistocles stood in the Temple of Artemis Aristoboule (Plut. Them. 22.1-2). 30 On Cimon’s civic works, see further Schmitt-Pantel (1992: 180-6), Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 197202).

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This was patronage politics, and Cimon was commonly held to be its most illustrious practitioner (e.g. Plut. Cim. 10.4-6). While such bald patronage was a holdover from the archaic polis—in particular, the tyrant Pisistratus was said to have earned the support of the masses through private benefactions31—it nevertheless was the primary mode of politics throughout Cimon’s lifetime. Other notable political figures likewise used their own money to fund public works and feed fellow citizens.32 In effect, patronage in local communities, as when Cimon fed his demesmen, established concentrated networks of political supporters or ‘friends’ (philoi); together with family connections, these networks were leveraged to win political honors and authority at the city-level.33 As Gorgias writes of Cimon, he made money to spend it and spent it to win political honor (Plut. Cim. 10.5). It is significant that Cimon’s patronage was always framed in light of his considerable military successes, for in this way the monies of patronage were linked to the monies of empire, just as his depiction of the dōrodokos suggests.34 Consider, for instance, Cimon’s campaign in Skyros and his retrieval of the bones of Theseus.35 On the one hand, Skyros was a strategic acquisition for Athens, for it lay on the route to the 31

So AP 16.2, 16.9. For discussion, Millett (1989: 2 2-3), Kurke (2002), Kallet (2003: 124-6), Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 201). 32 Schmitt-Pantel (1992: 179-208) is essential here. See further Millett (1989: 21-5), Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 197-206). Themistocles rebuilt a temple for his genos (Plut. Them. 2.1) and was known for entertaining others and paying for sacrifices (Plut. Them. 5.1, cf. 22.1); his iconic works were commonly thought of as patronage of a sort—providing cakes and fish for the people, as Aristophanes suggests (Eq. 813-19): see especially Kurke (2002: 105-8) on this point. Such patronage was exemplified by (later) associations of various Athenian elites with the age of Cronus, known for its agricultural plenty: Pisistratus (AP 16.7), Hippias (Pl. Hipparch. 229b), Aristides (Plut. Arist. 24.3), Cimon (Plut. Cim. 10.7), Themistocles (Teleclides Prytaneis fr. 5). 33 Connor (1973: 53-64), Finley (1983: 24-49), Mitchell (1997: 42-6). Elite families: cf. Davies (1971), Littman (1990). On the clubs, or hetaireiai, see especially Calhoun (1913), Hutter (1978: 26-9). 34 Clearly stated by Plutarch: “Since he already had great wealth (eu)porw=n), Cimon spent monies from his generalship which, it seemed, he had acquired in fine manner (kalw=j) as booty from the enemy, in an even finer manner (ka/llion) on the citizens” (Plut. Cim. 10.1). 35 AP fr. 4. Kenyon; Plut. Cim. 8.6-7, Them. 36.1-3; Paus. 1.17.6. For discussion, see Podlecki (1971), Blamire (1989: 119-22 ad Cim. 8.6-7).

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Hellespont; clearing the area of pirates and establishing an Athenian colony there manifestly fell in line with Athens’ desire to reap and control the rewards of empire.36 On the other hand, the expedition is also presented as a ‘personal’ one undertaken by Cimon to recover the bones of Theseus (esp. Plut. Cim. 8.5-6). When he returned to Athens, he housed the bones in a Theseion which he (re-)built and which had on its walls paintings depicting Theseus’ exploits: battles against the Amazons and Centaurs, and a visit to his father Poseidon under the sea, no doubt a potent metaphor for Athens’ thalassocracy (Paus. 1.17.2-3).37 Such a gift to the city, funded by Cimon’s conquest, both signaled Athens’ naval archē generally and glorified Cimon’s excellence in particular.38 It thus simultaneously negotiated Athens’ relations to her allies and Cimon’s relationship to the polis. The monies of patronage and empire were functionally identical: both circulated within a kind of economic distribution—whether tribute or handouts, food or military protection—saturated with the valence of vertical political relations: enslavement to Athenian hegemony in the case of the tribute, political authority over the dēmos in the case of elite services to the city. But if these monies functioned as metaphors for a distinct set of vertical relations, bribe monies short-circuited those relations. Elsewhere in Plutarch’s Life of Cimon, in fact, Cimon is again praised for being “incorruptible and untouched by dōrodokia in politics” (a)de/kaston kai\ a1qikton e)n th|= politei/a| dwrodoki/aj) while nearly all of the other public officials of his day took their fill of 36

Podlecki (1971: 142). Pirates: Plut. Cim. 8.3-5. Colony: Thuc. 1.98.2, DS 11.60.2. On the wall paintings and their political symbolism, see Walker (1995: esp. 58), Mills (1997: 36-8). 38 Pace Walker (1995: 56-61), Podlecki (1971) makes a compelling case for how Cimon’s private expenditure brought him consider public honor in this case; cf. Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 202). For other public monuments that glorified individual citizens and were funded through military campaigns, see also Themistocles’ erection of the Temple of Artemis Aristoboule (Plut. Them. 22.1-2) and Cimon’s probable role in the construction of the Stoa Poikile, which featured, among other paintings, depictions of both himself and his father Miltiades (Paus. 1.15.1-3). 37

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public monies (lhmma/twn de\ dhmosi/wn…a)napimplame/nouj, Plut. Cim.

10.8).39

Whereas Cimon continually gave to the city and thereby affirmed Athens’ archē over her allies (and his own archē and informal leadership within Athens), others thus failed to redistribute the monies of empire.

Accordingly, those ‘public’ (dēmosion) monies

stopped signifying the Athenian dēmos’ hegemonic power over the League. It was in this sense that the dōrodokos became problematic, for he subverted the value assigned to the monies of empire.

The Disobedient dōrodokos: Pericles, Creon and the Breakdown of Political Patronage So far we have sketched a picture of the dōrodokos as a figure who, in subverting the political value attached to the monies of empire, implicitly contested the dēmos’ authority to control them. Rather than position himself as a patron adorning the city with those monies, he pocketed them for himself, in effect removing them from an economy in which they signaled Athens’ hegemonic relationship to her allies. By contrast, Cimon and other political leaders of the first half of the fifth century were presented as authoritative stewards of those monies: elite citizens whose own archē and informal political standing were reified by the act of distributing to the polis monies linked to empire. Of course, after Cimon we have little evidence that there were any similar ‘patrons’ in Athens.40 How and why, then, did the breakdown of patronage occur? As

39

The phrase lhmma/twn de\ dhmosi/wn could indicate embezzlement or peculation, but bribes qua lh/mmata are probably intended, as well. Plutarch explicitly singles out Aristides and Ephialtes as the only other two politicians of Cimon’s day to be incorruptible (Plut. Cim. 10.8)—itself a surprisingly rare epithet in the democracy: cf. Ober (1989: 237). And both are elsewhere praised for being, specifically, not bribed: cf. xrhma/twn…a)misqi/ of Aristides (Plut. Arist. 3.3), a)dwrodo/khtoj of Ephialtes (AP 25.1). 40 Millett (1989) is essential here; see also Connor (1971).

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the next two sections will show, the figure of the dōrodokos can indirectly point us to an answer. Fundamentally, the story of the breakdown of patronage is about how politics changed as the result of shifting meaning in the monies used to negotiate political relations. As we have already seen, Cimon’s picture of two different economies—one imperial, one patronal—negotiated by distinct monies that nevertheless assumed the same valence could quickly break down. Indeed, the lines between the monies of empire and patronage were often blurred.41 Over the course of the fifth century, the Athenians certainly created distinct financial accounts for these monies, like the Treasuries of Athena and other gods, imperial monies, and public (dēmosion) property managed by the kolakrētai, but in that case it is worth probing what was at stake in keeping such accounts separate.42

On what grounds were they distinguished, and why bother keeping the

accounts distinct in the first place? As Zelizer astutely points out, people tend to police the boundaries between distinct accounts at precisely those moments when allowing the accounts to blur would disrupt the meaning of the social relations they signify.43 As Athens’ relationship to her allies became increasingly hegemonic, then, Cimonian-style patronage grew out of place in the democracy. This discursive shift was reflected most vividly in the figure of the dōrodokos. Nearly two decades after Cimon’s trial, in 446 BCE his accuser Pericles had to explain at his own public audit what had happened to a considerable sum of public 41

For instance, Samons (2000: 54-70) notes how booty was often spent on public purposes, like soldier pay (Thuc. 6.31.3) or public works, as when the booty from Eurymedon was used to finance the rebuilding of the south wall of the Acropolis (Plut. Cim. 13.6), yet these same monies were also linked to Cimon’s private beneficence, like clearing the Academy and planting gardens (Plut. Cim. 13.7). 42 The Athenians’ practice of maintaining distinct accounts has been vigorously championed by Samons (2000: esp. 55) and Kallet (1998); we will return to this idea in the next section. 43 Zelizer (1994, 1996) and see above Chapter One.

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money.44 He replied that he had used it “for what was necessary.”45 As Plutarch relates, when Pericles had been faced with a hostile Spartan army at the borders of Attica, “what was necessary” in fact entailed bribing the Spartan King Plistoanax to retreat from Attic soil. Upon his return to Sparta, Plistoanax was subsequently fined so heavily that he had to go into exile (Plut. Per. 22.3). In a related anecdote, Pericles alternately resisted the Samian oligarchs’ attempts to bribe him—so Plutarch in the Life of Pericles (25.2)—or actually exacted an indemnity of 80 talents from them (cf. praca/menoj, DS 12.27.2). These stories are mirror opposites of each other, but both point to the blurred boundaries between ‘public’ and ‘private’ funds: in one Pericles personally directs the flow of public funds; in the other, he collects for himself (or not) what normally would have been public monies.46 For our purposes it matters little whether or not ‘bribes’ really were given in either case; what does matter is how the frame of bribery was employed to signal potentially problematic social relations.

So, if we understand that the Samians’

indemnity was ‘really’ a standard fine imposed by Athens, albeit collected by Pericles, the frame of dōrodokia highlights the potential danger in having an individual control the process of exaction.47 Likewise, even though the Plistoanax incident did not seem to cause any alarm at Athens, there were nevertheless troubling implications for Pericles’ 44

Ephorus FGrH 70 F 93, Plut. Per. 22.2-23.1, DS 13.106.10; cf. Thuc. 2.21.2, 5.16.3. The sum has been variously represented as 10 talents (Plut. Per. 23.1), 20 talents (schol. ad Ar. Nu. 859=Ephorus 70 FGrH F193), and 50 talents (Suida s.v. de/on). 45 ei)j to\ de/on, Plut. Per. 23.1; cf. Ar. Nu. 859, Suida s.v. de/on. Ephorus 70 FGrH F193 writes to\ e)ndee/j. 46 The middle praca/menoj clearly has this meaning: LSJ s.v. pra/ssw VI; cf. Hdt. 2.126, Thuc. 4.65, Ar. Ra. 561. At this time Athens, as a polis, was known to take hostages in order to guarantee compliance: e.g. IG i3 40.47-50=ML 52 (Chalcis and Eretria; 446/5) and Hesychius s.v. )Eretriko\j kata/logoj. But such actions clearly operated within the economy of empire; for an individual to exact these monies thus reflected a blurring of economies. It is most likely in reaction to such blurring, and in defense of Pericles, that stories of his not being bribed cropped up. 47 In fact, given the widespread rumor that Aspasia had convinced Pericles to take action against Samos (Plut. Per. 24.2, 25.1), Pericles’ motivations and role in the Samian War were already suspect.

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use of dōrodokia.48 In the first place, his bribe of Plistoanax does not seem to have been the only time he sent money to the Spartan leaders. Theophrastus records that every year Pericles “flattered” (qerapeu/wn) Spartan officials with ten talents in order to buy himself time (paraskeuasa/menoj, Plut. Per. 23.2), an image that directly recalls Cimon’s description of bribe-taking proxenoi “flattered” by the Ionians and Thessalians (qerapeu/wntai, Plut. Cim.14.4). If these payments were, in fact, regular payments among an inter-city network of elites, then the use of public funds to underwrite this network would have come into direct conflict with their significance as monies of empire. Telling in this respect is the precise way in which Thucydides praises Pericles’ incorruptibility. In two different passages, the historian describes Pericles as “stronger than money” (xrhma/twn krei/sswn, Thuc. 2.60.5) and “manifestly taking absolutely no gifts of money” (xrhma/twn te diafanw=j a)dwro/tatoj, Thuc. 2.65.8). Both phrases come from defenses of Pericles’ leadership over the dēmos, as opposed to the dēmos’ rule over Pericles.

As such, both serve as implicit justifications for why Pericles’ own

particular actions were legitimate even though they effectively transformed the democracy into a mere name covering up the reality of “rule by the first man” (u(po\ tou= prw/tou a)ndro\j a)rxh/, Thuc. 2.65.9).49 While claims of dōrodokia problematized the relationship between individual citizens and public monies, Thucydides’ praise of Pericles’ incorruptibility serves as a defense of that very relationship. All of these

48

Plut. Per. 23.1. Indeed, a character in Aristophanes later jokes about the scene (Ar. Nu. 858-9), but such a joke may only have highlighted just how much Pericles had gotten away with. 49 He was followed in this respect by Plutarch’s verbatim praise of Pericles’ incorruptibility: cf. a)dwrota/tou perifanw=j genome/nou kai\ xrhma/twn krei/ttonoj, Plut. Per. 15.3. Note how this differs markedly from Plutarch’s passing mention (catalogue?) of Aristides’ and Ephialtes’ incorruptibility: Plut. Cim. 10.8; similarly, Plut. Arist. 3.3 is not a justification for Aristides’ political role.

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anecdotes thus expose a dōrodokos actively—and problematically—controlling public monies.50 We can trace the roots of this problem back to the dēmos’ early efforts to control the distribution of political rewards. From at least the beginning of the democracy, the dēmos managed the assignment of public honors in return for services to the community: witness the misthos provided the generals of Eion in 476 BCE, or the dēmos’ refusal to honor Miltiades when he asked to be honored for military victory.51 The rewards of membership in the polity—specifically, public office and citizen benefits—were also symbolically controlled by the dēmos. While this idea is manifest in the dēmos’ direct election of stratēgoi, the use of the lot to select the vast majority of magistrates, itself heralded as a democratic institution, established the dēmos as apportioner of the honor of public office.52

This idea can be extended, too, to the dēmos’ opening up of the

50

Indeed, in Chapter Six we will examine how, when the Athenians developed procedures for holding officials accountable in the second half of the fifth century, they did so with an eye towards punishing, specifically, the dōrodokos who had mismanaged public monies. 51 Eion epigrams: Aeschin. 3.183-5, Plut. Cim. 7.4-6. The Herms are collectively called a misthos in the text cited at Aeschin. 3.183, Plut. Cim. 7.5. For discussion, see Blamire (1989: 112-14 ad Cim. 7.4-6). Plutarch Cim. 8.1 recounts how Miltiades was refused a crown when he asked for one; in Aeschines, Miltiades is said to have been refused the honor of having his name inscribed on the painting of the Battle of Marathon in the Stoa Poikile (Aeschin. 3.186). 52 Lot as a democratic institution: [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.3; Hdt. 3.80.6; Pl. Rep. 557a, 561a-b; Xen. Mem. 1.2.9; Isoc. 7.22-3, 12.153-4; Aristot. Pol. 1294b7, 1317b20, 1320b11. Hignett (1952: 321-6). In 487/6 selection by archons switched from election to selection by lot from a short-list (AP 22.5), on which see Badian (1971), Ober (1989: 76-7), Hansen (1990c), the latter of which provides extensive bibliography. At this time, selection by lot was also probably introduced for other magistrates and Councillors: Ober (1989: 76) and Hansen (1990) provide discussion. Ober (1989: 76-7) and recently Taylor (2007) have examined the sociological effects of the lot, but two aspects of its usage have gone hitherto unnoticed. First, as a randomized distribution mechanism, the lot was used to distribute egalitarian shares. Scholars commonly pick up on the ‘egalitarian’ piece of the puzzle—i.e. the lot prevented elites from monopolizing public office—but the ‘shares’ piece is just as crucial. In effect, honorary shares of the political pie—timai, on which see Ostwald (1995)—were distributed equally to those who were eligible, just as shares of sacrificial meat were often apportioned by lot: Detienne (1989:13) and, for the contiguities between civic equality and the apportionment of meat, Loraux (1981a: 620). Note, too, how the Gods were said to have divided up the cosmos and the regions of earth into various timai via a lottery: Hom. Il. 15.187-93, Pi. O. 7.54-68. This egalitarian distribution of political power very well may have underpinned the early democracy’s championing of isonomia: cf. Hdt. 3.80.6 with Vlastos (1953: 356-66) and Schmitt Pantell (1992: 45-52).

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archonship to the third census class of citizens, the zeugitai, in 457 BCE.53 Again, with Pericles’ citizenship law in 451/0 BCE, which restricted citizenship to those Athenians who had both an Athenian mother and father, the dēmos asserted its manifest authority to distribute shares of the franchise.54 By mid-century, then, the dēmos had firmly asserted its political authority to distribute and control domestic monies, including rewards, political office, and the privileges of citizenship. Note how none of these monies overlapped with the monies of patronage, and in fact the dēmos’ authority to distribute these monies was never contested. Yet in Pericles’ time—in competition with Pericles, as it turns out—the dēmos did begin to contest the blurred boundaries between the monies of patronage and those of empire, particularly elite expenditure on public buildings. Beginning with Pericles, in an effort to ensure that the lines between those two economies would be kept distinct, the dēmos actively differentiated between tribute monies and private outlays. The so-called Springhouse Decree, for example, records how Pericles and his sons offered to help finance expenses concerning the water supply, but were refused by the dēmos; tribute

The second, and crucial, overlooked aspect of the lot was that it established the dēmos as the authoritative leader distributing shares to citizens, much as a general might distribute booty to his soldiers: Hamel (1998: 44-8). The very act of awarding timē to another was a source and sign of political authority: see Hom. Il. 1.123-9, 2.226-8, 9.318-19 with Raaflaub and Wallace (2007: esp. 27-9) on the “people’s power” in Homeric Greece. While it is manifestly true that, at least after the institution of scrutiny (dokimasia) at the deme level, the dēmos in a sense ‘controlled’ the selection of magistrates, I wish to underscore that the allotment process, too, reified the dēmos’ authority to distribute the rewards (timai) of polity. 53 AP 26.2 with Raaflaub (2007: 115). 54 AP 26.4, Plut. Per. 37.3, Aelian VH 6.10. Patterson (1981: 104-7), Hansen (1991: 188) and Raaflaub (2007: 115) on the connection between Pericles’ citizenship law and the dēmos’ desire to control the qualifications for citizenship—and, by extension, the rewards accrued therefrom. For an overview, see Rhodes (1981: 333-4 ad AP 26.4), Patterson (1981: 97-104), Stadter (1989: 334-5 ad Per. 37.3). Certainly by the 420’s it was taken for granted that citizens, in particular, had the right to benefit materially from Athens’ imperial power: Ar. V. 655-64, AP 24.3; Samons (2000: 65).

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monies were used instead.55 As Plutarch records, rather than allow Pericles to put his name on the building (in return for funding it), the Athenians competed with him for the honor and spared no expense in the “liturgy” (xorhgei=n) they collectively performed.56 Individual expenditure on public works all but vanishes from our record after this time. In keeping distinct the monies of patronage and empire, the dēmos thereby underscored how problematic their overlap—represented, above, by the dōrodokos— could be. What, though, was so problematic about their overlap? We can perhaps find an answer in reversing the direction of an analogy Plutarch makes between liturgies and the dēmos’ outlay of imperial monies. If the dēmos’ outlay of imperial monies (public works symbolic of Athenian archē) was analogous to an elite patron’s benefactions to the city, then were not a patron’s benefactions steeped in the same symbolism as the monies of empire? So long as the boundaries between the two economies remained porous, so long as the same monies could be used to negotiate both economies simultaneously, Athens’ recent shift to empire could be refracted through the monies used to negotiate the relationship between an elite citizen and the community.57 Patrons of the community could fast become imperial masters of the dēmos. In fact, this exact discursive shift seems to have occurred, and we can track it, again, by looking at the dōrodokos. I suggest that, as Athens’ imperial archē became

55

IG i3 49.13-14 (430’s BCE); cf. Plut. Per. 14.1-2. For background and discussion, see Stadter (1989: 181-2 ad Per. 14.1), Kallet (1998: 48), Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 206-7). 56 Plut. Per. 14.1-2. Plutarch’s use of the language of liturgies—cf. pro\j th\n do/can a)ntifilotimou/menoi tw=n e1rgwn…xorh/gein—is telling. 57 Chapter Six traces another reason for why the blurring of these two economies could be so problematic: precisely because the dēmos was increasingly concerned to exact a certain amount of tribute each year, there were greater fears that individuals involved in tribute collection might somehow tamper with the funds. See, for example, IG i³ 34=ML 46.35-7, IG i3 71.36-7. By more clearly separating public monies from the economy of patronage, the dēmos could more readily regulate them. As a result, in the second half of the fifth century we first begin to find a greater separation between ‘public’ and ‘private’: Humphreys (1978b ).

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increasingly marked with the valence of political subordination, the Athenians sought to control not merely the resources but especially the relations of empire; as a result, the figure of the dōrodokos crystallized as a disobedient official. Our guide for this emergent conception of the dōrodokos will be Sophocles’ Antigone, performed some two decades after Cimon’s trial. In that play, the Theban king Creon paints a detailed picture of the dōrodokos, one that illuminates our understanding of Periclean politics in important ways. For Creon, the bribes taken by the dōrodokos were illegitimate precisely because they signaled a refusal to obey the king’s political authority. Rather than exchange good works for public honor, the dōrodokos disobeyed the king and pursued a wage of silver, a bribe, instead.

Crucially, therefore, Sophocles’ Antigone reveals how the monies

counterpoised with bribes signaled political obedience; indeed, the monies of dōrodokos and obedient citizen alike were used to think through the nature of political authority. Sophocles’ Antigone opens with an edict from Creon, the king of Thebes, who condemns one nephew, Polynices, while honoring the other, Eteocles, for their respective roles in the recent siege of Thebes (cf. Soph. An. 191-210).

Fundamentally, this

proclamation is underpinned by what amounts to a contested definition of the kinds of social relations that should be the source of legitimate authority within the polis. Whereas Creon conceives of philoi in civic terms as those who benefit the city, his niece Antigone, sister of both Polynices and Eteocles, privileges a definition of philia along familial lines. The entire play thus hinges on this disagreement, as Antigone ultimately chooses to privilege unwritten laws over Creon’s edict.58

58

The conflict between Antigone and Creon has been central to interpretations of the Antigone since Hegel. The terms of this conflict—individual liberty vs. the state, religious vs. secular order, private vs. public, human vs. divine, man vs. woman—are by now well-worn in the scholarship and perhaps distort the ways

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For Creon, those like Eteocles who are his—and the city’s—philoi receive honor (timē) accordingly; by implication, people like Antigone are not well-disposed to the polis and should never be honored by the polis or its ruler. Timē is awarded to philoi, not the kakoi who bring harm to the city (Soph. An. 207-10). Crucially, if philoi receive timē, kakoi are aligned with bribe monies:

for Creon, the two sets of monies are thus

counterpoised and used to mark distinct sets of political relations.

What we will

investigate here, then, is the valence of those political relations; in essence, we seek to uncover what is distinctive about the relations negotiated and ultimately signified by timē and bribe monies. In his first speech Creon submits his policy for how to make the city great: by holding no friend dearer than his polis and maintaining a friendship with no enemy of the city, Creon hopes to ensure smooth sailing for the ship of state (Soph. An. 182-7). Essentially, the king establishes himself as a philos of the polis, and his philoi are precisely those people who are the philoi of the polis, as well.59 It is in this context of relations among one’s philoi that Creon denounces those responsible for breaking the law in attempting to bury Polynices’ body: h2 tou\j kakou\j timw=ntaj ei)sora|=j qeou/j; ou1k e1stin. a)lla\ tau=ta kai\ pa/lai po/lewj a1ndrej mo/lij fe/rontej e)rro/qoun e)moi, krufh|= ka/ra sei/ontej, ou)d’ u(po\ zugw|= lo/fon dikai/wj ei]xon, w(j ste/rgein e)me/. e)k tw=nde tou/touj e)cepi/stamai kalw=j parhgme/nouj misqoi=sin ei)rga/sqai ta/de.

290

in which an Athenian would have understood the play: Ostwald (1986: 148-61), Sourvinou-Inwood (1989). 59 Though this definition of philoi is contested by Antigone, who champions a kin-based understanding of philoi, Creon’s definition seems to have been standard within Athens. Nearly one century later, his words were still being performed and heralded as a model for good citizenship: cf. Dem. 19.247. That said, Segal (1964: 52) rightly underscores that Creon’s worldview is wholly civic in nature, as everything is refracted through a political lens for the king. On philoi and philia in the Antigone, see Goldhill (1986: 88106), Blundell (1991: 106-48), Konstan (1996: 82-5, 89-91).

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ou)de\n ga\r a)nqrw/poisin oi[on a1rguroj kako\n no/mism’ e1blaste. tou=to kai\ po/leij porqei=, to/d’ a1ndraj e)cani/sthsin do/mwn: to/d’ e)kdida/skei kai\ paralla/ssei fre/naj xrhsta\j pro\j ai)sxra\ pra/gmat’ i1stasqai brotw=n: panourgi/aj d’ e1deicen a)nqrw/poij e1xein kai\ panto\j e1rgou dusse/beian ei)de/nai. o3soi de\ misqarnou=ntej h1nusan ta/de, xro/nw| pot’ e)ce/pracan w(j dou=nai di/khn. a)ll’ ei1per i1sxei Zeu\j e1t’ e)c e)mou= se/baj…

295

…ma/qhq’ o3ti ou)k e)c a3pantoj dei= to\ kerdai/nein filei=n.

311

Do you see the gods honoring evil men? No. But long since men in the city who find it hard to bear me have been murmuring against me, unwilling to keep their necks beneath the yoke, as justice demands, so as to put up with me. I know well that these people have been bribed by those men to do this thing. There is no institution so ruinous for men as money; money sacks cities, money drives men from their homes! Money by its teaching perverts men’s good minds so that they take to evil actions! Money has shown men how to practice villainy, and taught them impiousness in every action! But those who to earn their fee have contrived to do this thing have ensured that in time they will pay the penalty.

300

304

290

295

300

304

...learn that 311 you must not grow used to making money out of everything. (Soph. An. 288-304, 311-12. trans. Lloyd-Jones)

Recalling his earlier pronouncement that philoi, not kakoi, would be honored by the polis, Creon here asks how the gods could bestow honor upon kakoi like Polynices, who have done nothing but destroy their temples and break the laws of the land (Soph. An. 284-8). In this respect, Creon prefaces his rant on dōrodokia by emphasizing how timē marks the presence of a reciprocal relationship between philoi. If the gods were to have honored Polynices, the king remarks, they would have been doing so just as if he were a euergetēs (Soph. An. 284), that is, as someone explicitly rewarded—like Cimon and his ilk—for the good services (erga) he provided the polis. 105

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Creon delegitimizes the dōrodokos by problematizing the monies used to negotiate his relations with others. While timē marks a relationship between philoi, silver or money marks relations among kakoi like the dōrodokos, at least from Creon’s perspective.60 After all, silver money is that “bad institution” (kakon nomisma) that has arisen among men (Soph. An. 295-6). Creon is certain that a misthos or ‘wage’ of silver caused someone to bury Polynices (Soph. An. 293-4), but his language is telling, for he envisions a misthos of silver as the reward for a heinous ergon like Polynices’ burial (cf. ei)rga/sqai, Soph. An. 294), just as timē had been the reward for the good deeds of a euergetēs only a few lines prior. In effect, money replaces the timē doled out by king and polis alike, as Creon sets up two different reciprocal relationships, one negotiated by good works and civic honor (timē), the other by a misthos and dōrodokia.61 For Creon, silver money is more than a medium transacted by the dōrodokos; it is a conceptual frame for understanding their relations. There are, then, major problems with this substitution of money for timē in exchange relationships. First, as the ‘wrong’ medium, silver itself symbolizes the corruption of proper relations between citizen and king. The king warns, “money by its teaching perverts men’s good minds so that they take to evil actions” (Soph. An. 298-9). It is important here that Creon does not presume that the crime was perpetrated by people who were already kakoi; instead, he infers that kakoi

led

astray

perfectly

good

citizens

to

join

their

ranks

(e)k

tw=nde

tou/touj…/parhgme/nouj, Soph. An. 293-4). It is in this sense that the money is thought 60

For a fuller treatment of Creon’s views on money, see Seaford (1998: 131-8). It should be noted, however, that whereas I assume that Creon’s silver functions as a money, Seaford must argue that it specifically constitutes general all-purpose money, in the modern use of the term. The difference stems from my adoption of a relational view of economics, on which see Chapter One above. 61 Creon’s use of misthos here only underscores this point. Insofar as a misthos is a payment—in cash or kind—from a superior to an inferior, it is directly analogous to the hierarchy posited when king or polis bestows honors upon a citizen. Recall that the Eion epigrams, in honor of soldiers who died in battle, were also called a misthos (Plut. Cim. 7.4).

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to have corrupted the relationship. When the newly minted dōrodokos citizen substitutes silver for timē, then, he privileges an altogether different economy of value—one symbolized by silver, not timē—and hence a different way of valuing relations in the polis. This image of the dōrodokos recalls Cimon’s warnings about short-circuiting the polis’ economy of empire, and the same picture emerges again about two-thirds of the way into the tragedy, when Creon accuses the prophet Tiresias of being bribed to side with Antigone.62 Again we find the substitution of bribe monies for an economy of public honor: Tiresias’ own divine wisdom made him a benefactor and leader within the city, yet his association with bribery quickly turns this economy of honor into one of base profit.63 As a result, whereas Tiresias’ good counsel, that “most powerful of possessions” (kra/tiston kthma/twn, Soph. An. 1050), previously reified the king’s own power, the seer’s purported bribe-taking inverts the power dynamic of their relationship. Rather than have control over the possessions symbolic of his archē, the king himself becomes a possession bought and sold by his enemies (cf. Soph. An. 1036). In this way, the monies used to negotiate relations among philoi and kakoi are themselves metaphors for those relations—witness the misthos for Polynices’ burial and Tiresias’ commercial cargo—yet each moves past symbolizing mere archē. Indeed, in both cases, the monies signal domination and physical control, as well.64 Creon’s second

62

See especially Soph. An. 1035-43, 1055, 1061, 1063; cf. 1077. The prophet’s wisdom is said to have made him a hēgemōn within the city (Soph. An. 993-4, 1058), one who provided a great “benefit” to the community (o)nh/sima, Soph. An. 995). Once Creon thinks that Tiresias has taken bribes, however, he employs commercial imagery to characterize his relationship with the seer. He claims to have been “bought and sold for a long time” by prophets like Tiresias (e)chmpo/lhmai ka)mpefo/rtismai pa/lai, Soph. An. 1036). Cf. the king’s use of kerdos (“gain”): Soph. An. 1047, 1061 and the similar accusation at Soph. OT 124-6. 64 Hence, Creon grounds his debate with Tiresias in terms of which laws, those of the gods or of the polis, can compel obedience. When he finally does obey (cf. pei/somai, Soph. An. 1099), he submits himself to 63

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major problem with the dōrodokos’ substitution of misthos for euergetism, then, is that the dōrodokos works only for his paymaster and no longer provides good work— obedience—to the city. The king is explicit on this point, describing the bribe-givers as those “unwilling to keep their necks beneath the yoke, as justice demands” (ou)d’ u(po\ zugw|= lo/fon dikai\wj ei]xon, Soph. An. 291-2). Even if we temper Creon’s vision of the proper relationship between rulers and citizens, the king’s model of politics as a reciprocal give-and-take—receiving honor in return for the good works of obedience— accords well with the idea of civic obligations at Athens developed in the previous chapter.65 Those who accept bribes in contravention of the king’s laws cease to submit themselves to the yoke of the king’s authority.

In effect, they fail to provide the

obedience and goodwill required of all citizens. This is a significant accusation. Throughout the Antigone, Creon focuses on the reverence owed to his political authority and, consequently, the control he should have over others. In his opening speech, he turns to the chorus, those stalwart citizens, and notes their continued reverence, or sebas, for the seat of his political power (tou=to me\n ta\ Lai+/ou/se/ se/bontaj ei)dw\j eu] qro/nwn a)ei\ kra/th, Soph. An. 166). The moment that the attempted burial of Polynices is reported, however, Creon expresses alarm at the illreverence, or dusse/beia, now in the polis as a result of the kakon nomisma that is money

the authority not of his own nomoi but to the established laws of the gods (cf. tou\j kaqestw=taj no/mouj, Soph. An. 1113). As a result, Tiresias’ claim that he will ‘teach’ the king and that the king will ‘obey’ (e)gw\ dida/cw, kai\ su\ tw|= ma/ntei piqou=, Soph. An. 992) should be read as all the more politically charged: cf. Seaford (1998: 133-4). 65 See Chapter One above.

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(Soph. An. 300-1). From that point on, Creon’s authority risks not being duly respected, and he accordingly asserts it at every turn.66 Throughout the tragedy sebas and its cognates are contested terms—should citizens reverence the authority of the king, or that of the gods?—but it is important for our purposes that Creon views this sebas through the lens of power and, explicitly, control.67 When Creon claims that the money at the heart of a bribe ‘reteaches’ men, the verb ekdidaskein thus locates bribery at the heart of the tragedy’s fundamental concern with ‘teaching’ citizen and king alike how to obey.68 Bribe monies signal not just disrespect for the king’s archē but especially disobedience. For the corruptive power of bribe monies to ‘reteach’ citizens is identical to that of anarchia, or lawlessness. Bribe monies are thought to sack cities and to drive men from their homes (tou= tou=to kai\ po/leij porqei=, to/d’ a1ndraj e)cani/sthsin do/mwn, Soph. An. 296-7), just as anarchia destroys cities and overturns homes (au3 au3th po/leij o1llusin, h3d’ a)nasta/touj oi1kouj ti/qhsin, Soph. An. 673-4). The dōrodokos was a citizen whose disobedience threatened the social order. For Creon, the monies taken by the dōrodokos replace euergesia with disobedience. And so in Sophocles’ play our picture of the dōrodokos takes on new meaning: concern over controlling the rewards of empire gives way to anxieties over absolute political power, i.e. the ability to compel action.

66

This shift in the dōrodokos

Cf. Soph. An. 165-9, 199-201, 280-314, 508-25, 661-78, 730, 744, 780. Segal (1994: 49-51) is particularly helpful in illuminating the relationship between sebas and political control in these passages. 67 Note how frequently he frames his struggle with Antigone in gendered terms as his being mastered by a woman: Soph. An. 484, 525, 678, 746, 756. Segal (1964: 52-4) especially illuminates how Creon’s entire worldview is shot through with intonations of weaker vs. stronger, domination vs. obedience. 68 So the chorus sums up at the end of the play, “The great words of boasters make atonement with great blows, and in their old age teach them wisdom,” (Soph. An. 1350-3). The final word of the tragedy is “teach” (e)di/dacan, Soph. An. 1353), a word that recalls the Ode on Man’s heralding of mankind’s ability to teach himself (e)dida/cato, Soph. An. 356) how to be master over nature.

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tracks an identical movement towards conceptualizing authority as the legitimate power to compel action (kratos). This focus on kratos was reflected in Athens’ transition to empire, examined above, and with Ephialtes’ reforms in 462/1 BCE infused domestic politics as well.

Though much of the substance of these reforms remains murky, it

seems clear that they transferred to the Assembly and Council the ability to hold public officials accountable at a euthyna and perhaps at an eisangelia, as well.69 They thereby reinforced the idea that officials should be obedient to the dēmos—one reason why these reforms have been convincingly tied to the contemporary emergence of dēmokratia as a buzzword in political discourse.70 Tellingly, such focus on the dēmos’ kratos paralleled a discursive shift in the word nomos, which at this time increasingly connoted a prescriptive rule or law that compels action.71 With Ephialtes’ reforms, then, the dēmos asserted its political authority within the courts, in effect extending its control over more than just the domestic management of imperial resources. With these reforms, the dēmos had full control over the very agents who managed imperial monies.72 And control those political agents it did. In at least two instances during the Peloponnesian War in the last few decades of the fifth century, stratēgoi were formally charged, or feared being charged, for dōrodokia, and the dēmos was acutely concerned to

69

Humphreys (1983: 242-7), Ostwald (1986: 70-3), Ober (1989: 77-8), Hansen (1991: 36-7), Raaflaub (2007). Ephialtes’ reforms are discussed at length in Chapter Seven below. 70 Raaflaub (2007) collects the sources on dēmokratia and argues persuasively for their connection to Ephialtes’ reforms. 71 For the development of nomos in the fifth century, see Ostwald (1986: 89-136). Ephialtes’ association with bringing nomos to the people is attested in Anaximenes, who records that the leader moved Solon’s laws from the Acropolis into the public spaces of the Agora and Boule (72 FGrH F 13). This highly political act presented the laws themselves as a possession belonging to the people at the precise moment when the dēmos was using law to claim possession over imperial monies and public officials, alike. 72 The subsequent development of the euthyna process, examined in Chapter Six, strongly suggests that the Athenians were most concerned about holding accountable, specifically, those magistrates who handled imperial monies.

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control the disobedient dōrodokoi.73 First, in 424 BCE the stratēgoi Pythodorus and Sophocles were sentenced to exile, while their colleague Eurymedon was fined, because they had all purportedly been bribed to withdraw from Sicily according to the terms of a pact with the Sicilian king Hermocrates (Thuc. 4.65.2-3; Philochorus FGrH 328 F127). In his account of these events, Thucydides ascribes the trial to the arrogance of the dēmos, which he claims expected to succeed militarily even in the most adverse circumstances (Thuc. 4.65.4). And again, on the disastrous Sicilian expedition in 413 BCE the stratēgos Nicias counseled against withdrawing from Sicily, in part out of the fear that upon his return to Athens the soldiers would accuse him of withdrawing because he had taken dōra (Thuc. 7.48.4; cf. Thuc. 3.98.5). As Thucydides suggests, the dēmos controlled its generals; for them to have acted without explicit approval from the dēmos would have been an unjust arrogation of authority, a sure sign of disobedience.74 To recap the argument so far, just as Athens assumed first economic control over allied possessions and then political and economic control over the allies themselves, the Athenian dēmos asserted its control over monies within the polis and then over people within the polis. As a result, political monies that had operated simultaneously within the economies of empire and patronage gradually took on the valence of political control and subordination. This new meaning was particularly problematic within the space of domestic politics because it signaled a subordination of the dēmos to an individual

73

Stratēgoi were responsible for everything, good and bad, that happened on their expedition: Din. 1.74; Pritchett (1974: 74). Even an autokratōr general like Nicias, one who had been given complete authority to do as he pleased, could suffer tremendous penalties if he did not do certain things: cf. IG i² 98/99=ML 78. 74 Explicit when the dēmos blames its stratēgoi for the terms reached at the surrender of Potidaea (Thuc. 2.70.4); cf. [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.17. Reading dōrodokia through the lens of obedience in Thucydides follows straightforwardly from the historians’ trope of the inversion of leaders and led, a motif closely connected to the insubordination of troops in the field: Rood (1998: 28-31, 142-5). Crucially, for Thucydides the analogy between a stratēgos’ command of his troops and the dēmos’ control of stratēgoi was clear.

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While elite citizens might still acquire political authority through their

contributions to the polis, the means by which they acquired this authority needed to be kept distinct from monies of empire so imbued with the valence of kratos. New modes of politics arose, as the next section will trace, but the legitimacy of these modes was constantly contested. In what should be by now a familiar move, the terms of this debate focused on the dōrodokos, as the Athenians used him to think through what legitimate politics really looked like.

The New Politicians as dōrodokoi: In the previous section we saw how, around the time of Pericles, the dēmos began to compete with elites for the authority to be the patron of the dēmos. This idea was considered briefly in conjunction with public buildings and the Springhouse Decree, but it seems to underlie two other shifts that occurred in the second half of the fifth century. First, there was a proliferation of political monies: cleruchies, colonies, and pay for various groups of people, including soldiers, jurors, artisans and laborers, public officials and many, many others. These monies have rightly been understood as ways for the dēmos to enjoy a share of the empire, and doubtless, too, they at least fostered greater participation in the democracy, as scholars frequently emphasize.75 But these monies also played a crucial role, as we will see, in legitimating the dēmos’ position as patron of the community.

These monies helped forge a ‘new politics’:

like patronage, only

redistributing the dēmos’ own money back to itself.76 As this section will trace, these two

75

Rhodes (1981: 339-40 ad AP27.4), Markle (1985), Ostwald (1986: 182), Ober (1989: 143), Stadter (1989: 117 ad Per. 9.3). 76 Connor (1971) is essential on this shift. See also Ostwald (1986: 175-91), Whitehead (1986: 305-10), Schmitt Pantel (1992: 179-208).

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political innovations were interrelated, and the figure of the dōrodokos intimately shaped their development. Army pay, naval pay, pay for public magistrates and jurors—all of these misthoi were ways that Athens’ empire fed her citizens, according to Aristotle (AP 24.1). Indeed, the provision of both naval and military pay—attested by the start of the Peloponnesian War—came directly from tribute funds, and providing food (trophē) for the soldiers was the explicit purpose for those funds.77

We can also add to this list cleruchies and

colonies, which were likewise possessions of the dēmos, as well as direct and indirect sources of food.78 Similarly, to the extent that the Periclean building program on top of the Acropolis was funded, at least in part, by the Hellēnotamiai, pay for the workers on those building projects seems to have come directly from the empire.79 What caused this proliferation of monies? Common to all of them was that they came from the dēmos’ purse—whether directly from the public treasury or indirectly through the dēmos’ ‘ownership’ of imperial resources—and that they explicitly ‘fed’ the dēmos, just as Cimon and others had previously done.80 In other words, this proliferation of monies represented the dēmos’ attempt to lay claim to the economy of patronage. As

77

Both existed by the start of Peloponnesian War: AP 27.2, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.13 with Pritchett (1971: 714). Plutarch attributes pay for both the fleet (Plut. Per. 11.4) and the army (Plut. Per. 12.5) to Pericles, but see AP 24.1. On the use of tribute funds to provide trophē for Athenian troops, see Pritchett (1971: 40-1). 78 See AP 24.3 with AE 255-72. Cleruchies and colonies were commonly populated by poor Athenian citizens and, in this respect, provided a livelihood for those citizens (cf. Plut. Per. 11.6). Yet cleruchies like those in the Thracian Chersonese (Plut. Per. 11.5, DS 11.88.3) were often strategic acquisitions that would then be leveraged to feed the citizens back at Athens: Brunt (1966). 79 Plut. Per. 12.4-5 and IG i3 439, but see Kallet (1994: 49-50) for doubt on taking our sources at face value. My argument would actually be stronger if the Periclean building programme was not funded mainly by imperial monies: that would mean that, for both public works and public pay, the dēmos actively, though fictively, conceptualized them as if they were monies of patronage. 80 AP calls them, explicitly, trophē (AP 24.1, 24.3), which is precisely what Cimon provided his demesmen (cf. diatrofh/n, Plut. Cim. 10.1). At AP 24.1-3 the shift to providing trophē for Athens’ citizens is directly tied to Athens’ ascendancy as hegemon over the League, and it is tempting to follow Aristotle on this conceptual correlation. As the proliferation of political monies in the 450’s and 440’s suggests, as Athens grew more imperial, the dēmos also grew more patronal towards itself.

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with the Springhouse Decree, I suggest, we can imagine that the dēmos actively competed with elites for the authority to control these monies. We can see this story play out in the development of misthophoria, or pay for public officials and jurors. Typically, these monies are understood as necessary steps to enable mass participation in the ‘radical’ democracy following Ephialtes’ reforms: by paying citizens for serving in public office or on a jury, the dēmos ensured that even the poorest citizens could participate in politics and, hence, the democracy could truly achieve ‘rule of the people’.81 Doubtless this was one potential result of misthophoria— though it is impossible for us to assess either way whether or not the poorest citizens actually participated more often as a result—but we should be wary about positing this as the motivation behind the reforms. After all, it is striking that no source mentions such a motivation; in fact, all of our sources suggest that misthophoria was established as a way for the masses to profit from empire.82 Yet it is surprising to find even this motivation posited by ancient testimonia, since pay for both public office and jury duty was funded not by the hellēnotamiai, who were in charge of the tribute, but by the kōlakretai, who administered Athens’ public treasury (to dēmosion).83 When the Athenians set up the funds for misthophoria, in other words, they consciously did not treat those funds as similar to the monies used to pay the army and the fleet. Why, then, was jury pay ever associated with empire?

81

See Rhodes (1981: 339-40 ad AP27.4), Markle (1985), Ostwald (1986: 182), Ober (1989: 143), Stadter (1989: 117 ad Per. 9.3), Hansen (1991: 188). Cf. Sinclair (1988: 71). 82 AP 24.1, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.16. Cf. Ar. V. 655-64. Samons (2000: 65). 83 Samons (2000: 57-9) on the kōlakretai. On the meaningful distinction between imperial and domestic funds, see Kallet-Marx (1994: 246-7), Kallet (1998: 47), and Samons (2000: esp. 55). Note how, after the public treasury was combined with the Treasury of Athena in 411, jurors were paid by the Treasurers of Athena: IG ii2 1629.213-17.

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I propose that the reason jury pay and pay for public officials were consistently associated with ‘feeding’ the dēmos from imperial monies was that they represented selfconscious ways in which the dēmos was replicating—or, to be more precise, competing against—Cimon-style patronage.

Certainly thinking of these monies as providing,

explicitly, food for the dēmos would have resonated strongly with the way Cimon had invited his demesmen to dinner. So, too, would the source of the funds: the kōlakretai, or “collectors of limbs” or “hams” (kw=la),” who probably date back to Solon (AP 7.3) and whose name suggests a connection to the collection of honorary shares of meat at a sacrifice.84

Later dispensing public monies for a range of purposes, the kōlakretai

frequently provided monies associated with public honors, just like the kw=la they presumably once collected.85 Moreover, that the payment was called a misthos need not have connoted a commercial “wage,” but readily could have evoked the honorary misthos awarded the victorious generals at Eion (cf. Aeschin. 3.183): that is, it may have signaled, especially, a money from a superior (the dēmos) to a citizen, just like Cimon’s handouts to his demesemen.86

If we liken misthophoria to the monies of patronage, which

themselves were derived from the monies of empire, it makes sense that even misthophoria, though paid for from domestic funds, was nevertheless linked to the monies of empire.

84

As Samons (2000: 55) notes, jury pay and pay for magistrates are absent from the epigraphic record dealing with reserves from the sacred treasury. By contrast, sources explicitly attest that the kōlakretai doled out the payments: Ar. V. 695, 724, schol. Ar. Av. 1541, Hesychius s.v. kwlakre/tai. Cf. Kallet (1998: 47) and Samons (2000: 57). On the connection between the kōlakretai and the collection of sacrificial meat, see Samons (2000: 57), Harding (2001: 93-4). 85 On the associations of civic honors and kw=la qua honorary portions of meat, see especially Tsoukala (2009). In the inscriptional record, we find the kōlakretai dispensing funds for the erection of stelai (IG i3 11.13-14, 71.25-26, 165.10), paying various religious officials (priestess of Athena Nike, IG i3 36.10; those making a theōria to Delphi, Androtion FGrH 324 F 36), and providing meals in the prytaneion (Androtion FGrH 324 F 36). 86 On this definition of misthos, see especially von Reden (1995a: 89-92).

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Instead of asking why the Athenians instituted public pay, therefore, if we ask why public pay took the specific form that it took, it seems clear that the Athenians were conceptualizing misthophoria through the lens of patronage politics: the collective dēmos, not an individual citizen, served as patron to the masses. We find indirect corroboration for this idea in a second set of descriptions of public pay, which frame it as a money used to negotiate patronage politics, albeit between an elitie citizen and the community. Aristotle, followed by Plutarch, is explicit on this point: in providing jury pay,87 other kinds of public pay,88 and theoric pay,89 Pericles “demagogued” in opposition to Cimon’s patronage.90 Alternatively, it is reported that Pericles instituted these public monies in order to compete against the political authority of Thucydides, son of Melesias (Plut. Per. 11.4). We do not know Plutarch’s source for that latter political rivalry; in any case, what is important here is that, when they were not associated with Athens’ empire, these measures were viewed as tokens in a political competition to secure support from the dēmos. Our sources paint a consistent picture of Pericles’ taking the initiative to create a new mode of politics, one in which he redistributed the dēmos’ own funds to itself, but

87

Jury pay: AP 27.2-5, 62.2; Aristot. Pol. 2.1274a9. Cf. [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.16. We do not know the original amount of jury pay, but Cleon is said to have increased it from 2 obols to 3 obols per day: schol. ad Ar. V. 88, 300. 88 It is unclear what Plutarch means here by a1llaij misqoforai=j, or “other kinds of provision of misthos” (Plut. Per. 9.3), but elsewhere pay for the navy (Plut. Per. 11.4), pay for the navy (Plut. Per. 12.5), as well as pay for artisans and laborers working on the Acropolis building programme (Plut. Per. 12.5-6) are attributed to Pericles. Potentially pay for public officials is included here too, on which see Ar. Ach. 65-7, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.3, IG i3 82.17-21. See Stadter (1989: 117-18 ad Per. 9.3) for further discussion. 89 It is difficult to determine what exactly is meant by qewrikoi=j, “theoric” payments (Plut. Per. 9.3). Probably these payments had nothing to do with the Theoric Fund which Eubulus managed in the midfourth century: Ruschenbusch (1979). What, then, would they have covered? Stadter (1989: 116 ad Per. 9.3) makes a compelling case that Plutarch is following a tradition found in Ulpian (ad Dem. 1.1=Dindorff 33) that Pericles designated that leftover public funds should be devoted to public festivals (theōroi), as a way of pleasing the dēmos. Ulpian’s note, however, might simply be a garbled misreading of Pericles’ famed generosity in putting on festivals and theatrical performances: cf. Thuc. 2.38.1, [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.9. 90 a)ntidhmagwgw=n pro\j th\n Ki/mwnoj eu)pori/an, AP 27.3; katadhmagwgou=menoj, Plut. Per. 9.3.

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such a narrative was in fact contested in Pericles’ day.91

Chapter Two Note how, if we follow

Plutarch’s narrative here, Pericles’ innovation is actually shot through with overtones of political subordination of the dēmos.92 This would not have sat well with all Athenians. In fact, some of Pericles’ contemporaries referred to his measures and others’ as bribes. Plutarch himself says that with public pay Pericles was able to “bribe” the masses (sundeka/saj to\ plh=qoj, Plut. Per. 9.3; cf. Plut. Per. 34.2), and Aristophanes also insinuates that public pay was a bribe from politicians to obtain favorable jury treatment (Aristoph. V. 669-79; Pax 632-3, 644-8; Eq. 801-9; cf. fr. 100).93 As in the previous section, where we saw that Pericles’ problematic control over public monies was reflected in public accusations of dōrodokia, again accusations of dōrodokia crop up as Athenians tried to police the borders of legitimate politics. Crucially, the dōrodokos was again configured as a disobedient citizen, someone who had somehow inverted the vertical relations between community and citizen. In Aristophanes’ Wasps and Knights, for example, Cleon is lambasted for corrupting the dēmos by bribing it with jury pay.94 This is a problem not just because the dēmos is corrupted—although the Wasps’ satire of jurors who pursue money over just judgment is

91

Administering the dēmos’ own funds: th\n tw=n dhmosi/wn dianomh/n, Plut. Per. 9.3; cf. dido/nai toi=j polloi=j ta\ au(tw=n, AP 27.4. 92 In currying their favor by instituting misthophoria, he was said to “relax the reins” of his rule somewhat (ta\j h(ni/aj a)nei/j, Plut. Per. 11.4), a metaphor that parallels both Creon’s own inability to control Antigone (Soph. An. esp. 473-7) and contemporary discussion about Ephialtes’ problematic role in the democracy (Plut. Per. 7.6). Similarly, Plutarch frames Pericles’ use of political monies—specifically, cleruchies and misthoi, or wages—as the means by which he acquired such exceptional authority within the polis (Plut. Per. 9.1). 93 In this light, note Aristotle’s clunky transitions from Pericles’ provision of public pay to the issue of judicial bribery (to\ deka/zein), which he claims first arose at this time (AP 27.4-5). Because it was Anytus, not Pericles, who first made judicial bribery public, this line reads almost like a non sequitur unless we supply a missing conceptual link between Pericles’ public payments and ‘bribery’ of jurors. 94 Ar. V. 669-79, Eq. 801-9. In both plays, Cleon is frequently accused of both giving and receiving bribes: Ar. V. 960-1, 669-79; Eq. 402-3, 453-9, 994-6, 1080-3. Cf. Nu. 591 and, for similar accusations, Ar. Eq. 103, 258, 707, 824-7. See also Ar. Ach. 5-8 with scholiast (=Theopompus FGrH 115 F 94) with discussion in Olson (2004: ad loc) and Carawan (1990).

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troubling even without the overtones of bribery.

Chapter Two

Cleon’s corruption is particularly

problematic because it enables him to escape accountability.95 Accordingly, his bribegiving enables him to invert his relationship with the dēmos so that he, not the dēmos, becomes master.96 Just as Pericles’ control over public monies was called into question by accusations of dōrodokia, here too it is assumed that public speakers illegitimately control, and disproportionately benefit from, the allies’ imperial monies (esp. Ar. V. 66079). All of the monies found in the ways corrupt politicians negotiate politics are thus cast as the bribes. Hence, that we find Cleon’s misthophoria recast as bribe monies strongly suggests that a number of Athenians thought that Cleon’s relationship to the dēmos, like Pericles’—specifically, his influence on the distribution of public funds—was inherently problematic. I am suggesting that, as with the Springhouse Decree and public works, with misthophoria and other political monies created around mid-century the dēmos selfconsciously strove to be its own patron.

It identified a money of Cimonian-style

patronage—feeding the public—and refashioned it in democratic form, in effect blocking elite citizens from playing that role using the old monies of patronage. Nevertheless, elites like Pericles and Cleon, who previously would have derived political authority from the politics of patronage, instead tried to appropriate for themselves the dēmos’ new monies; in this way, they forged a new kind of politics.97 Even if the picture I am

95

esp. Ar. Eq. 801-9; cf. V. 669-79, 960-1. This point is explored at length in McGlew (2002: 86-111), which focuses on Aristophanes’ Knights and Cleon’s desire to control the dēmos. See also Wohl (2002) and Scholtz (2004) on the politics of domination latent in conceptualizing politicians as erastai. 97 So in Aristophanes we find explicit comparisons between the contributions of new politicians and oldstyle patrons of the dēmos. In the Knights, for instance, the Sausage-seller uses metaphors of food consumption to compare his deeds to Themistocles: Ar. Eq. 810-19 with Anderson (1989: 15-16), Marr (1996). As Davidson (1993: 57-62) explores, the comparison, and implicit contrast, with past public officials signal how unjust the New Politicians’ patron-like redistributions were thought to be. 96

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sketching must remain mere suggestion, as the relationship between mass and elite shifted in the second half of the fifth century, it is clear that the terrain on which they battled for political authority focused on the proliferation of legitimate political monies— like misthophoria, army and naval pay, or cleruchies—and on their purported corruption, as represented by bribe monies.98 To invoke the dōrodokos, as Pericles’ and Cleon’s critics certainly did, was to contest the implicit meaning of the relationships structured by those monies: it was to contest their claim to be patron of the dēmos. Such contestation of the legitimacy of political payments—or, more properly, the legitimacy of monies used to negotiate political relations—attended a major shift towards a new style of politics, as practiced by Cleon and his successors.

The old-style,

patronage-like model of politics practiced by Cimon, Themistocles or Aristides was replaced by redistribution of the dēmos’ own money, and we have already examined in this context how misthophoria was re-read as bribe monies. Yet the New Politicians were considered dōrodokoi also for the way they purportedly took bribes to speak in public.99 As we will see, this last image of the dōrodokos, too, was used to contest the legitimacy of the New Politics. The New Politicians represented both a significant improvement for, and a new potential danger to, the democracy. On the one hand, their use of rhetoric explicitly to 98

In addition to employing the dōrodokos discursively to delegitimize some monies, the dēmos may have used the law to legitimate other monies. Probably between the 450’s and 430’s, the Athenians imposed limits on escaping liturgical service and created the antidosis procedure, which helped prevent elites from shirking their liturgical duties: Gabrielsen (1986), Christ (1990) on antidosis and, on liturgies more generally, Davies (1981: 98-9), Sinclair (1988: 188-90), Christ (2006: 143-204), Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: passim). These legal changes have rightly been connected to the rise of the people’s power—so Christ (2006: 158-61)—but another motivation for their enactment could have been to signal and enforce through law which kinds of elite contributions to the community were legitimate. Indeed, codifying legitimate political monies in law could have simultaneously broadcast an authoritative list of legitimate contributions to the polis and, importantly, signaled the dēmos’ control over determining that list in the first place. 99 See, for example, Ar. Eq. 930-4, 1196-8; V. 100-2, 240-1, 906-8; Th. 936-7.

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win over the masses fostered more ‘democratic’ politics: attention to and inclusion of the interests of more citizens, and consequently policies aimed at the benefit of the masses as a whole, instead of a smaller subsection of it. In effect, this meant that any citizen who had an idea would have a greater chance of having it proposed by a politician (and thereby hopefully approved) than he would have earlier in the democracy. On the other hand, this meant that any citizen who had an idea would have a greater chance of having it proposed by a politician. When all it takes is a persuasive public speaker to have a motion approved, there is potentially less quality control on the kinds of issues brought up for public discussion or, worse, the kinds of proposals successfully voted on. Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, this new, potentially more democratic political technology brought with it concomitant concerns that the democracy had become an ochlocracy or a polity ruled by the fickle masses.100 This outline should be familiar, but what I would like to pose here is the question of how this shift actually came about. How exactly did Cleon and others manage to forge this new style of politics? Cleon’s most distinctive difference from his predecessors was that he repudiated his circle of friends and proclaimed himself to be friend—‘lover’ as Aristophanes would call it—of the dēmos as a whole.101 While no subsequent politician would follow suit in rejecting his own philoi, after Cleon most of them did try to court the people’s favor, as Aristophanes famously parodies in the Knights. Like Cleon, however, these politicians were consistently open to the accusation that they were peddling their 100

Ober (1998: 72-121) thoroughly discusses the criticisms that emerged in the late-fifth and early-fourth centuries. 101 Ar. Eq. 732-4, 1340-4 with Connor (1971: 96-104). See also Thuc. 3.36.6, 4.27.5-28.5, 4.21.3; AP 28.3; Plut. Nicias 8.3; Theopompus FGrH 115 F 92. As Creon’s own civic-oriented conception of philia might suggest, the conceit that a politician was a ‘polis-lover’ was common in this period—e.g. Thuc. 2.60.5 (Pericles); Thuc. 6.92.2, 4 (Alcibiades); cf. Thuc. 2.43.1, Ar. Lys. 541-8—and was symptomatic of this broader realignment of civic values: Connor (1971: 103-5), Raaflaub (1994: 129-30). For Cleon’s relationship with his friends, see especially Connor (1971: 91-4).

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political services—in short, trafficking in decrees, laws, honors, and policies.102 Cause and effect are somewhat muddled here—did Cleon first befriend the dēmos and then begin to profit from it, or was it the other way around?—but the difference is crucial. In the first instance, we are led to believe that Cleon was corrupted by power gained from his newly acquired mass support; in the second, Cleon’s corrupt activity was constituted by his courting of the masses. There are good reasons for thinking that the latter occurred, that is, that Cleon’s new practice of politics was inherently considered corrupt and that, in fact, it was plied through money.103 First, we should note that political alliances do not spring up ex nihilo; some kind of reciprocal relation is needed in order to leverage political support. For the old-school public speakers, this relation readily appeared in the form of philia; for Cleon, who had renounced his friendships, at first there would have been no such basis for establishing and organizing mass support. Cleon required an ersatz philia, some kind of relational glue to enable him to open up political access to a broader swath of the public. I suggest that this glue entailed what his opponents called dōrodokia; because Cleon’s politicking forged new patterns of social ties within the practice of politics, the monies used to negotiate those ties were deemed illegitimate by opponents. Accordingly, Cleon was called a dōrodokos.

102

Note how insults of the New Politicians typically came in the form of epithets signaling the politician’s associations with trade, i.e. that he was profiting from his politicking. Cf. Cleon the tanner (e.g. Eq. 44, Nu. 581), Hyperbolus the lamp-maker (Eq. 1316, Nu. 1065, Pax 690), Cephalus the potter (Ec. 248-53), Aristoxenus the needle-seller (Pl. 175 with scholiast), and the catalogue of politicians at Knights 129-45 with Sommerstein (1981: 150-1 ad loc.). This became a common motif in Comedy: Jackson (1919) collects the evidence, while Connor (1971: 152-8) helpfully points out the potential class tensions inherent in calling someone a ‘peddler’ or ‘manufacturer’. 103 That rhētores received a misthos was later taken for granted: Ar. Plut. 377-9, 567-70; Pl. Phdr. 257c-d; Aeschin. 2.180, 3.173; Dem. 19.246; Hyp. 3.3, 4.28. Cf. APF 518-19.

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Let us reframe the issue of access from the perspective of a relatively poor Athenian who, in the Cimonian system of patronage, would have lacked the philoi needed to pass a proposal on his own in the Assembly. One way to overcome such social distance would have been to create and leverage a similar relational tie through money: by simply paying a public speaker to make a proposal, a citizen could potentially tap into that speaker’s network of philoi or, better yet, his clout with the Assembly. Whereas this kind of practice would have been antithetical to the aims of the old style of politics— because it gave political authority to someone other than a local patron—and understandably would have been viewed as the corruption of the friendships that were the foundation of that system, for Cleon and the New Politicians money for political services would have been less problematic. Indeed, it naturally would have bonded politician and citizen into the desired kind of reciprocal relationship, albeit one between two otherwise complete strangers. Note how the accusation of dōrodokia here does double-duty both as a descriptive claim, as we have traced, and as a conceptual lens for understanding Cleon’s actions. Precisely because Cleon’s political support came from the masses, not his philoi, the content of his ties to his supporters would have been arms-length: the same kind of tie frequently found in commercial markets. In this sense, that a commercial misthos was used to characterize how Cleon’s relationship was negotiated only signaled how, from the perspective of old-style politicians, Cleon’s political friends were closer to commercial transactors than actual social relations like philoi. Yet the illegitimacy of these relations was also signaled by the accusation of dōrodokia itself; it was precisely by delegitimizing

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the currency of the relationship (the bribe monies) that critics of the New Politicians leveled their attacks. On this view, we should perhaps flip our picture of the New Politicians on its head and assign the real innovation not to Cleon but to the political entrepreneurs who tried to overcome the inaccessibility of the old system of politics by paying public speakers to make a motion on their behalf—that is, to the masses who stopped subordinating themselves to patrons and began subordinating patrons to themselves by giving them a misthos. I suggest that Cleon was simply the first-mover, the first public speaker to accept the bribes of non-philoi and thereby allow them a kind of political access usually granted to one’s philoi. For this reason, he was thought to have renounced his friends among the elite; and it makes sense that he did so, too, for his purported dōrodokia enabled him to secure broader support with the masses. The bribe itself served as the initial basis for a reciprocal relationship between public speaker and citizen. Over time, that relationship was only reinforced at both an individual level (when individuals continued to pay Cleon for his services) and a more general level (when Cleon exchanged favorable public policies for broad-based support). To modern ears, Cleon probably comes across as a corrupt crook at worst or a political opportunist at best, but it should be noted that the style of politics he began on the dēmos’ initiative became the standard for generations to come. In other words, what initially were considered ‘bribes’ later became perfectly licit ‘payments’, a shift that makes sense if we assign the political innovation here to the dēmos.104 Far from being a

104

This is a somewhat controversial claim given how often our sources rail against the payments received by rhētores: e.g. Hyp. 5.25 (Demosthenes received 60 talents for his decrees and for proposing his trierarchic law); Dem. 18.312 (Aeschines received 2 talents to oppose Demosthenes’ trierarchic law), Plut. Mor. 848B (Demosthenes received 5 talents for not saying anything). The veracity of these claims is

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self-interested opportunist, in fact, he might genuinely have thought himself ‘champion of the people’ (or the two could be one and the same).105 After all, in renouncing his old friendships, he reportedly criticized the corruption that could result from conducting politics through selective social and political channels. Philia, Plutarch has him claim, “often softened one’s thinking and led one astray from right and just policy in politics.”106 Following Plutarch, we might imagine that Cleon, like his paymasters, was himself trying to improve a corrupt system. Whether this testimony is apocryphal or not, we cannot be certain, but it does make sense if we adopt the perspective of those Athenians for whom political subordination to a patron was no longer necessary and no longer desired. This chapter has examined the figure of the dōrodokos in the fifth century: a disobedient character whose presence signaled problems in the distribution of monies in Athens’ public economies of empire and patronage. By the end of the century, the dōrodokos was not simply a disobedient citizen, but one who had inverted the vertical relations between citizen and community; in this respect, he was opposed completely to “people’s power.” As the Peloponnesian War drew to a close, such opposition to the democracy crystallized in the form of two different oligarchic coups, at which point the figure of the dōrodokos became inextricably linked with oligarchy. Along with civil war,

impossible to assess—despite the best efforts of Wankel (1982): cf. Harvey (1985) and Hansen (1991: 274-6; cf. 1980). Given the extraordinary sums cited, these instances most likely represent problematic exceptions, that is, instances when a rhētor’s fee was blamed for his bad performance, rather than strong indications that payments themselves were banned. In fact, the very point of Hyperides’ testimony is that these kinds of payments were allowed so long as they did not result in harm to the dēmos. 105 Prostatēs tou dēmou: Ar. Eq. 1128, Ra. 569; cf. V. 419, Pax 684, Pl. 920; Thuc. 8.89.4. Connor (1971: 110-15). 106 w(j polla_ th~j o)rqh~j kai\ dikai/aj proaire/sewj mala&ssousan e0n th|~ politei/a| kai\ para&gousan, Plut. Mor. 806F.

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therefore, oligarchy brought with it a new conception of the dōrodokos; and it is to this newly conceived figure that the next chapter turns.

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Chapter Three

In the Shadow of the Thirty: Dōrodokia in the Generation after the Peloponnesian War 403-378 BCE

When Plato’s Socrates sets up his ideal city in the Republic, he explicitly bans its citizens from becoming bribe-takers and money-lovers (dwrodo/kouj…filoxrhma/touj Pl. Rep. 390d6); the dōrodokos was not allowed in Callipolis. As a result, Socrates argues, the city should ban all poetry that praises or describes dōrodokia, including lines from Hesiod, parts of the Iliad in which Achilles accepts bribes, and even certain stories about the gods, like the hero Asclepius who according to tradition took bribes to bring a man back to life (Rep. 3.390d-e, 3.408b-c). Socrates fears that the moral education of the citizens of Callipolis might suffer if such poor exempla were held before them. Indeed, the philosopher goes so far as to say that they should deny that Achilles was ever so greedy (filoxrh/maton) as to take bribes from Agamemnon or Priam (Pl. Rep. 3.390e68). As Socrates later explains about Asclepius, if someone is the son of a god, they should insist that he is not venal or greedy (ai)sxrokerdh/j), and if he is greedy, they should insist that he is not the son of a god (Pl. Rep. 3.408c1-3). The two are simply incompatible social types. For Plato, not only was the dōrodokos a distinct social type in its own right, but that type was, specifically, money-loving just like an Achilles or an Asclepius, a corrupt character born of economic excess. Elsewhere in the Republic Plato identifies the causes

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of this character corruption (diafqei/rei) as wealth and poverty (Pl. Rep. 4.421d1-4).1 He consequently devotes considerable attention in the dialogue to how to separate the guardians from wealth, poverty, and commerce lest they be corrupted by the taint of money.2 In many respects, the dōrodokos of the Republic is strikingly familiar to a modern audience used to pictures of venal politicians who seek rents out of a desire for money or power. Although Monoson (2000: 127) astutely points out that the Republic’s policy recommendations—essentially separating the public and private spheres completely so that they can never mix—mark a considerable departure from democratic policy reforms, like the institution of accountability or rotation of office, it should be noted that Plato’s vision of a complete separation of private and public actually represents the logical, though radical, extension of contemporary anti-corruption reforms. The philosopher comes off as one of the first advocates of completely removing the market from politics. But if in Plato’s dōrodokos we can detect the seed of modern depictions of venal politicians, it is striking just how far removed the greedy, money-loving dōrodokos of the Republic is from the disobedient figure we encountered in the previous chapter. Certainly, when Creon asserts that money perverts men’s minds so that they take to evil actions (Soph. An. 297-301), we can detect some affinity to Plato’s sentiment. Yet for Creon, as we saw, money serves as an explanation for only a single incident; he may lambaste the power of money to achieve discrete aims, but nowhere does he suggest that 1

Along the same lines, elsewhere in Plato wealth is contrasted with virtue (aretē): cf. Pl. Rep. 421d, 591d, Leg.742e, 705b, 893c, 836a, 919b; Arist. Pol.1273a37-38. 2 Pl. Leg. 9.875a-e similarly posits that self-interest can corrupt even the most just of characters; cf. Pl. Leg. 3.691c-d, 4.713c-d, 9.875a. This point comes out most forcefully in Socrates’ discussion of the Hesiodic races and their corruption over time (Pl. Rep. 8.547a-b, cf. 4.415a-b). There, the mixing of like and unlike metals—the races of gold, silver, bronze, and iron—constitutes a form of political degeneracy that leads to subsequent degradations in political constitution as individuals and society are increasingly ruled by desires, not reason (Pl. Rep. 8.547a-53e). See Irwin (1995: 281-97) and Balot (2001: 246-7).

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the guard was inherently the type of person, the kind of character who was prone to take gifts. Indeed, the question of character or character types is largely absent from Creon’s discussion of bribery, and this marks a crucial difference between Plato’s and Sophocles’ presentation of the dōrodokos.3 Plato’s distinct correlation of money and character types signals a broader shift in how the dōrodokos was conceptualized at Athens in the first few decades of the fourth century. Long before Plato, it had been thought that wealth or poverty could corrupt one’s character: greed was certainly a well-defined concept before the fourth century.4 What changed around Plato’s time, however, was that wealth and poverty came to be heavily correlated with dōrodokia, as well. Dorodokia was conceived primarily as a kind of financial crime, the dōrodokos a character who had violated economically defined obligations. Again, to a modern audience this particular conceptualization of bribery may seem self-evident, but it emerged at Athens for very particular reasons. This chapter will uncover those reasons, examining what changed from the late fifth to the early fourth centuries, and then detail the period’s resultant picture of the dōrodokos. After sketching the political anti-type of the Thirty that pervaded Athenian political ideology in the decades after their bloody regime, we will examine how the dōrodokos was closely mapped onto this anti-type in two court cases dealing with dōrodokia (Lysias 28 and 29). The final section, focusing on Aristophanes’ Wealth and a

3

The distance between Sophocles and Plato is emblematic of the fundamental shift in politics brought on by Pericles and his successors. Recall that, through provision of jury pay and misthophoria for magistrates Pericles was similarly thought to have ‘bribed’ the dēmos (e.g. sundeka/saj, Plut. Per. 23.5). Plato later says that Pericles actively made the Athenians “money-loving” (filargu/rouj, Plat. Gorg. 515e), but already in Aristophanes we find reflection of whether Pericles improved or corrupted the dēmos. It was only in discussions of the shift to the New Politics, however, that issues of character corruption arose. 4 Balot (2001: 58-98) on greed (pleonexia) in the archaic period. On the relationship between wealth and civic character, Solon’s poetry provides particularly relevant comparanda for this chapter: see Sol. fr. 4.56, 6.3-4, 13.11-13W.

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defense speech on the charge of dōrodokia (Lysias 21), will illuminate why this conceptual convergence took place.

As will be clear, primarily

because of the

Athenians’ political and economic efforts to get along as a democracy after the horrors of oligarchy, the dōrodokos became a thief of sorts, someone who sought actively to harm the dēmos.5

The Thirty as Anti-type at Athens: That an Athenian like Plato might view the dōrodokos through an economic lens ostensibly reflected the dire financial situation Athens faced at the beginning of the fourth century.6 Sparta’s occupation of the Attic countryside during the last decade of the Peloponnesian War had ravaged much of the land, including olive trees, grain, vines, and livestock and had consequently disrupted agricultural production and patterns of rural land tenure.7

Sparta’s threatening position effectively shut down production at the

Laureion silver mines, as well.8 Moreover, a drop in commercial production and the loss of virtually all of Athens’ overseas possessions, not to mention the immense annual

5

It should be noted at the outset that the great majority of examples and evidence discussed in this chapter come from the 390’s and 380’s. Historical sources for the 370’s in Athens are notoriously scarce, while sources on dōrodokia in the 360’s are few and far between: Timagoras (367 BCE) was discussed in the Introduction; and our only other attested trial of dōrodokia, that of either Callistratus or Philon (361/0 BCE), receives only a passing reference in Hyperides and Lycurgus (Hyp. 4.1-2; Lyc. 1.93; cf. Dem 50.48). We simply do not have enough evidence for these two decades to make anything more than a tentative claim about how Athenians conceptualized bribery at this time. The limited extent to which we can discuss how the Second Athenian League (379/8-355 BCE) may have affected conceptions of bribery and politics is discussed below. 6 For general historical overviews to this time period, see Seager (1967), Funke (1980), David (1986), Strauss (1986), French (1991). On Athens’ economic conditions after the Peloponnesian War, see Andreyev (1974), Strauss (1986: 42-69), Ober (1985: 14-31), Burke (1990), French (1991). Politics in the post-war period: Cloché (1919, 1923), Sealey (1956), Bruce (1966), Seager (1967), Funke (1980: 1-26, 102-67), Krentz (1982), Strauss (1986: 11-41, 89-178). 7 Thuc. 7.27.3-4, Lys. 7.6, Aeschin. 2.147, 175. Andreyev (1974: 6-7, 18-25), Ober (1985: 113-14), Burke (1990: 3-4), French (1991: 24-7). Cf. Hanson (1983: 131-73). 8 Thuc. 6.91.7, 7.191.1, 7.27.5. Ober (1985: 14), Strauss (1986: 46), French (1991: 33).

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tribute paid by the allies, had taken its toll on the Athenian treasury.9 The result, as contemporary literary sources dramatically illustrate, was that Athenians were acutely aware that they did not have as much money as they used to.10 While having less money surely might incline an Athenian to focus more intently on financial recovery, it is less clear how economic losses would by themselves shift how he thought about dōrodokia, economic obligations, public office and the like. Such a broad cultural shift suggests that the important factor here was the social meaning of the monies lost: how they had been lost, who had lost them, what they had signified and what, by contrast, their absence now signaled. Only by grasping this social meaning can we make sense of the fact that, elsewhere in the Republic, Plato groups dōrodokia together with crimes like theft, burglary, temple robbery, and blackmail (Pl. Rep. 9.575bc), in other words, with outright stealing. Such crimes were financial (and sometimes violent) in nature, but for Plato they shared one additional feature: they were all also the crimes of a tyrant, a man of most evil character (cf. to\n ka/kiston, Pl. Rep. 576b3). The dōrodokos thus acquired distinct political significance, as well—he was a thief just like a tyrant—and tracing how this particular meaning came to be assigned to him requires that we examine not just Athens’ economic circumstances, but also her changed political and social environment in the early fourth century. Plato’s association of dōrodokia with tyrants was not by chance, for the image of a tyrant evoked the memory of oligarchs, specifically the oligarchic Thirty who had 9

Strauss (1986: 48-52), Burke (1990), French (1991: 31). To take but a single anecdote, in 399 BCE Athens had difficulty paying back a mere two talents to Boeotia (Lys. 30.22). Cf. Hell. Oxy. 17.4, Lys. 19.11, Ar. Pl. and Ec. passim. See Ober (1985: 17-19) and especially David (1984) on Aristophanes, Fuks (1972, 1977) on Isocrates and Plato, respectively. Although Athens was able to recover somewhat with the Second Athenian League in the 370’s and 360’s, this state of affairs continued at least through the end of the Social War in 355: in his Poroi, or Ways and Means (355 BCE), Xenophon remarks how contemporary politicians still blamed poverty for Athens’ imperialistic needs (Xen. Por. 1.1). 10

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briefly ruled Athens in 404/3 during the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War.11 This proSpartan junta initially oversaw the re-drafting of Athens’ laws, including a return to the ancestral laws (patrioi nomoi), which did not include Ephialtes’ contentious, if prodemocratic, reforms in the mid-fifth century.12 Yet their rule quickly turned violent and exclusionary: sykophants and other scoundrels (ponēroi) were executed, as were certain metics, and the franchise was limited to 3,000 citizens.13 The oligarchs later confiscated property and used the Council of 500 as a court to purge the city whether by exiling or killing their enemies.14 Civil war soon erupted between the exiled Athenians and those still in the city, led by the Thirty. After the exiles’ victory at Phyle, the Thirty were deposed, but a Spartan force defeated the exiled Athenians at the Piraeus, and the Spartan leader Pausanias effected a reconciliation between the opposing Athenian camps. When the democracy was reinstated, all citizens swore an oath of amnesty: with the exception

11

To be fair, the image of the tyrant was central to Athenian political ideology throughout the democracy, as detailed by Rosivach (1988), the essays in Morgan (2003), and Ober (2005: 212-48). I emphasize here two important points. First, Ober rightly argues that anxieties over the threat of tyrannical oligarchs were particularly pronounced towards the end of the fifth century; cf. Osborne (2003). Just after the restoration of the democracy in 410, for example, Demophantus passed an anti-tryanny decree which was sworn by all citizens and which explicitly rewarded to anyone killed in attempting to kill a tyrant the rewards given to the tyrant-slayers Harmodius and Aristogeiton (Andoc. 1.96-8). Likewise, Gallia (2004: 458 n.36) sees further parallels between the early tyrant-slayers and the murderers of Phrynichus, one of the oligarchic leaders in 411/0. Second, as will be argued in this chapter, the rule of the Thirty in particular marked a watershed moment in the history of Athenian political ideology. Beginning in 403, Athenian democratic ideology came to define the democracy in opposition not to tyranny more generally, but to the oligarchy of the Thirty, in particular. For reasons that will become apparent, it was in conjunction with this shift that the dōrodokos came to be associated with tyrant-like (greedy, harm-dealing) oligarchs. 12 Xen. Hell. 2.3.11-12, Diod. 14.3.7-14.4.2, AP 35.1-2. Note how Critias is referred to as a nomothetēs at Xen. Mem. 1.2.31. Rhodes (1981: 440-5 ad AP 35.2), Krentz (1982: 49-50), Ostwald (1986: 477-8). 13 Execution of sykophants: Xen. Hell. 2.3.13-14, Lys. 25.19, AP 35.3, Diod. 14.4.2; cf. Lys. 12.5. Metics: Xen. Hell. 2.3.21. Franchise: Xen. Hell. 2.3.18, AP 36.2. For discussion of the Thirty’s political measures, see especially Rhodes (1981: 415-55 ad AP 34-37), Krentz (1982), Ostwald (1986: 475-90). 14 Prosecutions to confiscate property are mentioned in Lys. 19.4, 27.1, 30.22. Further executions: Xen. Hell. 2.3.21, 2.4.21; Isoc. 7.67, 20.11; Aeschin. 3.235; AP 35.4, 37.2; Diod. 14.2.1, 14.4.4, 14.5.5; in the Apology Socrates recounts how he disobeyed an order from the Thirty to arrest Leon of Salamis (Pl. Ap. 32c4-e1). Ostensibly, the bulk of these measures could have been enacted at least under the auspices of purging the city of unjust men (cf. Lys. 12.5, Xen. Hell. 2.3.18, AP 36.2), but contemporary observers were not always favorable to the Thirty’s actions.

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of a few select magistrates, nobody could be punished thereafter for any crime committed during the Thirty’s reign and the ensuing civil war.15 The ‘amnesia’ sworn by the Athenians was a means of communally forgetting the horrors committed during the Thirty’s reign; and in other respects, too, the Athenians tried to forget or undo the period of oligarchy under the Thirty.16 But, as Plato’s Republic obliquely evinces, the oligarchs’ legacy lived on. Decades later speakers in court still brought up their opponents’ involvement in the events of 404/3 as important evidence that they thought should have continuing relevance.17 Members of the cavalry, which had actively cooperated with the Thirty, were resented.18 Likewise, the good or bad of someone’s actions was often measured against the Thirty’s example. So, in a prosecution speech at a dōrodokia trial, one speaker frames his opponent’s bribery in terms of the Thirty’s heinous actions.19 We might say that in the decades after the Peloponnesian War, political behavior was reconfigured in the shadow of the Thirty, as the oligarchs became an anti-type against which public officials were measured.20

15

The amnesty applied to all Athenians except the Thirty, their successors the Ten, the Ten supervisors of the Piraeus, and the Eleven; any of these latter would have been covered by the amnesty had they submitted their official accounts, but few likely did so (AP 39.6). Carawan (2002) says that the amnesty only applied to those who were atimoi at the time, but see the cogent reply by Joyce (2008) who reinstates the orthodox view that the amnesty was about general political forgiveness. See further Loraux (1997), Wolpert (2001), Ober (2005: 171-82). 16 Demosthenes records that all court decisions from the Thirty’s reign were deemed invalid (Dem. 24.56), and in 402/1 the properties confiscated by the Thirty were sold by the poletai if not to their original owners (many of whom had been excecuted), then often to their owners’ neighbors: SEG 16.120-1, 32.161; 38.149, 41.100=Athenian Agora XIX part 2; see also Walbank (1982) for text and discussion. Xen. Hell. 2.4.38 also notes the return of possessions to their owners after the peace. 17 See, for example, the accusations found passim in Lysias 16, 25, fr. 9 (Eryximachus); Lys. 31.12-14 condemns the Athenian Philon simply for not actively opposing the Thirty. 18 Cf. Lys. 16.8, 26.10. On the cavalry’s involvement in the Thirty’s reign, see Bugh (1988: 120-53), Krentz (1982: 116-17), and Németh (2006: 86-90). 19 Lys. 28.14, discussed in greater detail below; cf. Lys. 25.30. 20 Similarly, in 411/0 less than a decade earlier, the oligarchy of the Four Hundred had set a precedent for a number of the Thirty’s measures, including vitiating the power of the jury courts (Thuc. 8.67, AP 29.4) as well as exiling, imprisoning and executing citizens (Thuc. 8.70.2; cf. Andoc. 2.13). Again, though, the Thirty in particular became a powerful anti-type in democratic politics in the early fourth century, and it was the latter oligarchy, not the former, that was continually evoked in public discourse. For this reason I

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What was this anti-type exemplified by the Thirty? As Ryan Balot perceptively details, critics of the Thirty consistently condemned the oligarchs’ lawlessness and greed, in effect likening them to omnivorous tyrants.21 In the first place, the Thirty became sole masters of the polity, just like tyrants, and were later castigated for using political institutions in harmful, unjust, and undemocratic ways. They replaced the Council with 500 partisan members, and, in later limiting the franchise to 3,000, not only arrogated the dēmos’ authority to determine who should become a citizen, but effectively transformed the Assembly into a partisan body, as well. The effectiveness of the courts was vitiated: public accountability, granted under Ephialtes’ reforms, was removed, and the Thirty began executing citizens by circumventing the courts and holding trials in the Council of 500. After the franchise was limited, this circumvention became moot, for a law was passed allowing the oligarchs to execute without trial anybody who was not one of the 3,000.

Thus, although the Thirty began favorably by prosecuting sykophants,

embezzlers, and bribe-takers—reportedly much to the people’s delight—their impulse to use political organs to strengthen their position quickly devolved into a bloody perversion of democratic institutions.22 Plato is sure to point out that the lawlessness of the tyrant stemmed from his incessant, unyielding desire (erōs): in other words, precisely the same cause as his greed and dōrodokia (Pl. Rep. 9.574e2-575a5). Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, source after focus more on Athenian narratives of the dōrodokos ‘in the shadow of the Thirty’, not ‘in the shadow of oligarchy’. 21 Balot (2001: esp. 220-2) on the Thirty; the comparison to tyrants appears already in Xen. Hell. 2.3.16. Balot (2001: 234-48) provides a particularly compelling reading of Plato’s Republic within the context of contemporary Athenian conceptions of greed. I follow his analysis in juxtaposing the Thirty with Plato’s Republic, though ultimately I am more interested in Plato’s depiction of the dōrodokos (qua a greedy official). 22 Council: AP 35.1. Ephialtes’ reforms and the courts: AP 35.2. Jury courts: AP 35.2 with Bonner (1926: 213-15). Execution without trial: Xen. Hell. 2.3.14, 17, 21; AP 37.1. Favorable response from dēmos: AP 35.3; cf. Xen. Hell. 2.3.12, Lys. 12.5, 25.19.

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source posits that the Thirty committed these injustices in order to gain money and satisfy their greed. Lysias, for example, reasons that the Thirty may have done a number of things in the name of bettering the constitution, but in fact they simply wanted money, and he was not alone in his estimation.23 Yet an equally damning reason for these sources’ focus on money might stem from the use to which some of that money was put: namely, to pay the Spartan guard that the Thirty had hired to support and protect the oligarchy. Xenophon explicitly makes this connection, and it is tempting to follow him on this point.24 After all, the Spartan guard had reportedly been instrumental in arresting Athenians before their execution, disarming those who were not part of the 3,000, and compelling the 3,000 to condemn the Eleusinians so that the Thirty could seize their property.25

On this view, just as much as

injustice was a means to acquiring more money, money was a means to injustice—indeed a very symbol of that injustice. Whether in taking from the polis or in harming the polis for their own profit, the Thirty’s desire for money entailed engaging in negative reciprocity, providing bads for goods to the Athenian people. In pointing to the Thirty’s purported greed, therefore, contemporary sources called attention to just how problematic the oligarchs’ relationship to the rest of the city really was: they essentially only ‘took’ from the city, providing 23

Lys. 12.6-7; cf. Xen. Hell. 2.3.16, 21, 43. See further Balot (2001: 220-2) and Lys. 12.5, 12.6, 12.11, 12.83, 12.93, 25.18; Xen. Hell. 2.3.21-2, cf. 2.4.40-2; AP 35.4; Diod. 14.4.4-5, 5.5-7. On the greed and financial crimes of the Thirty, see also Dillery (1995: 139-63), Németh (2006: 159-66). 24 On the hiring of the Spartan guard under Callibius, see Xen. Hell. 2.3.13, Diod. 14.4.3-4; cf. AP 37.2. Xenophon reports that the guard had been hired out of the Thirty’s own pocket; yet, given the elite but by no means super-wealthy status of the Thirty—on which see now Németh (2006: 159-66)—it is unclear how exactly this cost would be paid for. Xen. Hell. 2.3.21 states that the oligarchs confiscated additional property and executed metics and former citizens alike explicitly in order to pay for the guard; Lys. 12.6 probably alludes to this same reason. 25 Ostwald (1986: 488-90) points out the potential difficulties in following Xenophon’s chronology here and in positing that the Spartan garrison was requested early in the Thirty’s rule; I nevertheless follow Xenophon because Lysias 12.6 seems to refer to the same sequence of events. Arrests: Xen. Hell. 2.3.14. Disarming: Xen. Hell. 2.3.20. Eleusinians: Xen. Hell. 2.4.9-10, Diod. 14.32.4.

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nothing or, at worst, only bads in return for the goods (monetary and otherwise) they had received. We will return to this point later, but for now it is worth mentioning that this focus on ‘taking’ effectively redefined the civic friendship between oligarch and community. Rather than having a relationship predicated on reciprocal exchange, as under the democracy, the rulers of the oligarchy only took, never gave, and often actively harmed. As ‘enemies’ of the city (e.g. e1xqra pro\j th\n po/lin, Lys. 12.2), they were perceived to be already outside the moral community of the polis, that is, outside of any reciprocal exchange relationship with that community.

The oligarchs’ problematic

relationship to money, therefore, was symptomatic of their problematic relationship to polity, as well. So the metic Lysias brings out the injustice of this ‘exchange’ relationship when he describes his own treatment at the hands of the Thirty. “We were not worthy of this treatment by the polis,” he laments, “but had produced all our dramatic choruses and paid numerous taxes” (Lys. 12.20). By weighing his own payment of liturgies and taxes against the actions of the oligarchs—extortion, property confiscation, theft, and the murder of Lysias’ brother (Lys. 12.8-19)—the orator underscores how he had given, while they only took or, worse, gave him but the death of his brother in return. Civic reciprocity was nowhere to be found. The context of Lysias’ description helps illuminate another, slightly different shade of meaning. The orator infers that the Thirty were rounding up metics at the time in order to pay for their own government (Lys. 12.6; cf. Xen. Hell. 2.3.21). As noted above, the property stolen by the oligarchs was thus symbolic of the power they were unjustly exercising for themselves. Lysias makes this point, too, in describing a bribe he

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gave the oligarch Peison (Lys. 12.8-11). Peison swears an oath that he would rescue Lysias from death were he to receive one talent of silver, which Lysias duly provides even though he suspects that Peison was untrustworthy. Not only does Peison break his oath, but he takes far more than just the promised talent.

His dōrodokia thereby

constitutes an act of greed, an unjust transgression in its own right and a symbol for the unjust power that Lysias’ money would be used to support. So the oligarchs profited from the city’s misfortunes, and their profiting caused the city added misfortune. As Balot outlines, the dominant image of greed at this time was of an aristocrat plundering the dēmos’ possessions—providing bads to the community—and it is in this light that we find the Thirty’s actions linked closely to a social type or kind of character.26 Oligarchs in particular were thought prone to covet and steal the property of others, although it is unclear whether they were so stereotyped because of the Thirty or the Thirty were so stereotyped because they were oligarchs.27 In any case, their shameful profiting (ai)sxroke/rdeia) was thought to be an inherent part of their character (tro/pou, Lys. 12.19), and here again we are reminded of Plato’s character sketches of tyrant and dōrodokos alike. This emphasis on financial crimes, on ‘taking’ from the city rather than providing it with a good return, is characteristic of stories about all sorts of ‘bad’ politicians in the

26

Balot (2001: 179-233) illuminates the concept of greed in the late fifth and early fourth centuries, and his analysis provides a helpful foundation for our investigation of how this newly defined social category was implicated in broader discursive practices. Hence, as will be clear below, one of the central questions this chapter attempts to answer is why the Athenians described greed at this time using such highly monetized language as they did, and why, more importantly, it was greed and not some other motive that was posited for politicians’ misdeeds during this period. 27 E.g. Lys. 25.17, 34.5; cf. Lys. 25.25-26. Certainly these stereotypes existed before the Thirty and were used to describe the oligarchs of 411/0, on which see Balot (2001: 212-19); but I am inclined to think that the generic figure of the oligarch further crystallized after the Thirty in direct response to their actions: see further below.

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first few decades after the Peloponnesian War.28 What I would like to suggest is that such a specific focus on negative reciprocity, on providing bads for goods, was born of the Thirty’s horrific regime.29 Indeed, the Thirty’s negative exemplum helps explain why the injustices of politicians might readily be linked with theft or financial appropriations: both stealing from and actively harming the city were ways of giving bads when goods would normally be expected. The stereotypical crimes of a tyrant, according to Plato, are all crimes of ‘taking’ precisely because tyrants are unable to honor the reciprocity inherent in friendships; no faith can be placed in the tyrannical man.30

Here, too,

financial ‘taking’ stands as metaphor and manifestation of the tyrant’s unjust relationship to the polity.

The dōrodokos and the Thirty in Lysias 28 and 29: Thus far we have seen how in contemporary sources the Thirty’s financial motives and political injustices were inextricably linked, both on a conceptual level as forms of negative reciprocity and on a practical level as the pursuit of money was both cause and consequence of unjust rule.

I have suggested, moreover, that this close

interrelationship between money and injustice was symptomatic of a generic type exemplified by the Thirty and characteristic of a range of ‘bad’ politicians during the first

28

Extrapolating from our admittedly spotty evidence, perhaps more than in any other period politicians at this time were accused of crimes involving the mismanagement and expropriation of money: Cf. Strauss (1985: esp. 70-1), Dillon (1987: 165-6). Embezzlement: Lys. 27.19; Pamphilus (Xen. Hell. 5.1.2, 5; Ar. Pl. 174 with schol.; Plato com. fr. 14K); Epicrates (Lys. 27); Epicrates and Onomasas (Lys. 27.3); Nicomachus (Lys. 30.26); Alcibiades (Lys. 14.37-8); Archedemus (Lys. 14.25). Malicious prosecution (sykophancy): Lys. 20.7, 20.15, 20.19, 25.26, 25.30. 29 Cf. Xen. Hell. 2.4.21 and Rosenbloom (2002: 336-7), who posits that the atrocities of the Thirty created a new conception of violence that ‘private profit’ could cause to the polis. This chapter aims to outline the effects of this paradigm shift on the different, yet ultimately related, concept of dōrodokia and to examine in detail the conceptual development that occurred in the generation after the Thirty. 30 Pl. Rep. 9.576a4-8. Note, too, the destruction a tyrant wrecks upon his parents (Pl. Rep. 9.574a5-c4).

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few decades of the fourth century. The dōrodokos, as we have seen, was an example of this broader generic type modeled off of the Thirty’s negative exemplum. At this point, I would like to examine this generic figure in action by turning to two prosecution speeches that deal heavily with dōrodokia. There the character of the dōrodokos is explicitly framed in reference to the Thirty’s actions; as a result, it incorporates this association of money with political injustice. Specifically, the conceit of profiting ‘at the polis’ expense’—in its twin meanings of stealing from the polis and actively causing it harm—recurs throughout the orations. After seeing that the dōrodokos was modeled off of the Thirty, we will investigate further reasons why this was the case. In 390/89 Thrasybulus of Steiria, hero of the democratic uprising against the Thirty in 403, was sent with his associates on a naval expedition to the coast of Asia Minor in order to raise funds. This was a major expedition, as Athens was able to extend her influence in the Aegean back to where it had been before the end of the Peloponnesian War.31 After this initial success in Thrace, the expedition was asked to return and give an audit of their expenses (cf. Lys. 28.5-6). Reportedly on the advice of his associate Ergocles, Thrasybulus refused and continued extracting money from towns in the Hellespont, including Halicarnassus, which complained of misconduct (Lys. 28.56, 12, 17). Thrasybulus soon died in a riot, and the rest of the fleet, including Ergocles and his treasurer Philocrates, returned to Athens, where they faced impeachment (eisangelia). Ergocles was convicted, sentenced to death, and his money was ordered to be turned over to the city’s coffers; a version of the prosecutor’s speech for that trial is

31

On Thrasybulus’ expedition and Athens’ involvement in the ongoing Corinthian War, see especially Seager (1967), Funke (1980).

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found in Lysias 28. When the money was not found, Philocrates was prosecuted for the possession of public property, as documented in Lysias 29. Ostensibly, dōrodokia should have very little to do with these cases, for their clear focus is on klopē, embezzlement (Lysias 28), or on withholding public property (Lysias 29).32 Consistently, the speakers of each oration emphasize how the defendant has ‘taken’ in one form or another; and these accusations, whether of the defendant’s conduct or of similar conduct by other officials, regularly involve verbs like kle/ptein (steal), lamba/nein (take), and u(fai/rein (deprive of)—that is, verbs of clear ‘taking’.33 This conceptual focus on ‘taking’ is understandable given the charges of embezzlement for Ergocles and the withholding of public property for Philocrates. Yet we immediately run into a problem here. ‘Taking’ is intended to apply to both embezzlement and dōrodokia, for Ergocles seems to have been charged with both crimes: both are listed whenever his crimes are catalogued (Lys. 28.3, 28.11; cf. Lys. 29.5, 29.11), and both are thus presented through the same conceptual frame.34 How are we to understand this uneasy, confused relationship between ‘taking’ and dōrodokia? Why, after all, does the speaker of Lysias 28 fear not that Athens is full of peculators, but that dōrodokia is rampant (Lys. 28.9)? Or why does Lysias 29 read more

32

Cohen (1983: 31-2) usefully outlines the legal background for both speeches. See also Sinclair (1988b: 60-4). 33 kle/ptein: Lys. 28.3, 11, 16; 29.11, 13. lamba/nein: Lys. 28.5, 29.11. u(fai/rein: Lys. 28.7, 16; 29.5. Cf. Lys. 28.13, 29.13. I use the verb ‘take’ here solely as a conceptual frame and do not intend any overt reference to the legal class of ‘taking’ in Anglo-American law. 34 The two crimes are nearly conflated when the speaker refers to the embezzled funds as “the property taken from the cities” (ta\ e)k tw=n po/lewn ei)lhmme/na, 28.5). What is significant about this appellation is that the verb lamba/nein much more regularly refers to reciprocal exchanges than to outright peculation: LSJ s.v. lamba/nw II1h. In other words, the very funds that were considered ‘embezzled’ might very well have been contextualized within a series of regular payments for services, exchanges which, as we have seen, would have been indistinct from actual bribes. Harvey (1985: 79-80) points out how these crimes are often closely associated, but it is worth noting that this association was particularly frequent in the first few decades of the fourth century: Strauss (1985).

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like a catalogue of dōrodokia—including bribery of prosecutors (Lys. 29.1), witnesses (Lys. 29.7), orators (Lys. 29.6), and juries (Lys. 29.12)—than an indictment for possessing public property? To say the least, dōrodokia enjoys a surprisingly prominent role in these speeches, and one reason why, I argue, is that dōrodokia qua a kind of financial taking (like embezzlement) functions as a metaphor for Ergocles’ and Philocrates’ problematic relationship to the polis. In broadly listing Ergocles’ crimes—betraying other poleis, doing injustice to Athenian citizens and proxenoi, and going from rags to riches at the expense of the public’s property (e)k pe/nhtoj e)k tw=n u(mete/rwn plou/sioj gegenhme/noj, Lys. 28.1)— the speaker quickly shifts attention to the last of these offenses: how Ergocles became one of the richest men in Athens while the ships he had commanded ended up only poorer (Lys. 28.2, 4). The magistrate’s most heinous crime appears to be that he enriched his own home “at your expense” (e)k tw=n u(mete/rwn, Lys. 28.13), an accusation repeated throughout the speech as Ergocles’ own fortunes are counterbalanced against the polis’. This conceit is configured in two different ways. First, Ergocles is accused of having taken bribes while the polis was poor (cf. e)n tosau/th| a)pori/a| tw=n u(mete/rwn pragma/twn, Lys. 28.11): Ergocles’ dōrodokia was especially bad because at that time the citizens were financially oppressed from having to pay the eisphora (Lys. 28.3, 4). And second, he is thought to have grown rich while actively making the polis poor: he and his friends profited even while his ships actually diminished in number (Lys. 28.2). Repeatedly, Ergocles’ gains are weighed against the polis’ dangers (Lys. 28.4, 7, 13-14)

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as his profiteering is thought to have harmed the masses (plh=qoj a)dikou=si, Lys. 28.13).35 The speaker uses the trope of profiting e)k tw=n u(mete/rwn in order to cast Ergocles as one of a familiar breed of corrupt public officials, bad citizens who do the community injustice in the pursuit of profit (cf. ponhrou/j, Lys. 28.13). In this way, Ergocles’ offenses are viewed as characteristic of the officials of his day. His opponent comments:

Not only Ergocles is on trial, but also the entire polis. For today you will demonstrate to your public officials whether they must be just or whether they should take as much of your property as possible (w(j plei=sta tw=n u(mete/rwn u(felome/nouj) and procure their own safety in the same way that these men are trying to do today. (Lys. 28.10)

By employing a relative clause of characteristic to reiterate Ergocles’ crimes— overturning cities, stealing money, and committing dōrodokia (Lys. 28.11, cf. 28.1, 3)— the speaker paints Ergocles not as a unique, and uniquely corrupt, politician, but as a character type; he is just like the sort of person who would commit these offenses. In fact, he is a ‘paradigm’ for all men (para/deigma, Lys. 28.11), and he should therefore be convicted to serve as a lesson to others (Lys. 28.15-16; cf. e)pidei=cai, Lys. 28.9, 15; e)pidei/cete, Lys. 28.10). With a conviction, Athens would prove that she improves the character of her leaders (Lys. 28.15); with an acquittal, she would make her citizens only worse (xei/rosi, Lys. 28.16). Crucially, this character type is explicitly measured against the benchmark set by the Thirty’s anti-type. In the middle of his exhortation to make an example of Ergocles, the speaker instructively contrasts the actions of public officials like Ergocles with the

35

Here, too, the polis’ dangers are contrasted with the safety Ergocles and his philoi seek: Lys. 28.10, 11.

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crimes of the Thirty: “Whosoever…in a democracy harms the multitude (plh=qoj a)dikou=si) while making their own private homes larger at your expense (e)k tw=n u(mete/rwn) deserves your anger far more than do the Thirty,” he remarks (Lys. 28.13). As the speaker explains, the Thirty had been elected to do the people harm (kakw=j…u(ma=j poih/seian, Lys. 28.14), so there was no surprise when they achieved just that. By contrast, officials like Ergocles were elected to do the exact opposite. That Ergocles had endangered the polis rather than save it thus made him more heinous than even the Thirty (Lys. 28.12-14). For the speaker, the Thirty prove to be not simply a convenient threshold for measuring character but particularly a model for understanding the motivations of Ergocles and his philoi. If profiting e)k tw=n u(mete/rwn and harming the multitude were characteristic of the Thirty, then Ergocles’ actions brought him dangerously close to the oligarchs. Ergocles’ response in court, naturally, would have been to prove his own democratic affiliation—but the speaker warns the jury about just such a rhetorical move on Ergocles’ part (Lys. 28.12). According to the speaker, Ergocles in fact desires to set up an oligarchy (Lys. 28.7, 11), and his anti-democratic sentiments are tellingly reminiscent of the Thirty themselves. First, Ergocles is depicted as wanting to rule, not to be ruled by others, just like the Thirty became tyrant-like masters of the Athenians (Lys. 28.7). Moreover, like the Thirty who wished both to control the political institutions by which officials were held accountable and to rid the city of (democratic) sykophants who might try to hold them accountable, Ergocles reportedly calls his democratic accusers sykophants (Lys. 28.5-6). By escaping accountability and pursuing more profit, Ergocles too hoped to “cut out” the sykophants (e)kko/yh|j, Lys. 28.6).

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Indeed, Ergocles’ actions align himself and his philoi against the polis as they assume a relationship of negative reciprocity with the community precisely as the Thirty had done.

As financial crimes conceptualized as ‘taking’, both embezzlement and

dōrodokia reveal this relationship. No longer are Ergocles and his men considered philoi of the city (Lys. 28.17), for, by acquiring their wealth, they effectively demonstrate illwill towards the people (cf. a3ma ga\r ploutou=si kai\ u(ma\j misou=si, Lys. 28.7; cf. e1xqran, Lys. 28.16). As a result, the only charis they and others like them have is for the money they have given and taken. They show no charis to the people (Lys. 28.16). Thus, if the flow of money marks relations of goodwill, then embezzlement and dōrodokia equally signal how Ergocles only ‘takes’ from or ‘harms’ the people; there is no reciprocity, as he and his men treat the city even worse than do her enemies (Lys. 28.15). As in our analysis of the financial crimes of the Thirty, dōrodokia qua a kind of financial ‘taking’ here symbolizes the political injustice of Ergocles’ relation to the rest of the community. The imbalance of profiting ‘at the polis’ expense’ acts as a conceptual frame for understanding his purported oligarchic aspirations and particularly how he provides negative reciprocity—active harm—to the people. Because the defendants have but ‘taken’ from the city, they merit not the ‘giving’ of charis but the ‘taking’ of vengeance; one bad turn deserves another.36 It was already noted that dōrodokia plays a prominent role throughout Lysias 29, too, but by now it should be clearer why this might be the case. With Philocrates’ guilt 36

A point forcefully made in the speaker’s last words: “by the same act you should give thanks to your friends and take vengeance on the guilty” (a3ma toi=j te fi/loij toi=j u(mete/roij a)podou=nai xa/rin kai\ para\ tw=n a)dikou/ntwn th\n di/khn labei=n, Lys. 28.17). The parallel structure of the clause strongly contrasts the city’s philoi with the defendants themselves. Moreover, by counterpoising a)podou=nai xa/rin and di/khn labei=n, the speaker effectively underscores how like merits like.

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quickly established, the speaker spends the remainder of the speech cataloguing all the various ways in which Philocrates bribed others. Like Ergocles, Philocrates apparently sought to avoid accountability specifically by bribing citizens, jurors, accusers, and witnesses.37

Indeed, throughout the speech Philocrates is presented in tandem with

Ergocles—essentially, he is considered guilty by association with his friend (esp. Lys. 29.3)—and the speaker of Lysias 29 underscores how the pair maintained the exact same sort of negative reciprocity with the people.

Like Ergocles, who actively harmed the

people (cf. kakw=j diaqei/j, Lys. 29.2; cf. 29.14), Philocrates becomes an enemy of the people by withholding public property (e)xqrou/j, Lys. 29.9).38 In short, Ergocles and Philocrates provide the same paradigm of bad citizens who choose to pursue profit even at the risk of becoming outsiders to the moral community of the city.39 Unlike in Lysias 28, however, Philocrates’ negative reciprocity is weighed against the regular, reciprocal exchanges of performing a liturgy for the community, like paying the eisphora (Lys. 29.9). And again, the speaker contrasts the liturgists’ regular reservations about the trierarchy with Philocrates’ willingness to undertake the service, the implication being that Philocrates volunteered so that he could profit (Lys. 29.4). The speaker reinterprets the motivation of Ergocles, too, in the same light, as Ergocles is thought to have pursued personal gain, not public honor, in becoming stratēgos (0Ergoklh=j xrhmatiou/menoj a)ll’ ou) pro\j u(ma=j filotimhso/menoj e)ce/pleuse, Lys.

37

Both men are thought to have paid off their accusers (Lys. 29.1, 6) and potentially their juries (Lys. 29.12, 13); additionally, the speaker insinuates that Philocrates bribed his witnesses (cf. pepo/ristai, Lys. 29.7). 38 Note how the speaker balances the people’s refusal to ‘give’ immunity to Ergocles with Ergocles’ own negative reciprocity—plundering and embezzling public funds (cf. dw/sete…diarpa/zousi kai\ kle/tousin, Lys. 29.13). The lack of return given to Ergocles reflects the negative return he provided the city. 39 In fact, the speaker effectively elides any difference between the two when he remarks that with a guilty vote at Philocrates’ trial the jurors would send the same message as they had in convicting Ergocles (29.13).

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29.14). The difference is a subtle yet crucial one, for both men are now presented less as potential oligarchs who might defect from the polity, than as elites defecting on their explicitly financial obligations to the city. In other words, the conceit of profiting ‘at the city’s expense’ signals a different kind of failed political reciprocity, one focused on profiteering elites more generally, not necessarily oligarchic public officials specifically.

From Financial Obligations to Financialized Obligations: The shift from Ergocles’ oligarchic negative reciprocity to Philocrates’ failure to make good on his financial obligations to the community—both framed in terms of dōrodokia ‘at the city’s expense’—suggests a precarious relationship between the Athenian community and its elite members in the decades after the Thirty. Even if the possibility of oligarchy—that is, complete elite defection—was a dead issue after the stain left by the Thirty, the Athenians nevertheless had anxieties that elites might defect on their financial obligations to the community, precisely the area where their participation was needed most. Although Athens’ elite citizens might not have wished to become outsiders to the moral community of the dēmos, as the Thirty had done, they nevertheless might have wished to keep their money in a sense ‘outside’ the reach of the community. This anxiety was particularly acute in the early fourth century, for contemporary sources frequently insinuate that the wealthy were not giving back to the community as much as they should.40

Irrespective of how elites like Ergocles or Philocrates had

acquired their fortunes, they were condemned for not spending it in the proper way, that 40

Cf. Ar. Pl. 352-90, Isoc. 8.125, 127; Lys. 18.18, 22.14, 25.26, 25.30, 26.22, 27.9, 27.21, 28.1, 30.28; Ober (1989: 233-6) provides a helpful discussion. On the problem of liturgy evasion, see especially Gabrielsen (1986), Christ (1990; 2006: 143-204).

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is, for not providing a sufficient financial return to the city. In part, this anxiety stemmed from Athens’ economic reality in the early fourth century. With the loss of empire, she had lost a tremendous source of revenue in the allied tribute, and she consequently had to rely heavily on the war-time tax, or eisphora, levied exclusively on her richest citizens. During and after the Corinthian War in the 390’s and 380’s, the eisphora was levied with considerably greater frequency than it had been during the Peloponnesian War, and this increased burden supposedly led many elites to skip out on their duties to the polis.41 Yet after the Thirty the Athenians were acutely aware, as well, that elites might make them poorer, just as the Thirty had done. Athenians readily assumed, therefore, that the wealthy as a whole really did have more money than they claimed.

Tax and

liturgical evasion were thought to be rampant at this time, as elites were suspected of ‘hiding’ their wealth, usually by converting it into credit at banks or by refusing to rent out property which they had not publicly declared.42 The more elites refused to make their property ‘visible’—that is, ‘publicly recognized’—the greater the city’s difficulty in collecting the eisphora and finding trierarchs. As Xenophon attests, such a refusal to give back to the community, especially in its state of need, was punished as if one had actively stolen from the public purse (Xen. Oec. 2.6-7).

41

On the eisphora, see generally de Ste. Croix (1953), Ruschenbusch (1978a), Mossé (1979b), Rhodes (1982), Brun (1983: 3-73). During the Peloponnesian War, the eisphora was levied in 428 (Thuc. 3.19.1) and perhaps only two more times between 410 and 404 (Lys. 21.3; Diod. 13.47.7, 52.5, 64.4). During the ten years of the Corinthian War, by contrast, it was levied at least four times, as Brun (1983: 27) notes, including twice during the period 395-2 (Isoc. 17.41), once in 388 (Xen. Hell. 5.1.5), and once more in 387/6 (cf. Is. 10.20). Burden of the eisphora: Lys. 28.3-4, 29.5, cf. Ar. Ec. 197-8; Christ (2006: 161-2, 165). 42 Given the central financial importance of the liturgical system in the democracy—on which, see Davies (1971), Lauffer (1974)—the alleged explosion of liturgy evasion was an especially problematic development. Cohen (1992: 201-7) is foundational for how the rise of banking in the early fourth century correlated with elites’ purportedly ever greater efforts to avoid liturgical duties. The elites employed various methods to ‘hide’ their wealth or make it ‘unseen’ (aphanēs): Andreyev (1974: 20), Gabrielsen (1986: 105), Christ (1990: 158-60), and, for the distinction between ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ wealth, Gabrielsen (1986).

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So the precarious relationship elites maintained with the people in the wake of the Thirty continued to be framed in terms of their financial relationship to the community; financial transactions were viewed as a metaphor for how citizens, particularly politicians, negotiated their civic relationship to the community. Indeed, Aristophanes’ Wealth, put on in the same year as the trials of Ergocles and Philocrates (389/8 BCE), echoes many of the same sentiments from Lysias 28 and 29.43

Yet of particular

importance for our investigation is how the poet in fact expands our frame for understanding citizens’ financial obligations to the community. Through Wealth we come to see that Athenians were concerned not just with financial obligations, but especially with the ‘financialization’ of civic obligations.

Outlining this discursive

process will enable us to examine more closely how, after the Thirty, new patterns of social relationships in politics affected Athenian discourse on dōrodokia. Wealth depicts a world in which all the ‘good’ people (chrēstoi) are poor, while only the ‘wicked’ (ponēroi) prosper (e.g. Ar. Pl. 28-31, 502-4); in such a dystopia, many men in the city starve or are cold simply because they refuse to be criminal (Ar. Pl. 28-9, 363).44 Because the god Wealth is blind and unable to tell chrēstos from ponēros, the wealthy are disproportionately comprised of ponēroi who are willing to ‘take’ from

43

Several scholiasts refer to a ‘first’ and ‘second’ Wealth produced by Aristophanes, and the scholiast at Pl. 173 says that the first Wealth was produced in 409/8. What that play was about and what its relation was to the second Wealth (389/8) have been hotly debated: cf. Hertel (1969: 28-32), who claims there was only one production (in 389/8), MacDowell (1995), Sommerstein (2001: 28-33). Even if the original had included a substantial portion of our current play—so MacDowell (1995), but see Sommerstein (2001: 303)—this would not significantly affect my argument about the late-fifth and early-fourth century shift towards a monetized vision of the world. 44 Chremylus’ colorful description of a life of poverty—replete with hunger, pests, and rags (Ar. Pl. 53347)—is echoed throughout the play, on which see especially Dillon (1987: 162-3). Cf. Ar. Pl. 219, 263, 504, 535-47, 627-30, 843-7.

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others and grow rich.45 The entire premise of the comedy, repeated by almost every character, is that the good are poor, while the bad are rich.46 Just as Plato would later suggest in the Republic, the mere possession of wealth was itself thought to turn somebody into a greedy ponēros, and politicians here were ponēroi par excellence (Ar. Pl. 30-1, 379, 567-70).47 Hence, the orators’ conceit of profiting ‘at the city’s expense’ transforms into a ‘rags to riches’ trope: anybody who recently acquired wealth must be bad.

Yet this

truism has two distinct meanings in the play: people can profit only through being bad, and simply possessing wealth makes one greedy and bad.48 Ultimately, both valences are at stake in the comedy’s version of the ‘rags to riches’ trope. Politicians might ‘take’ in order to acquire wealth; and, once they have it, out of sheer greed they might not ‘give’ it up.

The profiteering of politicians in Wealth is certainly reminiscent of Ergocles’

negative reciprocity with the community, but the play also picks up on how Philocrates defected on his financial obligations to the community.

45

They are, as a result, frequently called thieves and contrasted with chrēstoi who ‘give’ to others and to the community: e.g. Ar. Pl. 203-6, 510-16, 665-6, 672-84, 869-71, 903-23. Cf. Olson (1990: 240-1). On the terms chrēstos and ponēros in late-fifth- and early-fourth-century public discourse, Rosenbloom (2002, 2004) is foundational. 46 Ar. Pl. 28-31, 36-8, 49-50, 502-4, 751-6. This formulation shares much with the Ecclesiazousae’s focus on the inherent selfishness of contemporary Athenians: e.g. Ec. 186-8, 301-10, 376-93, and the entire scene with the selfish man (Ec. 746-876). Cf. Sommerstein (1984: 330-1). 47 See especially Ar. Pl. 107-11, 363-9, 569-70, 1003. Indeed, in a central agōn that has played a critical role in recent interpretations of the play, Chremylus and Poverty argue over whether Wealth or Poverty improves one’s character (Ar. Pl. 558-600). McGlew (1997: 35 with bibliography) rightly points out how, ever since at least Flashar (1967), the majority of critics have viewed Poverty as a decidedly new and different viewpoint entering into the comedy. For those who think that her argument is stronger than Chremylus’, the entire second half of the play seems ironically conceived, at best, or unsettlingly proestablishment, at worst: e.g. Flashar (1967), Konstan and Dillon (1981), Olson (1993). Somewhat differently, Heberlein (1981) opposes an ironist approach to the play yet, like Poverty, is suspicious of the changes that occur at play’s end. On the other hand, McGlew (1997: esp. 39-42) is joined by Sommerstein (1984) in positing that Poverty represents the weaker of the two sides. I do not come down on any particular side of this debate; for our purposes, it is crucial that both sides in fact agree that money (or a lack thereof) determines one’s character. 48 Olson (1990: 228-30), Lévy (1997: 205-6).

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So when Poverty and Chremylus have a debate about Zeus’ wealth, it is the economic return provided by the god that is at issue (Ar. Pl. 582-91). Poverty reasons that Zeus could not possibly be rich because a rich god would never crown athletic victors at his festival with crowns of wild olive; rather, because he was so rich, he would surely give away valuable gold crowns (Ar. Pl. 582-6). This is precisely the logic Socrates would later employ in claiming that Asclepius and Achilles could not possibly have been dōrodokoi. Chremylus responds with a different view: Zeus, rich yet sparing, chooses merely to save his own wealth while not spending anything on the victors (Ar. Pl. 587-9).

Yet in that case, as Poverty criticizes, he is greedy and stingy

(a)neleu/qeroj…filokerdh/j, Ar. Pl. 591), the same affront leveled against Philocrates in Lysias 29. As in Lysias 28 and 29, therefore, Wealth measures political justice according to an economically defined ‘good’ given to the community.

As thieves or stingy

members of the community, politicians including dōrodokoi are vilified, while those who give and take in turn ultimately prosper when Wealth regains his sight at play’s end. Aristophanes’ use of the ‘rags to riches’ conceit in Wealth is thus readily aligned with the accusation of profiting ‘at the city’s expense’ found in the speeches against Ergocles and Philocrates; however, this alignment marks a considerable departure from fifth-century use of the ‘rags to riches’ trope. In the fifth century, as we saw in the previous chapter, Aristophanes had lambasted politicians like Cleon for just this sort of suspicious accumulation of wealth. While such accusations certainly underscored how a politician may have been escaping democratic accountability, they were nevertheless leveled at pro-democratic politicians. There was no concern of oligarchic aspirations. By contrast, the ‘rags to riches’ conceit in Wealth was directed at citizens who were

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actively harming the community: greedy elites who, like a Philocrates, potentially aimed at overthrowing the democracy (esp. Ar. Pl. 568-70).49 In this respect, we might say that the ‘rags to riches’ trope, too, was framed in the shadow of the Thirty. Aristophanes’ comedy moves us past the focus on financial obligations found in Lysias’ speeches, for in the world of Wealth, money, prosperity and poverty pervade the way the characters conceptualize the kosmos.50 In a long and humorous catalogue, two characters point out that Zeus would be powerless without wealth, for men would no longer sacrifice to him in order to get wealthy themselves (Ar. Pl. 130-42); nor would courtesans or artisans continue practicing their trade if they were already wealthy (Ar. Pl. 149-68). Wealth is posited as the cause of political alliances, love, military expeditions, the actions of politicians, and even the meeting of the Assembly (Ar. Pl. 171-80).51 In short, without wealth—specifically money (a)rgu/rion, Ar. Pl. 131, 141, 154, 158; cf. 147)—all things fine and good in the world would be no more (Ar. Pl. 144-5). In reducing everything to money—in explaining causes and consequences, human action and natural forces, in economic terms—Aristophanes suggests that the world had somehow become ‘financialized’. His suggestion does not seem far-off, judging from other contemporary sources. Especially during this period, elite claims to being a good citizen were often framed as a financial calculus of the economic expenses a citizen or his family had incurred on behalf of the polis. To take but a single example, the speaker of

49

As Robin Osborne (2003) has recently detailed, in the fifth century the Athenians were concerned that a charismatic individual might monopolize power, thus acquiring his riches at the polis’ expense; by the fourth century, this anxiety over relative power had transformed into fear of outright constitutional change, i.e. oligarchy. 50 Cf. Albini (1965), David (1984: 32-8), Olson (1990: 225-30). 51 Pay for attending the Assembly, which had only recently been introduced after the restoration of the democracy, is taken as a particularly clear sign of Athenians selfishness and greed in the Ecclesiazousae. The lament at Ar. Ec. 303-10 is indicative of the play’s stance towards that new pay. See further discussion in David (1984: 21-32), Dillon (1987: 178-9) and below.

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Lysias’ speech On the Property of Aristophanes first lists his father’s benefactions— including chorēgiai, trierarchies, and eisphorai—and then details that his benefactions totaled 9 talents and 2,000 drachmas, plus additional minor expenses spent on poorer citizens (Lys. 19.57-9; cf. 19.29).52 Further, that elites were using banks or ‘hiding’ their wealth through property markers (horoi) could have cut both ways, as they could have done so in order to acquire wealth to pay liturgies. On this view, the negative evaluation of such ‘hidden’ wealth might reflect, too, that there was growing social distance between people and the land they owned and worked: the commodification of new things (like land) signaled new ways in which people related to the world.53 In a sense, therefore, Wealth opens up the tantalizing suggestion that these were not so much financial obligations as obligations that had been financialized.54 As with Plato’s seemingly proto-modern conception of the dōrodokos, Aristophanes’ thoroughly financialized perspective might sound oddly familiar to a 52

Similarly, Lys. 19.25 with 19.42-3 and 19.9, 26.3. Cf. Ant. 2.2.12, Is. 6.60. Christ (2006: 172-3) on the ‘cost-consciousness’ of Athenians at this time. Conversely, a typical accusation that a citizen had shirked his financial obligation often entailed an assessment of the economic outlay that was due the polis. By insisting that an individual was ‘hiding’ his wealth, that he really had more money than he had let on and could therefore give more money to the polis than he had already done, such accusations were explicit claims that an individual had denied the polis a specific economic return: e.g. Ar. Ec. 601-3; Lys. 3.24, 20.23; Isoc. 7.35; Is. 5.35-7, 7.39-40, 11.47-9. 53 This is, admittedly, a contentious claim, one that I le ave only as a suggestion, but see Andreyev (1974: 20), French (1991: 27-30). 54 Around this time, in fact, we begin to find honorary crowns of specific monetary amounts: IG i2 110.1112 (1000 drachmas; 409 BCE), IG ii2 1 .69-71 (1000 drachmas; 403/2 BCE), IG ii2 2b.6-8 (300 drachmas; 403/2 BCE; restored, but see Henry [1983: 22]), IG ii2 103.29-30 (1000 drachmas; 369/8 BCE). As Henry (1983: 22-5) details, by mid-century this practice had become commonplace: e.g. IG ii2 223 (500 drachmas; 343/2 BCE), IG ii2 338.19-21 (1000 drachmas; 333/2 BCE), IG ii/iii2 1252.7 (500 drachmas, cf. a)pod]w/sousi toi=j eu)ergetou=[sin a)ci/aj tw=n/ eu)ergethma/twn], 1252.15-16; ca. 350-300 BCE); cf. Whitehead (1986: 163). Certainly, this focus on the precise cost of the crown might reflect the community’s desire to budget expenses better in the wake of its financial problems. Yet undoubtedly one by-product of assessing the cost ahead of time and publicly announcing it was that the ‘worth’ of deeds could be more readily calculated. In fact, in the earliest examples, the tamiai (or Hellēnotamiai) were to provide a cash award that was to be used expressly to create a crown: cf. IG i2 110.11-12, IG ii2 1.69-71. As a result, over time distinct crown ‘values’ came to be associated with different kinds of civic benefactions: typically only foreigners received 1000-drachma crowns, while Athenians most often were the ones to receive crowns of 500 drachmas. See further Henry (1983: 22-6).

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modern audience. That everything can somehow be reduced to money is, after all, a common anxiety about capitalism and the relationship between capitalist markets and society. Yet in that case it is all the more striking that this perspective should appear at Athens alongside Plato’s alignment of dōrodokia and greed. Why at this time was financial logic so important in considerations of political justice? One reason, I argue, is that the measures adopted by the Athenians to recover politically and financially from the Peloponnesian War and the horrors of the Thirty transformed the landscape of social relations both in and out of politics. The financialized view in Aristophanes was born of these changes—specifically, the continued movement towards a more impartial, impersonal public sphere in which all citizens, democrat and potential oligarch, could cooperate. In order to get along after the Thirty and their financial crimes, the Athenians actually adopted a ‘financialized’ view of polity. Once again, we can trace this story by following the dōrodokos. Here our final guide will be Lysias 21, a speech written (shortly) after 403/2 BCE for an unnamed magistrate accused of dōrodokia.55

The speech falls into roughly two halves:

an

extensive list of liturgies performed by the defendant (Lys. 21.1-11), followed by an overview of his conduct as citizen and magistrate alike (esp. Lys. 21.18-19), with some brief concluding remarks on his civic pride and patriotism (Lys. 21.22-5). Although the general contours of Lysias 21 resonate with numerous other forensic speeches from the same period, this particular speech stands out for its unusually long list of liturgies and

55

The date follows Todd (2000b: 228), based on the latest event mentioned in the speech, a chorēgia in 403/2 (Lys. 21.4). Equally as likely, to my mind, is Schmitz’ (1995: 72) suggestion of placing the speech in early 401. Given the comprehensive, year-by-year list of liturgies provided in the speech, however, it would be difficult to assume a date much later than Schmitz’ suggestion.

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the resultantly severe imbalance of the composition.56 On the one hand, the catalogue seems a grand elaboration on the common topos of requesting charis from the people in exchange for all the good deeds the defendant has done.57 On the other hand, whereas in other speeches requesting charis for euergetism is usually unrelated to the charge brought forward, in this speech the euergetism somehow forms the crux of the defendant’s legal argument for innocence. “I would be mad, jurymen,” he reasons, “if, in pursuit of honor (filotimou/menoj), I should spend my inheritance on you yet also take gifts from others unto the detriment of the polis” (e)pi\ de\ tw=| th=j po/lewj kakw=| para\ tw=n a1llwn dwrodokoi/hn, Lys. 21.22). The speaker’s catalogue of liturgies is as much an explanation of his innocence as a request for pardon. This is perhaps a counterintuitive claim: how could detailing his expenses on the polis possibly be a demonstration that he had not taken bribes? Let us investigate further.58 The defendant’s list of liturgies, indeed the entire extant speech, is framed as a defense of character:

“About the charges themselves, jurymen, I have given you

sufficient explanation,” the speaker begins, “but I think it fit that you listen to me about 56

On the exceptionality of this catalogue of liturgical expenses, see Schmitz (1995: 85-6), Todd (2000b: 229) and especially APF 592-3. The latter in particular explains this extraordinary catalogue as an extraordinary attempt by the defendant to make up for his family’s oligarchic sympathies; but, as will be clear from what follows, the catalogue can be seen as playing an integral legal role in the speaker’s legal defense, as well. 57 So, Lys. 21.25. Likewise, the defendant in Lysias 20 confesses that he and his family treated the city well solely to gain an acquittal should they ever be prosecuted (Lys. 20.31). Cf. Ant. 2.2.12; Is. 5.41-2, 6.60-1, 7.38-41; Isoc. 18.67; Lys. 25.13; [Dem.] 50.2, 7. For discussion, see Dover (1974: 176-7), Ober (1989: 226-33, 241-3), Johnstone (1999: 100-8), Christ (2006: 172-81). 58 Scholars are quick to note that what we have of Lysias 21 is not the defendant’s full speech, but an epilogos, or the second part of a defense coming after the defendant’s treatment of the charges themselves (cf. Lys. 21.1). Assuming that the speech does not deal at all with the charges, their interpretations have consequently focused on the defendant’s character and his general strategy to ingratiate himself to the jurors, not on any legal arguments he makes. Schmitz (1995: esp. 91-3), for instance, explicates all of the rhetorical arguments with an eye towards illustrating how they were typical for an elite Athenian who, like the defendant of Lysias 21, probably had oligarchic sympathies; cf. APF 592-3, Todd (2000b: 229). I am concerned, by contrast, to illuminate how these arguments might be typical for an elite charged with dōrodokia. After all, it was not uncommon to make legal arguments in an epilogos—e.g. Lys. 14-15, 2829—and, as we will see, the defendant in Lysias 21 seems to do just that.

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other things, so that you know what kind of person I am (peri\ oi3ou tino\j o1ntoj e)mou=) when you cast your vote” (Lys. 21.1). In the defendant’s own estimation, he is a model citizen who should be emulated by other citizens—“pray to the gods that others are such citizens [as I]” (21.15)—for his exemplary conduct in public and in private (cf. Lys. 21.18-19). He closes his speech by enjoining the jurors to vote for his acquittal and thereby to continue benefiting from citizens like himself (toiou/toij…poli/taij, 21.25), meaning the entire class of liturgy payers.59 What kind of model citizen was the defendant? Obviously, he was considerably wealthy, but his subtle presentation of character and financial expense suggests that he was trying to contest the label of oligarchic sympathizer—precisely the kind of role later played by Ergocles and Philocrates. Given his clear wealth, almost assuredly he would have been a member of the 3,000 during the oligarchy, for the Thirty do not appear to have confiscated his property.60 The defendant downplays this involvement by glossing over the year 404/3, when the Thirty were in power, even though he carefully lists his liturgical expenses with reference to the name of the eponymous archon for every other year.61 Further, he seems to rebut a curious series of accusations: that he had been pleased at the city’s misfortunes, given bad judgments as a judge, done shameful deeds or profited e)k tw=n u(mete/rwn while in office (Lys. 21.18). This is a curious sequence, for it reads more like a generic list of the Thirty’s crimes than as a catalogue of complaints about a specific individual. Finally, he contrasts himself with the political guardians who 59

See Schmitz (1995: 89-90) on the use of the first-person-plural h(mete/rwn at Lys. 29.13. APF 592-3, Schmitz (1995: 92-3). In this light, Schmitz (1995: 84-5) notes that the speaker could have been an oligarchic sympathizer for his omission of ancestry or involvement in the civil war, his omission of specific political offices, and his espousal of aristocratic ideals (ko/smion ei}nai kai\ swfro/na, Lys. 29.19). 61 He refers to the year, simply, as a ‘later’ (u3steron, Lys. 29.4) time period, sandwiched between his role as gymnasiarch when Alexias was archon (405/4 BCE) and as chorus-leader when Euclides was archon (403/2 BCE): Lys. 29.3-4 with APF 592-3, Schmitz (1995: 85). 60

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plunder the city, on the grounds that his own financial outlays provided consistent revenue for the treasury; rather than endanger the city, he endured numerous dangers on its behalf.62 In an attempt to distinguish himself from the elites who plundered the city, providing bads for goods, the defendant thus presents himself as anything but the Thirty’s anti-type: he was no greedy dōrodokos like the oligarchs. In place of their anti-type, he substitutes a model of citizenship predicated largely on financial obligations. His own ‘goods’ to the community are explicitly financial outlays, and when he describes the reciprocity he enjoys with the city, he underscores that he is owed a return precisely for the steady revenue he has provided.63 The precise reason why he should be emulated, he claims, is that he does not covet public property, but rather spends his own money on the people (tw=n me\n u(mete/rwn mh\ e)piqumh/swsi, ta\ de\ sfe/tera au)tw=n ei)j u(ma=j a)nali/skwsin, Lys. 21.15), a refrain which recurs throughout his speech (Lys. 21.12, 17, 22; cf. 21.23). He is the sort of person who benefits the polis by being frugal in private and generous in public (Lys. 21.16), constantly providing maximal revenue for the polis. And it is precisely because of this expenditure that he considers himself to have justice on his side.64 The benefit he provided, however, was not some indescript civic ‘good’, but a specific, quantified financial outlay; in this sense, the civic obligation itself is

62

Plundering the city: Lys. 21.13, 14. Danger: kindu/nouj u(pe\r u(mw=n kekinduneukw/j, Lys. 21.11; cf. 21.3, 24, 25. 63 He refers to the entire catalogue of liturgies as his way of “doing the city such great goods” (tosau=ta a)gaqa\ ei)rgasme/noj th\n po/lin, Lys. 21.11; cf. po/sa t\hn po/lin eu} pepoihke/nai, Lys. 21.8). Outlining further the reciprocal return he expects for the exceptional amount spent on the polis, the speaker emphasizes the language of gift exchange (cf. dwrea/n, a)nti tou/twn par’ u(mw=n labei=n, lamba/nein, decai/mhn, a)xa/rista, Lys. 21.11-12). Cf. Lys. 21.13-14. 64 Lys. 21.12. He subsequently reprises this notion in claiming that, because of his public benefactions, the people should rightly spare him: Lys. 21.17.

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‘financialized’, just as we saw in Aristophanes’ Wealth. The defendant signals this financialization in two ways: he enumerates the costs of every one of his liturgies, and he asks the jury to think of how much revenue in money his services brought the city. First, every single public service is given a numerical price: 2,000 drachmas here, 5,000 drachmas there, 6 talents over one period of time, 30 mnae and 40,000 drachmas over another. Had the jurors been keeping a running tab in their minds, they would have discovered that the defendant had spent 63,600 drachmas—the colossal sum of 10.5 talents—in doing ‘good’ for the city. Elsewhere, too, he refers to his money (xrh/mata, Lys. 21.13, 21) and the specifically financial value it holds for the polis (esp. Lys. 21.1213). Such enumeration of expenses and value is perhaps understandable in the context of financial outlays, but the defendant also alludes to the quantifiable revenue his services brought back for the community. When describing his performance of the trierarchy, he asks how much ‘bad’ his deeds wrought for the city’s enemies, how much ‘good’ it did the polis itself; but he prefaces both of these questions by asking, above all, how much money (xrh/mata) a ship decked out like his brought in as revenue.65 Although the defendant never signals that a certain total amount of public revenue and private expenditure would justly merit an acquittal—in this sense, there was ultimately no ‘price’

65

Kai/toi ou3tw pareskeuasme/nhn trih/rh po/sa oi1esqe a)nhlwke/nai xrh/mata; ata h2 po/sa tou\j polemi/ouj ei)rga/sqai kaka/; h2 po/sa th\n po/lin eu} eu pepoihke/nai; Lys. 21.8. This language returns later in the speech with the antithesis of eu} peponqo/taj…eu} pepoihko/twn, Lys. 21.22. Both passages pick up on contemporary public decrees honoring those who “do the polis well” (eu} poi/ein): e.g. IG i3 80.9 (421/0 BCE); IG i3 174.6 (c.420 BCE); IG i3 102.9 (410/9 BCE); see discussion at Veligianni-Terzi (1997: 198200). What is remarkable about this echo is that, in the fifth century at least, this formula appears only in decrees honoring foreigners with either citizenship or the proxeny. The earliest secure attestation of such praise in a decree honoring a citizen dates to the mid-fourth century: IG ii2 1188.15-16 (mid-C4); cf. IG ii2 196.13-14 (353/2 BCE). It is possible, then, that the defendant in Lysias 21 was consciously picking up on his perceived outsider status and, with reference to his good deeds, seeking re-integration into the moral community of the dēmos.

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on justice—his itemization of expenses and quantification of revenue suggest that the ‘good’ of each act was nevertheless measured in financial, both numerical and monetized, terms. The speaker of Lysias 21 suggests that his civic obligations should be evaluated according to a narrowly financial lens—that is, they should be assessed according to the exact amount of financial revenue they provided—precisely because the polis was so poor, sources of revenue were few and far between, and the city’s leaders were plundering the treasury (o(ra=te ga/r…ta\ prosio/nta th|= po/lei w(j o)li/ga e)sti/ kai\ tau=ta w(j u(po\ tw=n e)festhko/twn a(rpa/zetai, Lys. 21.13). In other words, according to the defendant, the city needed to focus on exact financial revenue in order to recover financially after the Thirty. The defendant’s line of thinking fits in well with a range of different fiscal measures taken at Athens in the generation after the Thirty. These measures focused on the exact financial return an investment would provide the community. In 378/7, for example, the symmory system was created, whereby wealthy elties were assigned to a ‘share group’ (symmoria) that would cover the specific cost of the eisphora war tax.66 This reform seems to have been designed to ensure that the city could collect the full amount of the tax, that the earlier method of collection—on an individual basis by local demarchs—simply was not effective enough.67 When the eisphora was collected, the 300 wealthiest citizens, three per symmory, were liable to pay the entire tax up-front, while collecting reimbursement from the other members of their symmory.

66

By making

Philochorus FGrH 328 F46; de Ste. Croix (1953), Ruschenbusch (1978), Rhodes (1984), Gabrielsen (1985: 36; 1987: 47-51), MacDowell (1986) on the symmory system. 67 Cf. Hakkarainen (1997: 10-11), van Wees (2006: 369-70). On the previous system of eisphora collection, see AP 21.5 with 8.3, Davies (1981: 143-50), Whitehead (1986: 132-3).

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corporate groups, not individuals, responsible for the sums, the city thus diminished the impact that shirkers would have on the final total collected. Similarly, Agyrrhius’ grain tax law of 374/3 was designed to guarantee that a certain financial outcome—there, a specific amount of grain—would accrue to the city.68 These reforms were critical to Athens’ financial recovery particularly because the city no longer had revenue coming in from the allied tribute; even when the Second Athenian League was established in 378/7, allied contributions did not go towards the democracy’s administrative expenses.69 Instead of a tribute, however, Athens did depend on considerable subsidies from Persia: not only monies for specific public projects, like the building of the Long Walls, but also payments to support the efforts of Athenian generals and soldiers.70 Although funding problems continued for Athenian generals, the financial boon was appreciated and relied on all the same.71 In this respect, it is telling that, whereas in the fifth century the receipt of Persian gold carried with it the stigma of treasonous plotting, in the fourth century Conon was actually honored for his ability to leverage the King’s funds.72 68

Ober (2008: 260-3) illustrates this point well; see also Stroud (1998), Osborne (2000). Davies (1978: 224), Cargill (1981: 124-7), de Ste Croix (1981: 293), Dreher (1995: 79-80). So IG ii² 123.11-12 expressly indicates that allied syntaxeis were to be controlled by the synedrion of the League, not by the Athenian dēmos. 70 Long Walls and Persian gold: Xen. Hell. 4.8.8-10, Diod.14.84.5-85.4. Persian subsidies of the Athenian fleet began soon after 401, when Cyrus broke from his brother, thereby breaking the previously strong link between Persia and Sparta. In 397 Pharnabazos gave 500 talents of silver for equipment and soldier pay (Diod. 14.39.1), although ultimately the fleet ended up being very poorly paid (Hell.Oxy. 19.2, Isoc. 4.142). In 395, 220 talents were given to pay for the fleet, but Conon eventually had to ask for more money (Diod. 14.81.5-6). For discussion and further context, see Lewis (1979: 232-3). The trend towards mercenary armies begins at this time, as the armies of Conon and Iphicrates, and later Chabrias, Chares and Timotheus were hired out by foreign poleis: Pritchett (1974: 56-116), although see now Trundle (2004) on the problematic appellation of ‘mercenary’. 71 In the 370’s Timotheus had numerous problems on his expedition to Corcyra: [Dem.] 49.9, 49.13, Lys. fr. 228; cf. Diod. 15.47.2-3. Likewise, Iphicrates: Xen. Hell. 6.211-14. Pseudo-Demosthenes points out that, because regular pay was almost impossible, desertion was a problem, and generals had to continually conscript soldiers: [Dem.] 50.6, 11, 23. 72 Hence not all gifts of ‘Persian gold’ were ill-received, as Lewis (1989) and Mitchell (1997: 111-33) rightly explore. Treason and Persian gold recur throughout Herodotus’ Histories: Hdt. 1.69.1, 1.105.1, 69

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When the defendant in Lysias 21 measures his contribution to the city in explicitly financial terms—63,600 drachmas’ worth of good—his financializing lens thus parallels a contemporary focus on guaranteeing that a specific amount of revenue might accrue to the polis.73

Yet this ‘financialization’ extends beyond simply measuring

drachmas; in the speaker’s view, it defines even how political justice works. One striking aspect about the speaker’s financial calculus here is that it constitutes an argument in his own defense.

After all, had he wished to demonstrate simply that he had provided an

imprecisely defined, symbolic ‘good’ for the city, he easily could have done so, and with an impressive list of good deeds at that.74 Instead, he enables the jurors to calculate an exact monetary value for his return—63,600 drachmas (at least)—and it is this number that he seems to weigh when he begs the jury not to think that there is “so much money” (tosau=ta xrh/mata) for the sake of which he might wish ill upon the polis (Lys. 21.21). By providing precise financial expenses, he is able to demonstrate how absurd his opponent’s case must be: why spend 63,600 drachmas on ‘good’ for the community in order to receive its goodwill in return, only to turn around and squander that investment by taking bribes and thereby incurring ill-will? Far from being merely a spectacular

3.148, 6.72, 6.82.1-2, 8.29-30, 9.2.3, 9.5.1-2, 9.41.2-4. Cf. Hdt. 5.30.6, 5.31.2; Timotheus fr. 790 Page; Dem. 9.41-4, 19.271-2. A statue of Conon was erected in the Agora in 393 after Cnidus in recognition of his military and financial support—cf. Dem. 20.68-70 and see Gauthier (1985: 96-7)—and note how Alcibiades tried to win the King’s resources explicitly to help, not harm, the city (Plut. Alc. 37.4). 73 We can push this trend back at least to the last decade of the Peloponnesian War. Certainly, as the treasury was gradually depleted during the war, the Athenians had enacted similar reforms: notably in 414/3 the collection of a 5% tax (eikostē) on imports and exports throughout the empire instead of the allied tribute, collection of which had apparently been ineffective: Thuc. 7.28.4 with excellent discussion in Kallet (2001: 196-9). As Kallet details, the imposition of the eikostē, which was a purely economic matter presumably lacking the tribute’s overt political connotations of subjugation, marked a broader shift in how the Athenians were thinking about archē. Increasingly, archē was framed in economic, not political, terms. See further Kallet (2001: 196-204). 74 Contrast the mere passing mention of liturgies performed and dangers endured on behalf of the polis at, for example, Ant. 2.2.12, Is. 5.41.1, Lys. 3.47.

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display of his largesse, the defendant’s catalogue of liturgical expenses signifies his innocence and illustrates how irrational his opponent’s claim surely must be. This is a remarkable argument in context. In other speeches defendants cite their liturgies as an argument from ethos:

a demonstration of their good character and,

occasionally, a reason why they should be treated leniently by the courts.75 Indeed, this is how the defendant in Lysias 21 opens his speech, and he draws attention to this exact phenomenon after finishing his own catalogue of liturgies (Lys. 21.11, 17). Yet his argument from ethos subtly shifts into an argument from logos, or reason, in two different ways. He claims that, because elites plunder the city’s coffers, it would be “worth it” (a1cion) for the community to continue relying on a sure source of revenue, i.e. the defendant’s financial contributions, rather than to confiscate his property and to have the city manage it (Lys. 21.13-14). The defendant’s phrasing here is particularly strong, as he claims that he would make a better tamias—treasurer—than the official tamiai of the city (Lys. 21.14).76 Precisely because the financial returns accrued by the city would be greater if the defendant were to keep his money than if the city were to take it, confiscating his property would be tantamount to injustice (cf. a)dikh/sete, Lys. 21.14).

75

See above note 57. Schmitz (1995: 87-8) rightly discusses this passage in conjunction with the common rhetorical refrain that the polis would beneft most by letting the rich manage their own money, but it should be noted that the defendant here presents a variation on the standard topos. Rather than say that the polis would benefit less by taking his property than by leaving it alone, the defendant insinuates that the people would not benefit at all, for others would ‘divide it amongst themselves’ (diane/mountai, in the middle voice, Lys. 21.14). This subtle variation allows the defendant to transform his version into an argument about political justice. As a matter of justice, he assumes, the community is owed reciprocity, and only by letting the defendant remain tamias of his own property could that just outcome be obtained; otherwise, the community would suffer from negative reciprocity at the hands of plundering elites. 76

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His is a logical argument predicated on how much money the community would receive: a vote for the greatest financial gain would be a vote for justice.77 The second argument from logos comes towards the end of the speech, when, as we just saw, the defendant proves his innocence by showing how irrational it would have been for him to have taken bribes in the first place (Lys. 21.21-22). His argument is strikingly similar to those made by political economists today who employ rational actor models in studying contemporary corruption. Just as they emphasize that the proper context of incentives and sanctions will determine whether or not someone is inclined to take bribes, the defendant claims that in no way would taking bribes have been in his own best interests. If anything, he asserts, it would have been irrational (cf. mainoi/mhn, Lys. 21.22).

As with the previous argument predicated on the community’s pursuit of

financial resources, his defense rests on the assumption that he, too, would always try to maximize wealth. With both of these arguments, therefore, the defendant employs logos—rational, impersonal reasoning—that reduces questions of political justice to profit maximization. It seems we are back in the world of Wealth, with its thoroughly financialized vision of politics and society. Yet the argumentation employed in Lysias 21 sheds light on how, or why, that world became so financialized. In Lysias 21 the financialization of political justice is ultimately underpinned by the defendant’s shift from ethos to logos: that is, a shift from arguments based on inherent character to those based on impersonal reason. Although the defendant begins his speech by focusing intently on his own character, he ultimately shies away from such a personalized view of justice. Instead, in the course of 77

In making this argument, the defendant virtually equates justice (ta\ di/kaia) with the financial benefits he provides the people (ta\ lusitelou=nta), as they amount to one and the same thing: his own acquittal (Lys. 21.12).

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transforming his list of liturgies into an argument from logos, he opens up a depersonalized space wherein any citizen in his position would have acted the same way (i.e. not have taken bribes) and consequently would have merited an acquittal (as the most profitable outcome for the polis).78 The image of the dōrodokos in Lysias 21 negatively frames a positive image of political justice, one predicated on impersonal—let us say ‘arms-length’—social distance. In so doing, that image signals what was a critical shift in how politics was conducted at the turn of the century. Earlier we saw how changes necessary for financial recovery in the wake of both the Peloponnesian War and the debt accrued by the Thirty helped shift the Athenians’ focus towards evaluating the outcome of an action in terms of the money it might bring the community. As Lysias 21 obliquely suggests, moreover, Athens’ attempts at political recovery in the shadow of the Thirty also contributed to the transformation of the dōrodokos into a greedy elite. By opening up a greater space for arms-length ties in the public sphere, within which space the Athenians could frame political injustice in increasingly impersonal terms, these political reforms sought to prevent public officials from providing bads for the community’s goods, just as the Thirty had done. These changes began immediately with the Amnesty of 403, which signaled a common desire to make political justice more impersonal. Recall that one hallmark of the Thirty’s reign was an ad hominem use of political process: they had subverted the courts to make personal attacks on elite citizens and had personally selected who could

78

That this space is effectively depersonalized, i.e. removed from any personal investment the actors may have, is clear from the defendant’s comment that, ideally, the benefited should not judge their benefactors (Lys. 21.22). As he himself notes, however, while such a non-private space would be ideal, it is moot in his case precisely because he has benefited the entire community (so there is nobody left to judge him).

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and could not be a member of the 3,000. By contrast, with the Amnesty the Athenians chose to forget completely the entire period of the Thirty, in effect refusing to punish specific individuals for their specific crimes. That the Thirty and other officials from the oligarchy had to undergo a scrutiny before being admitted back into the polity only underscored that they should be brought to trial as offending public officials, not private citizens.79 The Athenians thereby laid a foundation of impersonal justice, and in fact later that year they passed a law making it illegal to create ad hominem legislation (And. 1.87).80 In short, the Amnesty epitomized the Athenians’ commitment to shaping law and justice around the abstract, impartial concept of a citizen, rather than the highly subjective image of an individual.81 Lysias 21 was delivered probably within only a couple years of the Amnesty, yet its nod towards impartial political justice points to a trend in political reforms that would continue for decades. One significant way that the Athenians tried to create a more depersonalized space for justice was by further separating the ‘private’ and ‘public’ 79

Note how it was only after the Thirty that it became routine for all public officials to submit their accounts at the end of office: see Chapter Six below. Accordingly, that only formal officials under the oligarchy would be brought to justice could have signaled the Athenians’ commitment to a new system of mandatory accountability for all officials. 80 As the defendant of Lysias 21 suggests, justice was to be a fair exchanged based on mutual good character (Lys. 21. 12, 14), a notion which would later underpin the increasingly greater use of contracts in conducting maritime trade: Cohen (1971), and recently Lanni (2006: 149-74). Even the role of judicial witnesses like a speaker’s family members, epitomes of a highly discretionary mode of justice, was severely curtailed. Sometime in the early fourth century it became compulsory for witness testimony to be presented in written, not oral, form at a public trial: Ruschenbusch (1989: 34-5) suggests an early fourthcentury date, while Rhodes (1995: 310-11) cautiously posits sometime in the 370’s. Although this law was probably introduced to diminish the incidence of witness perjury—so Dem. 45.44, [Dem.] 46.6, Humphreys (1985: 321-2)—it nevertheless could have prevented witnesses from arguing impassionately (and subjectively) on behalf of a particular litigant: Rubinstein (2000: 72-5). 81 Of course, this process was never complete, and throughout the fourth century, too, we find speakers appealing to the jurors qua individuals: Allen (2000), Lanni (2006). Still, the shift to a more abstract concept of law—argued for especially in Ostwald (1986), Sealey (1987), and Harris (2006)—is much more pronounced around the turn of the century, as epitomized by Socrates’ discussion of the laws in Plato’s Crito. While I would not refer to the Athenian legal system even in the fourth century as ‘the rule of law’—see especially Chapter Five below—one central claim I make here is that after the Thirty the Athenians made the space of law and justice even more ‘depersonalized’ than it had been in the fifth century.

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spheres. In the last chapter we saw how in the fifth century a Cimon might be extolled for lavishly spending his money in private, albeit on informal public services like feeding his demesmen. In the fourth century, however, as the speaker of Lysias 21 suggests, the paradigm was to be frugal in private, to spend one’s money only on formal public liturgies.82 In this sense, it is important to note the striking extent to which the speaker of Lysias 21 divides monies into ‘mine’ and ‘yours’, that is, into private and public funds.83 Indeed, such a clear demarcation of monies is good evidence that the dēmos’ earlier desire to control political monies and to legitimate only certain liturgical channels had worked. Crucially, the growing depersonalization of the public sphere—its further and clearer demarcation from the private sphere, as found in Lysias 21—was born of concrete changes in the patterns of social relationships that were leveraged within the practice of politics. Two political trends in particular contributed to the continued growth of this depersonalized space. First, as emblematized by the creation of a series of new political boards, there was a greater focus on collaborating and thereby preventing the concentration of political authority within a single domain.84 The board of nomothetai, or lawgivers, provided an immediate check on the Assembly’s lawmaking abilities, helping to prevent conflicting or unclear legislation.85 Similarly, a board of forty dikastai kata

82

Cf. Lys. 21.16. On this point, Humphreys (1978b) is essential. See, for example, Lys. 21.11, 13-14, 15, 16. Again, for the speaker the mere possession of such funds constitutes an essentially private, or personalized, act that should be far removed from the impartial justice required in the public sphere. For this reason, he remarks that benefactors probably should not be judged by their beneficiaries (Lys. 21.22). 84 On the increased coordination among fourth-century public officials and political bodies, see especially Rhodes (1980: 303); on Athenian political coordination more generally, see Ober (2008). 85 The nomothetai were a board of ten, selected one per tribe from the list of annually selected jurors, beginning either in 403/2 or in 399 after the completed revision of the law code. On the nomothesia process, see Harrison (1955), MacDowell (1975), Rhodes (1985), Ostwald, (1986: 521-2) Hansen (1991: 165-75). 83

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dēmou, or traveling judges, was restored, augmented, and relocated to the city center; and coordination was the central focus in the creation of both the symmories, as we saw above, and a new selection procedure for secretaries.86 This bureaucratic expansion certainly helped the workings of the democracy, yet one probable consequence of such increased collaboration was that it diluted the social ties of the actors involved. With more collaboration and with collaboration among more people, the kinds of relationships formed through and leveraged within the political process would have tended closer to arms-length, what we might call ‘professional’ ties.87 Indeed, even outside of political boards, we find political groups more atomized in the fourth century, as their membership changed more rapidly than it had in the fifth century.88 This change was due no doubt in part to Athens’ desire to recover politically from the Thirty. Whereas close relationships had prevailed among the hetaireiai that oligarchs had leveraged for political power in the late fifth century, in the new democracy the political clubs were effectively discolored by their associations with the oligarchs, and they ceased to be such powerful political tools.89 Instead, elite political associations

86

dikastai kata dēmou: AP 53.1, Haussoullier (1979: 123-6), Whitehead (1986: 261-4). On the symmories and collaboration, see especially Rhodes (1980: 311). In the fifth century secretaries had been selected from the Council (IG ii2 104-107), but later in the fourth century they were selected from the citizen population at large (IG ii2 110-11; cf. AP 54.3). This, too, fostered coordination among still more officials. 87 Arms-length ties, the now familiar ideal in corporate and political contexts, are marked by either brief or standardized social interaction: see Granovetter (1985), Uzzi (1997), Zelizer (2005b). Commonly they are thought of as ‘impersonal’ ties, but this just means that the content of the ties tends towards exemplifying social distance (as between strangers) than social intimacy (as between friends or family). The larger a corporate body engaged in collective action, the more diluted the relational ties typically are—and hence the greater the social distance, on average, between actors. In showing that there was greater participation in the fourth-century democracy, Taylor (2008) provides indirect evidence for the dilution of social ties within fourth-century politics. 88 Strauss’ (1985: 11-41) sociological analysis of politics in the early fourth century is essential on this point. 89 Calhoun (1916), Strauss (1985: 11-41).

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were managed by smaller, more short-lived groups of leaders at the top.90 In this way, the social ties that characterized these boards—and, more broadly, how deliberative politics was conducted—were closer to depersonalized arms-length ties.91 A second way in which the public sphere became more depersonalized was through the standardization of practices within institutional bodies. Such a shift could have had a significant impact on the social character of the space in which those practices were conducted. As we will see in detail in Chapter Six, the processes for holding public officials accountable were standardized at the end of the fifth century; this meant that all public officials had to go through the exact same process of appearing before financial examiners (logistai), then examiners (euthynoi).92 Likewise, in the first third of the century, the selection of jurors and magistrates was routinized with increasingly complex sortition processes.93

One effect of such routinization was to ensure that citizens

underwent the same process, meaning that no one individual would be given more or less fair treatment. This same impetus underpins the standardization of public honors in terms of the language or phrases used as well as, later in the century, the frequency with which

90

A distinct yet analogous shift can be detected in how citizens were praised publicly by the community. Beginning around 412, abstract nouns and adjectives that marked membership in a broad corporate group— i.e. those desiring the dēmos’ praise—supplanted more individualized forms of honor: Whitehead (1993: 47) with sources. Certainly these abstract forms of praise were used in reponse to oligarchic sentiments as a way of distinguishing between ‘us’ and ‘them’, democrats and oligarchs; yet it is striking how, in response to the threat (and actuality) of oligarchy, the Athenians defined democracy in abstract, impersonal terms, just as we have been tracing. 91 Note how in Plato’s Republic it is the impersonal force of rational reason which is meant to guide the Guardians’ political decisions. Just as the Guardians were to be kept utterly separated from private interests like money or family ties, so, too, was the justice of their decisions predicated on depersonalized deliberation. 92 For a description of this process, see Andoc. 1.78, AP 48.3-5 and recently Efstathiou (2007). 93 AP 63-6 provides details: see also Chapter Seven below.

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they were awarded.94 Political justice was characterized by an impersonal, routinized approach to political process. With increased political collaboration and a greater routinization of political process, the practice of democratic politics in the early fourth century most likely would have been marked by a greater prevalence of arms-length, professional ties. I would suggest, further, that such ‘professionalization’ of politics was not merely a consequence but was actually an intended result of at least some of Athens’ institutional changes. So the defendant of Lysias 21 underscores that people should not be judged by those they benefit (Lys. 21.22). To modern eyes, his sentiment certainly brings to mind the obvious idea of conflict of interest, but, again, it is important to remember that this idea emerged prominently in Athenian politics precisely after a period in which oligarchs had used the city’s political institutions for their own interests.

Athens’ shift towards a more

depersonalized space for politics, itself tied to the concurrent ‘financialization’ of civic obligations, was a conscious shift away from the Thirty’s mode of self-interested political practice, as emblematized by the greedy dōrodokos. Accordingly, it is likely that the creation of more arms-length ties in politics went hand-in-hand with Athens’ political recovery in the restored democracy. This chapter has explored two main reasons why the money-loving, thieving dōrodokos appeared in Athens in the generation after the Thirty. Emphasizing a financial return constituted both a sign of Athens’ own need for money after the Peloponnesian 94

Praise: see above n. 90. Standardized language appears especially on decrees passed without change from the Council’s recommendations: cf. Rhodes (1972: 52-81), who collects the sources. The prescripts of decrees also became standardized with the archon’s name and precise dating according to the Athenian political or sacrificial calndears—a marked change from the fifth century’s use of names without patronymics or demotics for identifying the secretary, prytaneis, and proposer of the decree: Henry (1977: 49). By much later in the century (340’s BCE), even the awarding of public honors had become routine for completion of certain offices: AP 46.1; Aeschin. 1.111-12, Dem. 22.36, 22.38-9; cf. Dem. 22.8-20 with Whitehead (1983: 73n.32).

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War and, especially, a metaphor for understanding the oligarchs’ problematic relationship to the polity. Thinking through the relationship between Athens’ elite and the rest of the community, the Athenians thought with the dōrodokos. Moreover, as our reading of Wealth and Lysias 21 has demonstrated, configuring the dōrodokos as a greedy thief entailed a ‘financialization’ of the ways in which civic obligations were understood. With a proliferation of arms-length ties in the practice of politics, and with the creation of political institutions focused almost exclusively on gaining a quantifiable financial return, the public sphere in Athens grew, becoming more like the bureaucratic world to which modern readers are more accustomed. Of course, Athens would not always remain in the shadow of the Thirty, and by mid-century shortly after the Social War, she had made almost a full recovery, economically as well as politically. But with that recovery came a new problem: the rise of Philip of Macedon and the growing threat he posed to Athenian freedom. As the next chapter explores, with these changes in Athens’ economic and political fortunes, dōrodokia again shifted meaning, becoming an ever graver threat to the democracy.

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The Democracy in Danger: Dōrodokia and the Rise of the “Crop of Traitors” 378-322 BCE

As Athens tried to move out of the shadow of the Thirty, she faced an increasingly unstable Greek world, one dominated by inter-state alliances and warfare. Indeed, as leading city-states rose to relative prominence—first Sparta, then Athens in the 370’s, followed by Thebes in the 360’s—much of the rest of the Greek world allied against them in order to control any potentially new threat. The Second Athenian League was one such alliance, directed against Sparta upon its initial formation in 378 but later counterpoised against Thebes after Sparta’s defeat at Leuctra. Yet by 355, the League was in shambles after the conclusion of the two-year Social War, in which a number of Athens’ allies had revolted. With these shifts in international alliances frequently came civil conflict, or stasis, as cities changed regimes to signal changed allegiances. Even with such inter-state alliances, no area in Greece was stable for long, for tensions were high both inside and outside the city.1 Stasis, then, was an enduring feature of the fourth century Greek polis.2 Importantly for this chapter, the fear of stasis lay at the heart of the dominant image of

1

On these developments, see Seager (1974), Davies (1978: 168-70), Cargill (1981), Cawkwell (1981), Jehne (1994), Dreher (1995). The fourth century was rife with stasis: just a cursory overview encounters violent revolutions in Corcyra (Xen. Hell. 6.2.3-15; Diod. 15.46-7, 15.95.3; Aen. Tact. 11.13-15), Corinth (Xen. Hell. 4.4.1-13) and the Peloponnese (Isoc. 6.64-7, Diod. 15.40). Cf. Tod 144.25-6, 147.28-9 for examples of explicit clauses against constitutional subversion in interstate alliances. 2 An overview of stasis in the fourth century can be found in Fuks (1972, 1977, 1979) on social tensions in Isocrates and Plato’s Republic and Laws, respectively; de Ste. Croix (1981: 292-9); Lintott (1982: 22238); Gehrke (1985) catalogues and analyzes instances of stasis in the fifth and fourth centuries. It should be noted that, while stasis has been interpreted as a primarily political phenomenon instigated by a foreign power—so Ruschenbusch (1978b), Lintott and Gehrke—Fuks and de Ste. Croix (1981: esp. 293-5) rightly

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the dōrodokos that emerged in the second half of the fourth century. In the ‘amnesia’ following the stasis of the late fifth century the dōrodokos had become thoroughly financialized, but, as the century progressed, he was increasingly viewed in starkly political terms. As this chapter examines, the thief soon gave way to the traitor. The image of a traitorous dōrodokos was closely connected to the rise of Philip II of Macedon, an enormously wealthy king with an impressively large army.3 Philip’s progressive gaining of the helm of Greek affairs dominated the political landscape from the 350’s until his death in 336. Looking back at this period, in 330 in his most famous speech On the Crown the orator Demosthenes links Philip’s rise to both dōrodokia and the stasis it bred: In all the Greek states—not in some but in every one of them—it chanced that there had sprung up the most abundant crop of traitorous, venal, and profligate politicians ever known within the memory of mankind. These persons Philip adopted as his satellites and accomplices. The disposition of Greeks towards one another was already vicious and quarrelsome; and he made it worse. Some he cajoled; some he bribed; some he corrupted in every possible way. He split them into many factions, although all had one common interest—to thwart his aggrandizement.4

remind that there were significant social and economic factors augmenting these political tensions within poleis. 3 Under Philip’s guidance, Macedonia developed from a rugged, pastoral society into a cultured and prosperous, agricultural-based community (Arrian, An. 7.9.2-3). Macedonia was rich in gold and silver mines (Hdt. 5.17, Thuc. 4.108.1, Diod. 16.8.6) as well as in timber (Dem. 19.89), and Philip developed both industries to a remarkable degree. During Philip’s heyday from 348 to 336, his coinage was actually the strongest currency in Europe, and Macedon’s resources were numerous times greater than those of Athens even during her revival under Lycurgus. With such enormous resources, Diodorus writes, Philip employed a considerable army which also proved vital to Macedonian expansion (Diod. 16.8.7). On Philip’s wealth and the success of the Macedonian army, see further Cawkwell (1978: 47-8) and especially Hammond in Hammond and Griffith (1979: 2.651-71). 4 Dem. 18.61, which I reproduce in full to highlight the tight sequence of dōrodokia, betrayal and stasis (in bold): para_ ga_r toi=j 3Ellhsin, ou) tisi/n, a)ll' a3pasin o(moi/wj, fora_n prodotw~n kai\ kai\ dwrodo&kwn kai\ qeoi=j e0xqrw~n a)nqrw&pwn sune/bh gene/sqai tosau&thn o3shn ou)dei/j pw pro&teron me/mnhtai gegonui=an: ou4j sunagwnista_j kai\ sunergou_j labw_n kai\ pro&teron kakw~j tou_j 3Ellhnaj e1xontaj pro_j e9autou_j kai\ stasiastikw~j e1ti xei=ron die/qhke, tou_j me\n e0capatw~n, toi=j de\ didou&j, tou_j de\ pa&nta tro&pon diafqei/ diafqei/rwn, wn kai\ die/sthsen ei0j me/rh polla&, e9no_j tou~ sumfe/rontoj a3pasin o1ntoj, kwlu&ein e0kei=non me/gan gi/gnesqai. For other references to this ‘crop of traitors’ cf. Aeschin. 3.234, Diod. 16.54.2, 16.85.4 and, generally, Cargill (1985).

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For Demosthenes, as well as for other contemporary Athenians, Philip’s arrival on the Greek political scene heralded the rise of a horde of traitors: not merely a handful of corrupt individuals acting in isolation, but an entire ‘crop’ of rogues from all over Greece who formed factions, instigated stasis and thus betrayed their cities for the price of a bribe. Philip’s wealth and dōrodokia became the hallmarks of Greek politics in the final decades of the Athenian democracy, and, as we will see, it was in light of both their attitudes towards Philip’s diplomacy and its purported link to stasis that the Athenians began to reshape their understanding of the dōrodokos.5 As in the case of Timagoras, whose fateful gifts from the Persian king were investigated in the Introduction, the bribe-takers lambasted by Demosthenes were considered traitors to their city.

What is crucial for our purposes, though, is that

supposedly they were not working alone. Unlike Timagoras, who was singled out for his treasonous politicking with the enemy, the purported traitors on Philip’s payroll were a concerted group acting from within the city. Philip’s trademark brand of diplomacy was thus thought to have fomented factions within the city: the threat of dōrodokia was a threat of stasis as well. So, for example, in the Third Philippic, delivered in 341, Demosthenes holds up the town of Olynthus as a model for the evil overcoming all of Greece (Dem. 9.56-62). At Olynthus, he says, the city was divided into those subservient to Philip in all respects (pa/nq’ u(phretou=ntej) and those trying to ensure that the citizens not become Philip’s slaves (Dem. 9.56; cf. Diod. 16.53.2). Though the orator does not put a number on them, Philip’s partisans in Olynthus appeared to be numerous, for, as he claims, they

5

On Philip’s reputation for bribing, cf. Dem. 18.19, 18.61, 19.300; Diod. 16.8.7, 16.53.3, 16.54.3-4, 16.55.4, 16.95; cf. Plut. Mor. 178a-b. See further Ryder (1994) and Mitchell (1997: 149-50).

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systematically ruined the city by maliciously prosecuting and slandering the city’s defenders until the dēmos was won over (Dem. 9.56).

As Demosthenes chillingly

describes of the town of Oreus, it was Philip who directed and funded the inevitable civil conflict that ensued when his hirelings, now a partisan mass, fought against the city’s staunch defenders (Dem. 9.59-62).6 Given that stasis was a persistent problem throughout the fourth century, though, Philip was no more its cause than were Thebes, Sparta, and indeed Athens. In this respect, Demosthenes’ suggestion that the problem of political instability was due directly to Philip’s rise is misleading. In fact, the orator’s alarming portrayal of Philip’s systematic and systematically corrupt rise, though shared by a number of contemporary Athenians, was misleading in two further respects, as well. It presupposed a Macedonian policy of methodical expansion, as if Philip began with some master plan for taking over all of Greece and for targeting Athens in particular. But, as numerous scholars have shown, Philip’s actions in context often seem more like shrewd ad hoc measures than an actual preconceived plan to take over Athenian territory in Attica, let alone all of Greece.7 6

Calling Philip the chorēgos (choir-director) and prytanis (president; cf. xorhgo\n e)/xontej Fi/lippon kai\ prutaneuo/menoi, Dem. 9.60), Demosthenes borrows civic language from the democracy, thereby showing how Philip’s presence effectively subverted the workings of democratic institutions. 7 Harris (1995: 115-6); Cawkwell (1978: 108-13), who reaches a similar conclusion about Philip’s aims in 346; and especially Buckler (1996: 84-6); cf. de Ste Croix (1981: 292). In the case of Olynthus, for example, Philip seemed to be after money, not power, just as Diodorus attests (Diod. 16.53.3); indeed, Philip’s actions against minor players in the Chalcidian Federation suggest that he might never have anticipated the capture of Olynthus one year later: cf. Diod. 16.53.2 and Ryder (2000: 53). Moreover, Cawkwell (1978: 122-3) reminds that some poleis welcomed Philip with open arms, hailing him as their savior, and at least in these cases Philip’s dōrodokia was irrelevant. The rhetoric of Macedonian expansionism was common in Demosthenes: e.g. 8.2, 8.14, 8.18, 8.60, 9.6-19. So, for instance, in the Third Philippic the orator ends a chronological survey of Philip’s conquests with the summary statement, “Neither the Greek nor the barbarian world is big enough for the fellow’s [sc. Philip’s] greed” (pleoneci/a, Dem. 9.27). Cf. Dem. 19.315-31. Still, it was seemingly not until the First Philippic (351) that Demosthenes viewed Philip as a true threat: cf. Ryder (2000: 45-51); de Ste Croix (1981: 607n.36) places this turning point earlier (352), while Harris (1995: 50) would locate this turning point still later at the fall of Olynthus in 348 (cf. Dem. 19.101-2, 302-6, Aeschin. 2.79). Either way, Philip was not always a manifest threat for Demosthenes, and in fact the orator himself later confessed to exaggeration in depicting Philip as waging war against all Greeks (Dem. 18.20, 24).

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Distortion also enters into Demosthenes’ picture in his depiction of all of Philip’s dōra as bribes, even though in some cases those dōra make more sense as financial support for a military venture than as corrupting payments meant to benefit only a select few. In the case of Philip’s activity in the Peloponnese, for example, his funds seem to have been provided not to induce stasis, but to help various poleis ward off Spartan aggression.8 Still, despite these historical ‘inaccuracies’, it is crucial that many Athenians seem to have accepted this storyline exactly as Demosthenes and other prominent Athenians told it.9 In other words, Demosthenes’ picture, however inaccurate, had considerable resonance in Athens in the latter half of the fourth century; indeed, it might be not so much ‘inaccurate’ as representative of broader contestations of the legitimacy of Philip’s diplomacy and the consequent significance of his expansionism. Why, then, did stories about the rise of Philip and his diplomatic use of dōrodokia take the specific form that they did? What was persuasive about imagining that a faction of corrupt men would betray the city, and what did conjuring up this image gain for an orator like Demosthenes? As this chapter examines, the image of a traitorous dōrodokos was quite malleable during this period, so we should dig beneath its surface to uncover the hidden factors that shaped its framework. In order to answer these questions, let us turn to Demosthenes’ speech On the False Embassy, in which he prosecutes his rival Aeschines for taking bribes from Philip while they were both on an embassy to Macedon during the middle of Philip’s aggressive 8

Although Demosthenes later repeats his claim that a handful of Arcadians, Argives, and Messenians had turned traitorous (Dem. 18.295), we have no evidence of factional struggles in these cities. To the contrary, the historian Polybius’ defense of these purported traitors is a strong indication of Demosthenic hyperbole here (Polyb. 18.14.6): Ryder (1994: 238-41). 9 Cf. Isoc. 5.73-5; Aeschin. 2.72-3; Dem. 2.4, 4.18, 5.12, 8.20, 8.53, 8.61-6, 9.14, 9.36-47, 9.49, 9.53, 9.637. Although we cannot push this argument too far, another potential indication of the persuasiveness of Demosthenes’ narrative is the substantial political success he enjoyed from 346 until Philip’s death, on which period see especially Ryder (2000).

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By examining how and why the orator distorts his

narrative about Philip’s diplomacy, we can begin to understand the underlying concerns that shaped this dominant image of the dōrodokos in the second half of the fourth century. The next section will take up how and why the traitorous dōrodokos appeared in wholly domestic contexts, as well. From 357, when Philip seized the Athenian territories of Amphipolis and Pydna in northern Greece, Macedon and Athens were at war (Aeschin. 2.70, 3.54; Isoc. 5.2). For the most part, Athens was unable to thwart Philip’s advance, as he slowly secured a major portion of northern Greece, including Athens’ last strategic stronghold in Chalcidice, Olynthus, the loss of which in 348 we saw bitterly recounted in the Third Philippic. By 347, when Philip agreed to enter into peace negotiations with Athens, he was knocking on the door of central Greece, about to march in and settle an ongoing war between Athens’ ally Phocis and her bitter enemy Thebes. Early the next year, ten envoys—including Philocrates and the orators Aeschines and Demosthenes—were sent to Macedon to negotiate the peace.

The First Embassy returned to Athens, where

Philocrates persuaded the Athenian Assembly to ratify the Peace of Philocrates, which recognized the current holdings of both Athens and Macedon. The same envoys were elected to the Second Embassy, charged with getting Philip to swear to the same terms, yet a whole two months passed before Philip would meet the embassy. By the time Philip swore to the treaty’s terms, Macedon had acquired even more territory in the north,

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including former Athenian holdings, and Philip soon settled the Third Sacred War by destroying Athens’ ally Phocis.10 As the dust settled on the events of 346, the Athenians quickly realized that the Peace of Philocrates and its aftermath were an utter failure for the city: with the Peace, all of Philip’s gains in northern Greece over the previous decade had been recognized, and now he had a major hand in controlling affairs in central Greece. Still, Aeschines, a strong advocate for maintaining diplomatic ties with Macedon, continued to push for rapprochement with Philip. When in 343 these efforts at diplomacy fell apart, Philocrates and Aeschines, both major proponents of the Peace, were in trouble. Philocrates was charged with treason and fled Athens rather than face trial; and, with public opinion decisively on his side, Demosthenes prosecuted Aeschines for misconduct on the Second Embassy.11 Demosthenes’ speech On the False Embassy is based on his prosecution speech on that occasion.12 It is abundantly clear from Demosthenes’ prosecution speech that, in the orator’s eyes at least, his opponent Aeschines took bribes from Philip, and he was a traitor for doing so. Throughout, Demosthenes’ clear focus is on his opponent’s bribe-taking: no fewer than 55 times he accuses Aeschines of being on Philip’s payroll, of which instances

10

For a more detailed background to these events with primary sources, see Griffith in Hammond and Griffith (1979: 2.216-328), Sealey (1993: 50-101), Paulsen (1999: 28-45), Buckler (2000: 117-32), Ryder (2000: 45-72). 11 Griffith in Hammond and Griffith (1979: 2.450-95), Harris (1995: 102-15), Paulsen (1999: 45-50), Buckler (2000: 132-4) and MacDowell (2000: 1-14) helpfully collect the primary sources on the aftermath of the Peace of Philocrates. 12 On the trial itself, see recently Harris (1995: 116-18), Buckler (2000: 134-40), MacDowell (2000: 1422). For Demosthenes’ prosecution speech (Dem. 19) and Aeschines’ defense speech (Aeschin. 2), recent commentaries by MacDowell (2000) on Demosthenes and by Paulsen (1999) on both speeches are invaluable.

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at least 13 also insinuate that Aeschines was a traitor.13 In the opening of the speech, Demosthenes underscores how Aeschines failed in every one of his duties as an ambassador—by providing a dishonest report to the people, giving them bad advice, not following their explicit instructions, and wasting precious time that the city could have used to pursue other opportunities (Dem. 19.4-6)—and each one of these failures was thought due to the receipt of dōra (Dem. 19.4, 7-8). More damning is Demosthenes’ repeated accusation that Aeschines “profited at the city’s expense,” a refrain familiar from the earlier part of the fourth century, as we examined in the last chapter.14 Yet, instead of profiting at the city’s financial expense, as the accusation earlier signaled, Aeschines is accused of actively bringing ruin to the city. That is, he is accused of being a traitor, not a thief. His personal profit is weighed against the destruction of Athens’ ally Phocis and, Demosthenes suggests, the eventual ruin of Athens herself.15 Beneath the veneer of these accusations lay a much larger, more sustained problem, one critical to the very security of the polis: for the democracy to survive, ambassadors had to be honest and trustworthy (Dem. 19.182-4).16 As the orator warns, there would surely be dire consequences for trusting in a traitor like Aeschines.17 In

13

Dem. 19.8, 9, 16, 19-20, 27, 29, 68, 88, 94, 97, 102, 104, 110, 111-3, 114-5, 116-18, 120, 121, 125, 127, 134, 142, 143-6, 147, 149, 201, 205, 209, 220, 236, 243-5, 254-5, 279, 286, 292-3, 301, 303-9, 308, 313, 316, 328-9, 331 to which should be added the orator’s accusations that Aeschines was a traitor for taking bribes: Dem. 19. 88, 90, 133, 146, 178, 180, 182-4, 207-8, 229, 258, 301-2. 14 The accusation recurs throughout Demosthenes’ speeches: Dem. 3.29, 8.66, 17.11, 18.109, 18.211-7, 18.250, 18.298-9, 18.320, 21.123-5 57.60. 15 Dem. 19.7, 275. This weighing of interests recurs throughout Demosthenes’ speech: e.g. Dem. 19.8, 90, 143-6, 147, 149. Cf. 18.298-9. 16 As a result, Demosthenes frequently upholds his own, purportedly trustworthy actions and reports as a foil to Aeschines’: cf. Dem. 19.15-16, 18, 33, 45-6, 150-2 with 155 and 157, 205-8, 211-12, 223, 229-30. In response, Aeschines takes a similar tack, foregrounding Demosthenes’ ties with Philip’s purported hireling Philocrates, while distancing himself from Philocrates: Aeschin. 2.14, 18, 54, 56, 63-6, 69; cf. 3.58, 69, 79. 17 Indeed, to further this aim the orator’s accusations repeatedly link Aeschines’ bribe-taking to purported instances of lying: because Aeschines was bribed, he lied in his reports to the Assembly, he lied about Philip’s intentions while giving advice to the people, and in this manner he committed the greatest

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describing the resolution to the Third Sacred War, when on Aeschines’ advice the Phocians handed over their cities to Philip, Demosthenes stresses the trust placed in Aeschines when he was giving his policy recommendations: You hear that, men of Athens...‘the Phocians are to hand over their cities’, it says, ‘to Philip’—not to the Thebans, nor the Thessalians, nor anyone else. Why? Because it was reported to you by Aeschines that Philip had come for the preservation of Phocis. They put all their trust in Aeschines (tou&tw| dh_ pa&nt' e0pi/steuon); they were guided by him in all their considerations; they were guided by him in making peace....Notice how they trusted and how they suffered (ti/ pisteu&santej ti/ e1pasxon)...No more terrible or more serious events, men of Athens, have occurred in Greece in our time, nor I think in the past either. (Dem. 19.62-4)

The Phocians placed their trust in the wrong man and subsequently were devastated by Philip (cf. Dem. 19.53). Nor were the Phocians the only ones who made the fatal mistake of trusting one of Philip’s secret hirelings. We saw earlier in the Third Philippic how the destruction of Olynthus provided a vivid paradigm for the havoc that Philip might wreak, so it is telling that when Demosthenes reprises the story in On the False Embassy, he specifically points towards the Olynthians’ foolishness in trusting corrupt speakers like Lasthenes and Euthycrates. Significantly, instead of pointing to just those two traitors by name, Demosthenes says that there were (at least) two more unnamed people who joined Philip’s side; in effect, the corruption was spreading. Even as more and more people inexplicably came upon more and more riches—and all to the disadvantage of the city— the Olynthians continued to follow their pro-Macedonian leaders, trusting in them even more (cf.pistote/rouj h(gh&santo), at times even honoring them and thereby bringing upon themselves their own demise (Dem. 19.265).18

conceivable wrong to the city (Dem. 19.184). His actions were “fine and trustworthy” (kalo\j ka)gaqo\j kai\ di/kaioj) only to his paymaster Philip; to the city they were nothing short of treason (Dem. 19.110). 18 On Lasthenes and Euthycrates, cf. Dem. 8.40, 9.66, 18.48, 19.265, 19.342; Din. 1.26; Hyp. Fr. B19.1; Diod. 16.53.2; Griffith in Hammond and Griffith (1979: 2.323).

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For Demosthenes, a disease (no/shma) was sweeping across Greece, infecting leaders and corrupting them to stir up civil strife within their cities. This stasis sprang from a partisan, self-interested desire by otherwise trusted citizens to gratify Philip by handing the city over to him (Dem. 19.259-67).19 Corrupted under the guise of friendship (philia) with Philip, these traitors sought to satisfy their philos even if that meant destroying their polis (Dem. 19.259; cf. 18.51-2).20 And if the destruction across the rest of Greece was any sort of guide, Demosthenes suggests, Athens was in trouble. Within her walls were veritable traitors: Philocrates (only just in exile), Aeschines, Phrynon, Pythocles—associates of Philip, all, and they were not alone.21 Anybody who spoke in Aeschines’ defense, even if he were otherwise considered trustworthy, was implicitly acting in Philip’s, not Athens’ interests (Dem. 19.289). Demosthenes is unequivocal about the real source of danger to the polis: in Olynthus, Megara, or Elis, he claims, though doubtless numerous men pocketed public monies, they were not the ones who 19

The image of stasis as a disease or nosos was commonplace: see Brock (2000), Kalimtzis (2000: esp. 131) for further treatments of this motif. Just to get a feel for how novel was Demosthenes’ picture of dōrodokia leading to stasis, it is worth comparing this passage with two others: the near-contemporary Third Philippic of Demosthenes himself (341) and Thucydides’ Histories, written some sixty years prior. In both Demosthenic texts, dōrodokia is seen as the root cause of stasis: because of dōrodokia, patriotic citizens turn traitorous (Dem. 9.36-40, 19.259), slavery is dressed in the garb of friendship (Dem. 9.36, 19.259), while concord and virtue are traded for vice and faction (Dem. 9.39-40). Under the corrupting influence of dōrodokia, Demosthenes suggests, things have been turned into their opposites. It is precisely this alarming trend—where values are turned on their head—that is the hallmark of Thucydides’ description of the stasis that spread from Corcyra through all of Greece (Thuc. 3.82-4): “At their own will,” the historian writes, “men changed the customary meaning of words in relation to deeds” (Thuc. 3.82.4), for a brilliant explication of which see Loraux (1986b). Yet Thucydides attributes the stasis at Corcyra not to bribery, but to a greedy desire for power (archē) and an ardor for fighting once engaged in civil conflict (Thuc. 3.82.8). By contrast, Demosthenes underscores how people wanted to befriend Philip and thereby to win dōra from him—power is never mentioned, and it is altogether unclear that Demosthenes’ crop of traitors was interested more in power, which most did not obtain, than simply in dōra. In fact, Athenian bribery was rarely attributed to some excessive desire for power: von Reden (1995: 95, 103n.76). Thus, although the orator and historian paint the same terrifying picture of stasis, they differ greatly in illuminating its cause. 20 Note how Aeschines’ corrupt counsel led the dēmos to vote for the Peace of Philocrates, which Demosthenes outright calls “dangerous, perilous and not to be trusted” (e0piki/ndunoj de\ kai\ sfalera_ kai\ a1pistoj, Dem. 19.97). 21 Phrynon: Dem. 19.189, 229-30. Pythocles: Dem. 19.225, 314; cf. 18.285. That there were still more traitors in Athens is suggested at Dem. 9.29, 9.39, 18.296-7.

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sought to destroy their city; it was, instead, the partisans of Philip, his “guests and friends” (ce/noi kai\ fi/loi), citizens who actively abused the people’s trust in order to betray the city (Dem. 19.294-5; cf. 18.46, 19.248). No longer was the dōrodokos conceptualized primarily as a thief as he had been earlier in the century; nor was the dōrodokos a solitary individual like Timagoras a couple decades prior.22 By 343, Demosthenes suggests, an entire network of traitors had become dōrodokoi, threatening the very security of the city; indeed, dōrodokia shattered the foundations of trust underlying the Athenian polis. The Athenians simply could not trust that all their leaders were trying to ensure the people’s safety (cf. Dem. 9.64); and when they did trust a leader, they often did not trust the right one (cf.ou1te pisteu&ein, Dem. 19.23).23 In Demosthenes’ vision, the Timagorean model of bribery qua treason had been transposed into a new context in which the fear of imminent stasis gripped the polis and ever more distrust was brewing among the citizens.24 Demosthenes’ speech On the False Embassy reflects a notable shift from arguments based on logos, as espoused by the defendant in Lysias 21, to those steeped in ethos and pathos. In so doing, the orator’s narrative about Philip’s bribery brings to the fore an assumedly pervasive distrust among the citizens, a fear that seemingly trustworthy citizens had already sold the city’s interests—in other words, that stasis and 22

In fact, Demosthenes compares his opponent to Timagoras three times, each time insinuating that he was a ‘bad friend’ like Timagoras: Dem. 19.191, 226, 248. 23 Indeed, it was right around this time that the oracle at Dodona warned Athens to be wary of the conduct of her leaders and counselors, who might betray the city’s interests. On this oracle, see Dem. 18.253, 19.297-9; Din. 1.78, 98; Parke (1967: 139-41). Cf. Aeschin. 3.130. Similar oracles from the Sibyl and Musaeus can be found in Pausanias 10.9.11, who attributes them, however, to the fifth century. 24 Cf. Isoc. 4.114-17, 167-8. Likewise, in the Third Philippic, Demosthenes rails against how dōrodokia used to be punished, but now was commonplace and overturning the very concord (homonoia) that had held together the city ever since the overthrow of the Thirty (Dem. 9.38-9). Here, too, he refers to dōrodokia as a disease (cf. nenh/soken, Dem. 9.39). On the significance of homonoia as a prominent political slogan in the fourth-century Greek world, see especially de Romilly (1972), West (1977), Funke (1980).

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constitutional change were well on their way. Not just another isolated Timagoras, Aeschines was emblematic of a larger class of ponēroi, lying rogues bought by Philip at the price of the city’s destruction and plotting the city’s demise from within (Dem. 19.68). Accordingly, Demosthenes recommends that Aeschines be punished to serve as a lesson to all the current and would-be traitors in Athens (Dem. 19.231-2, 339-40, 343). Although we should be wary of taking any orator at his word, there appears to have been at least some truth to Demosthenes’ picture of stasis and pervasive distrust.25 Indeed, after the conclusion of the Social War in 355—and only two years after Philip had taken Pydna and Amphipolis—amid considerable anxieties over financial recovery, Athens was especially vulnerable to the threat of stasis. For one, Philip’s imposing presence in the Aegean was a direct threat to Athens’ interests in securing grain from Thrace.26 As a result, Athens’ use of a select few citizens to handle relations with the Spartacid Kings in Thrace—and thereby to secure favorable trade terms—became a risky endeavor, it was thought, for those few elites might easily be corrupted by the enemy to divert the grain elsewhere.27 What is more, the Social War and, with it, the demise of the 25

As Plato’s intense focus on stasis would suggest. So, for instance, Rep. 4.422e-423a remarks, “Any state, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the state of the poor, the other the state of the rich.” On fourth-century Athenians’ preoccupation with stasis, see further Fuks (1972, 1977, 1979), de Ste. Croix (1981: 69-80), Brock (2000: 27-30), Kalimtzis (2000: 15-31). Similarly, Aeneas Tacticus’ manual on siegecraft (350’s) is rife with concerns that the polis might be attacked by its own citizens: e.g. Aen. Tact. 10.20, 14.1, 17.1, 22.21. Cf. Whitehead (1990: 25-33). Note how when the League of Corinth was formed in 337, there was a clause explicitly aimed at preventing constitutional subversion: Tod 177.12-14; cf. [Dem.] 17.5, 12, 15. 26 See Oliver (2007: 43-4) on the successful threat Philip posed to Athen’s ability to police maritime trade in the 340’s and 330’s. 27 Beginning in the late fifth and early fourth centuries, ties between the Spartacids and traders in the Bosporan region were notoriously close: traders were given tax breaks and priority in loading their cargo (Dem. 20.31-2), as well as ateleia at the emporion at Theodosia (Dem. 20.33); Bosporan elites were educated at Athenian schools (Isoc. 17.4, 15.224); and Athenian elites regularly spoke in favor of awarding Bosporan elites statues and public honors (Gauthier [1985: 156-7]; Oliver [2007: 23]). Moreno (2007: 175-9) provides an exhaustive treatment. Concerns about corruption and the grain trade were thus pronounced—Lysias 22 is a classic early example of fears in this area—but ultimately these did not include fears of treason. Whereas the grain-dealers in Lysias 22 might be castigated for trying to harm the dēmos (Lys. 22.14-15) and even for colluding to get rich (Lys. 22.20), they were not suspected of trying to

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Second Athenian League only demonstrated how infeasible empire was in the mid-fourth century. No longer, then, could the Athenians even hope to gain public revenues from external League monies; instead, they once again had to look to within their community to raise public monies.28 On two different fronts the city’s internal financial reorganization likely problematized the bonds of trust between citizens. First, anxieties over elite defection only increased as the public treasury relied still more on their involvement in raising public revenues, in terms of both providing and managing the city’s revenues. We saw in the last chapter how concerns over gaining a specific amount of revenue prompted the creation of the symmories, or groups of citizens responsible for paying the cost of the eisphora tax during war. Likewise, in the 360’s these same symmory groups probably became the basis for paying the costs and upkeep of naval warships (triērarchia), as well.29 By the 350’s, both liturgies, crucial for the defense of the city, acquired new prominence as the most critical—and hence the most honorable—financial contributions to the city.30

overthrow the democracy. In this sense, the fears surrounding their dealings were wholly analogous to those leveled against the purported dōrodokoi of Lysias 27-9 analyzed in the previous chapter: cf. Moreno (2007: 222). With the emergence of Philip, however, there was a tangible threat that an enemy might affect the provision of grain—and it was here, in the combination with Philip, that fears of stasis emerged. At this time, wheat became synonymous with bribery from Athens’ enemies—e.g. Dem. 19.114, 19.145; Din. 1.43—as the reliance on only a handful of individuals thus became a major security issue for the Athenians. Cf. [Dem.] 34.47, 42.20; Oliver (2007: 41-4). 28 See especially Cawkwell (1981: 40-55), Hakkarainen (1997: 4-8) on this conceptual shift; this idea features prominently in Isocrates’ On the Peace (esp. Isoc. 8. 19-21) and Xenophon’s Ways and Means, cf. Rh. Al. 1446b19-21. 29 Whether or not the eisphora and triērarchia were collected through the same symmory groups is still a matter of debate: see, for example, Ruschenbusch (1978: 275-84) for, MacDowell (1990: 372-3) against. 30 Demosthenes’ speech against Leptines in defense of rewarding military liturgists with exemption from festival liturgies (ateleia), is a locus classicus for emphasizing the importance of military liturgies over and above festival liturgies: Dem. 20, 21.160, cf. Lyc. 1.139 with Hakkarainen (1997: 14-19).

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Once the polis had acquired these revenues, they had to be managed for the community’s benefit. One marked difference around this time is how public monies were concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. Through the middle part of the century we find a shift from disbursement of all funds by approval of the Assembly to the creation of an ‘allocation’, or merismos, to specific officials to be used as needed within their own domain.31

Simultaneously, the domain of the Theoric board, created or at least heavily

reorganized in the 350’s, grew considerably over a period of a few decades until it encompassed the construction and maintenance of public buildings, certain religious cults and festivals, and even war and defense policy.32 It, too, was managed by citizens elected to the Theoric board, not by the Assembly as a whole.33 With both the collection and management of the polis’ revenues, therefore, increasing dependence on elite involvement—and especially elite goodwill—could have amplified fears that elites might defect.34

31

Cf. IG ii/iii2 29 (386 BCE), IG ii/iii2 223 B, 226 (both dated to 343/2 BCE), AP 48.2, Arist. Pol. 1321b31. On the growing use of the merismos in public finances, see especially Rhodes (1980: 309-15), Hakkarainen (1997: 5-6). 32 See, for example, Cawkwell (1963: 56-7), Hakkarainen (1997: 6-7); the fund itself was called the ‘common administration of finances’ (koinh\ dioi/khsij, Aeschin. 2.149). Theoric handouts to citizens: Theopomp. FGrH 115 F 99, schol. ad Dem. 10.11 (=Dind. 203.21). Building programme: Din. 1.96, schol. ad Dem. 3.29 (=Dind. 133). Our sources seem to confuse the origin of the Theoric Fund with earlier monies to citizens: e.g. Pericles’ misthophoria and jury pay (cf. Plut. Per. 9) or Agyrrhius’ provision of pay or Assembly attendance (cf. Hesych. s.v. draxmh\ xalazw=sa). While some scholars have thus assumed that the Theoric fund had existed long before Eubulus in the 350’s and 340’s—e.g. Jacoby (ad Philochorus FGrH 328 F 33), see further citations in Cawkwell (1963: 55n.53)—I view these as anachronistic references to institutions that performed a similar kind of function: see Ruschenbusch (1979) for a cogent argument in favor of Eubulus’ creation of the Theoric fund. 33 Cawkwell (1963: 58-9). On the election of the Theoric commission, see AP 43.1. 34 Hakkarainen (1997: 14-19) perceptively points out that around this time elite contributions became more regularly rewarded with charis from the community, that is, that a formal system of reciprocal exchanges emerged: see further Whitehead (1983) on the central importance of philotimia as a civic pursuit at this time. I will take up this idea in the next section, but for now it is worth pointing out that one reason why the provision of charis became regularized was that it needed to be: without the guarantee of charis in the form of public honors, elites very well may have defected. In this way, the institutionalization of an explicitly reciprocal relationship between elites and the community could have stemmed from heightened anxieties over elite defection.

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Such fears implicated the relationship between elites and other citizens, but there is evidence that Athens’ financial reforms problematized the relationship between citizens and foreigners, as well. During the Social War, a number of slaves and metics had deserted the city, thereby significantly reducing the city’s commercial revenues and the taxes they accrued (Isoc. 8.20-21). As a result, one major focus of Athens’ financial recovery in this period was on fostering commercial trade. So the Athenians tried to entice metics to return to the city, facilitated trade through the creation of commercial courts, and even naturalized metic bankers so that they would remain in Athens.35 Crucially, these efforts at boosting commercial trade destabilized traditional categories of civic status, in effect blurring the lines between citizens and others and thereby diluting the content of civic ties among citizens. Metics were enticed to return in large part by the grant of enktēsis, or the citizen right to possess property within the polis.36 Similarly, the commercial courts granted what was essentially a citizen right—to defend oneself or prosecute another before an Athenian jury—to foreigners; indeed, a number of bankers at this time were actually granted citizen status.37 In both cases, traditional boundaries between citizen and non-citizen were blurred.38 It is important here that the space in which this occurred, the Piraeus port, was heavily commercialized, 35

In his Ways and Means, Xenophon explicitly recommends bringing back metics (Xen. P. 2.1-7), creating facilities and hostels to promote trade (Xen. P. 3.12-13; cf. Din. 1.96), and creating commercial courts dikai emporikai (Xen. P. 3.3) on which see [Dem.] 7.12, AP 59.5, Pollux. 8.63 and Cohen (1973: 59-74), Vélissaropoulus (1980: 241-5). Additionally, Xenophon recommends creating a board of ei)rhnofu/lakej to make the city more attractive to trade (Xen. P. 5.1); such an idea may very well have underpinned the creation of the Theoric Commission. 36 Pečirka (1962: 152-60) collects the sources; see also Burke (2002: 182). 37 Cohen (1973: 59-74) on the maritime courts, Osborne (1981-3: 194-9, 210-15) on the naturalization of bankers. 38 Most forcefully argued by Burke (2002: 182-3). On the marked distinctions between citizens and metics in Athenian civic ideology, Whitehead (1977) is foundational; recently, Kostas Vlassopoulos (2007) has argued that these boundaries were far more blurry in reality than our literary sources would suggest—cf. Hagemajer Allen (2003) for a similar conclusion reached from a different approach—but accepting his view does not preclude constant contestation and problematization of those same boundaries.

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meaning that the content of pre-existing social ties among citizens in that space would have already been diluted to something closer to an arms-length tie. Within that context, interactions between citizens and non-citizens would have been virtually identical, the civic bond linking two citizens and the trust it engendered thus diminished.39 We have good reasons to think, therefore, that citizens really were more anxious about the civic bonds of community at this time. As a result, what had earlier been conceptualized as a socio-economic class of elite rogues plundering the city’s resources was now envisioned as an amorphous and omnipresent group of pro-Macedonian elites; political, not socio-economic, affiliations were now key. This conceptual frame for the dōrodokos was a potent one in the 340’s and 330’s and was frequently used to delegitimize public speakers and their policies. Time and again, an orator labeled his opponents pro-Macedonians or outright cronies on Philip’s payroll in order to cast doubt upon their policies and actions. So, in 341 Demosthenes insinuated that anyone who was in favor of peace with Philip was receiving payment (misthos) from the Macedonian; and in 330, Aeschines and Demosthenes traded barbs, each claiming that the other was a traitorous hireling of Philip.40

Similarly, around 338 Hyperides’ speech against

Philippides revolved around the claim that certain public officials whom Philippides had proposed be honored were, in fact, Macedonian sympathizers. Moreover, Hyperides claims, they had taken bribes to honor either Philip, certain Macedonians, or even some pro-Macedonian Athenians.41 39

See further Karayiannis and Hatzis (2007: 9). Demosthenes asserts that all pro-Macedonians were hired by Philip: Dem. 8.53. Cf. Dem. 6.32, 6.34, 8.61, 8.66, 9.9. Aeschines on Demosthenes: Aeschin. 3. 58, 66, 81, 167, 170, 173, 209, 226, cf. 3. 239-40 and Dem. 18.82, 103-4, 107, 19.222. Demosthenes on Aeschines: Dem. 18.28, 31-3, 36, 42, 44, 45-9, 501, 51-2, 131, 149, 236, 284, 296, 298-9, 307, 320. 41 Hyperides 2: see especially fragments 15a and 15b for the accusation that the officials were traitors who had taken money from some Macedonian source. Similarly, Din. 1.10, 18-21, 70 with Worthington (1992: 40

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This narrative of dōrodokia was used to delegitimize opponents even in unexpected situations. In one fascinating case from the early 320’s, known from Hyperides’ speech On Behalf of Euxenippus, the defendant Euxenippus was prosecuted for speaking publicly against Athens’ interests after taking a bribe.42 As the narrative goes, after sacking Thebes in 336, Alexander the Great gave Athens the territory in neighboring Oropus, where there was a shrine to the local deity Amphiaraus. Athens divided the territory into five regions, one for every two tribes. There was a problem with the division, however, as the area surrounding the shrine to Amphiaraus—area which had been consigned to two of the tribes—was thought to belong to the god and therefore could not be divvied up for those tribes (cf. Hyp. 4.16). So Euxenippus and two other Athenians were sent to sleep in Amphiaraus’ shrine, that they might have a prophetic dream from the god about who owned the land (Hyp. 4.15-18). Euxenippus reported that the land belonged to the god, whereupon one Polyeuctus proposed that the two tribes be compensated for being deprived of the land. He was immediately tried and convicted for proposing a contradictory law (graphē paranomōn, cf. Hyp. 4.15), after

139-43 ad 1.10); Diod. 17.4.8, [Plut.] X. Or. 848a. In his speech Against Ctesiphon (Aeschines 3), Aeschines plays off this common accusation of treasonous bribe-taking when describing Demosthenes’ dealings with the Persian King (Aeschin. 3.238-40). Although the King had initially refused to send any gold to Athens, in 336 he sent 300 talents to win the city as an ally, a gift which the Athenians refused to accept. Still, Demosthenes purportedly ended up pocketing 70 talents of that money, probably as an inducement to persuade Athens to ally with Persia. Here, rather than accuse Demosthenes of having simply taken money against Athens’ interests, Aeschines claims that Demosthenes took the King’s money and committed treason by refusing to spend even 10 talents to help Athens’ ally Thebes fight against Alexander. Demosthenes’ inaction resulted in Thebes’ destruction; for this reason, Aeschines suggests, Demosthenes was a danger to Athens (Aeschin. 3.24). Dinarchus and Hyperides, too, later call Demosthenes a traitor for the same reason: Din. 1.10, 1.15, 1.18-21, 1.24, 1.26; Hyp. 5.17, 5.21. 42 Hyperides quotes the charge from the nomos eisangeltikos, under which Euxenippus was prosecuted: Hyp. 4.1-2, 4-10, 27-30, 38-9. For the wording of this law, see Hansen (1975: 12), Whitehead (2000: 187-9 ad 4.8).

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which he retaliated by prosecuting Euxenippus on the grounds that he had been bribed to misreport his dream and to speak against the interests of the city (Hyp. 4.30, 39).43 What is remarkable about this case is that Polyeuctus accuses Euxenippus of taking bribes not from the enemy (i.e. Alexander), but from other Athenians. Hyperides underscores the paradox of the prosecution’s claims: how could Euxenippus have been bribed to speak against Athens’ interests if he was receiving bribes from other Athenians? Though we lack Polyeuctus’ speech, we can piece together a tentative answer. Apparently, his prosecution depicted Euxenippus as a Macedonian “toady” (ko/laka, Hyp. 4.20; cf. kolakei/a, 4.19, 23), one who had already committed treason by doing favors for Alexander’s mother Olympias. Moreover, Polyeuctus seems to have claimed that Euxenippus had been bribed by traitors within Athens, people who were acting against the dēmos (u(penanti/a pra/ttontaj tw|= dh/mw|, Hyp. 4.39), that is, other proMacedonians. Though at first glance this case seems to be about Athenian internal affairs—how the tribes were to distribute the land in Oropus—the narrative framework of Polyeuctus’ prosecution speech actually shared much with the Demosthenic narrative examined above. Euxenippus’ purported dōrodokia was readily explained through reference to a network of pro-Macedonian conspirators within the city.

Although Hyperides

masterfully illuminates the seemingly tortured logic of Polyeuctus’ case, it is significant that Polyeuctus, like Demosthenes before him, understood Euxenippus’ purported dōrodokia as the act of a traitor plotting with the enemy from within the city’s walls.

Philip and Beyond: dōrodokia as a Threat to the Democracy: 43

See further Whitehead (2000: 153-61) on the historical background to this speech.

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Of course, not all instances of dōrodokia were explained as the machinations of a pro-Macedonian faction plotting against the city. Unsurprisingly, in fact, most cases of dōrodokia involving domestic issues were not filtered through a Macedonian lens; it is striking, though, that narratives about domestic dōrodokia nevertheless were shaped by a similar anxiety over the fate of the democracy. As suggested by a number of dramatic changes at this time—including moving the location of treason trials (eisangelia) from the Assembly to the lawcourts, granting the Areopagus Court authority to investigate potential crimes against the state, and renewing an anti-tyranny law (337/6)—many Athenians believed that the democracy was in danger and only the laws could save the city from ruin.44 Even if Macedon was not considered the specific source of danger, the threat of stasis was thought to be only growing. Demosthenes’ sensational portrait of Philip’s dōrodokoi in fact points to deeper structural problems in the democracy in the last half of the fourth century. As we will examine in this last section, the persistent fear of citizen defection thus shaped the development of a second, related picture of the dōrodokos who was again likened to a traitor, but of a somewhat different sort.

This time he was thought of not as a

Macedonian hireling, but as a dangerous citizen who rejected the rewards of democracy, thereby betraying the people, the laws, and even the democracy itself. In this way, the figure of the dōrodokos continued to be used in a range of domestic scenes, as well, to think through what ‘democratic’ politics should look like. 44

Eisangelia: Hansen (1975: esp. 53-5), Rhodes (1979: 108). Areopagus: For changes to the Areopagus at this time, see especially Wallace (1989: 131ff.). Following Chaeronea, the Areopagus was granted the power to sentence to death anyone who left the city: under this aegis Leocrates was prosecuted (Lyc. 1.52, 53), but the court also seems to have prosecuted others as well (e.g. Aeschin. 3.252). Anti-tyranny law: SEG 12.87; Ostwald (1955: esp. 119-28), Mossé (1970), Teegarden (2007: 104-40). In addition to these institutional changes, it appears that at this time the eisangelia procedure for treason or overthrowing the democracy was increasingly exploited even in trivial cases: Hyp. 4.1-3; cf. Hansen (1975: 29-31), Todd (1993: 114).

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By the measure of any contemporary account, the Athenians had cause for concern in the 330’s, an especially volatile time for Athenian foreign relations. By 340, Athens and Macedon had openly broken the Peace of Philocrates and renewed hostilities. Philip appeared to be on the move yet again, and a coalition of Greek forces was marshaled to stop him. But the Greek side was outmatched, and the resultant battle at Chaeronea in 338 was an unqualified disaster for Athens and her allies: Philip won decisively and assumed control over Greek affairs, a hegemonic position which he institutionalized the next year as leader of the panhellenic League of Corinth; the Second Athenian League was dissolved. Not surprisingly, Chaeronea sent shockwaves through Athens. Even though a number of Athenians were resistant to the League of Corinth—largely because Philip appeared to be treading on the autonomy of Greek poleis—the battle at Chaeronea had demonstrated that nothing much could be done with Philip still at the Macedonian helm. In 336, however, anti-Macedonian proponents saw their chance when Philip was assassinated. There was a series of revolts, but again it was not enough. Philip’s son, Alexander the Great, quickly suppressed the revolutions, and decisively so (Diod. 17.4.4). The following year, when Thebes again tried to muster some form of resistance, Alexander razed the city and enslaved some 30,000 of its citizens (Diod. 17.8. 3-14.1, Arr. 1.7.1-8.8, Plut. Dem. 23.1). After Thebes’ obliteration, direct resistance to Macedon was essentially a dead letter.45

45

Sealey (1993: 194-205), Habicht (1997: 11-22), Ryder (2000: 78-84), Worthington (2000b: 90-9). Sparta’s subsequent attempt at a coup resulted in a heavy defeat in 330. As Worthington (2000b: 94) astutely remarks, calling for resistance to Macedon at that time would not have been a winning rhetorical strategy in large part because Alexander had left for the East soon after the sack of Thebes. Unlike Philip, who had maintained a near constant presence in Greece for decades, Alexander was a manifestly more distant threat.

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Throughout this tumultuous period, there was a considerable tension brewing among Athens’ citizens, as some seemed to acquiesce to the Macedonian hegemony while others grew only more restless, awaiting the right moment to score some advantage, however small. The divided citizen body fragmented the democracy, and in the 330’s we find some hints that Athenians feared that Philip or Alexander would install a tyranny at Athens.46 At the same time there was an acute focus on Demokratia, the abstract embodiment of the Athenian democracy. In 333/2, for instance, a statue of Demokratia was set up, and later the generals for the year made sacrifices to Demokratia.47 Contemporary authors appeared newly intent on determining the essence of the Athenian democracy, and discussions about the patrios politeia, or ancestral constitution, were common.48 As a direct result of these concerns, the authority of the Areopagus court only increased, taking on new powers of investigation (apophasis) and reclaiming its ancient status as ‘guardian of the laws’ and the democracy; and this was but part of a broader shift after the Social War towards more centralized administration.49

46

Cf. [Dem.] 17.14, Hyp. 2fr.1. Hence, Ostwald (1955: 123-5) and Teegarden (2007: 109-15) tie Eukrates’ law against tyranny and subversion of the dēmos to anti-Macedonian sentiment. In response, Mossé (1970) paints too one-sided a view of Athenian politics in the 330’s: granted, anti-Macedonian sentiment would not have been prudent after Chaeronea, but resentment of Macedonian control was not mere rhetoric; one wonders, after all, why a jury would have so overwhelmingly voted in Demosthenes’ favor at Ctesiphon’s trial if Demosthenes’ political views were marginal. Although Sealey (1958) is right to point out the potentially ad hominem spirit of the law, he too is unconvincing in wholly removing its Macedonian dimension. That said, it is enough for our purposes simply that the law was part of the period’s back-and-forth political battles. 47 A base from the statue has been found: IG ii² 2791. Sacrifices: IG ii² 1496.131-2, 140-1. Similarly, Euphranor of Isthmia was known to have done a wall a painting in the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios with representations of Demos and Demokratia together with Athens’ legendary founder Theseus (Paus. 1.3.34), and the anti-tyranny decree of 337/6 was inscribed beneath a depiction of Demokratia crowning the Demos. For these contemporary actions and more on behalf of Demokratia, Raubitschek (1962) remains foundational. 48 E.g. [Dem] 59.75-7; Isoc. 12.143-8; Lyc. 1 passim. Ruschenbusch (1958: esp. 399-408 on the Solonian Consitution), Mossé (1978), Hansen (1989). For a thorough review of Demosthenes’ conception of the patrios politeia, see Witte (1995). 49 In the late 350’s or 340’s the Areopagus was granted additional powers to draft a public report (called an apophasis) concerning suspected acts of treason: cf. Din. 1.50. On the apophasis procedure and its significance, see Carawan (1985), Wallace (1989: 113-9), Worthington (1992: 357-62), de Bruyn (1995:

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Significantly, therefore, the Athenians’ response to the suspected threat of stasis in the 340’s and 330’s focused on Athens’ laws, institutions, and political constitution as embodiments of the democracy itself.50

As we will see, it was this new symbolic

embodiment of the polis which was under attack by the dōrodokos. In particular, more than ever before the Athenians weighed the monies of dōrodokia against the currency of civic contributions and public honors. Certainly by the middle of the fourth century, it had been well-established that financial contributions by the wealthy were an essential part of the democracy: no longer did the city have an empire of allied states contributing a tribute, and, as we saw above, the city’s financial recovery in the 350’s and 340’s was predicated to a large extent on considerable elite involvement.51 Above and beyond mere financial importance, however, the good works of elite citizens played a vital symbolic role within the polis as well. While Athens’ other 117-20), and most recently Sullivan (2003). A number of contemporary sources discuss the Areopagus’ role in the democracy: e.g. Isoc. 7 passim; Din. 1.5, 6, 9, 54-9, 62; Dem. 18.133-4; de Bruyn (1995: 15561) and, on legal attacks against the Areopagus, Sealey (1958: 72-3). 50 Indeed, that the laws, not the people, were sovereign was commonly pointed out in this period: cf. Aeschin. 1.4-5, 3.6, 3.169; Dem. 21. 223-5, 23.73, 22.46, 24.5, 24.75-6, 24.118, 25.20-1, 57.56; Lyc. 1.3-4; Din. 3.16; Hyp. 4.5. Hansen (1975: 48; 1990b: 239-42), Ostwald (1986: 497), Ober (1989: 299-304); Lanni (forthcoming) reminds, however, that this was as much a rhetorical claim as a reality, that the law was subordinated to judgments of the people in numerous ways. For the laws and the judicial system as the democracy’s safeguard, see especially Aeschin. 3.6, 3.169, 3.196; Lyc. 1.3-4, fr. 70; Dem. 24.156, 24.216 with Allen (2000: 180-3). In this light, it is perhaps unsurprising to find that, in two cases of attempted overthrow of the democracy, the prosecutor claims that the defendant had simply broken the law, but that, because the laws embodied the democracy, his action had infringed upon the constitution, as well: the two cases involved Lycophron (Hyp. 1 fr. 4a.12, Lyc. fr. 70) and Diognides (Hyp. 3.3) 51 On this point, it is crucial that the allied contributions to the Second Athenian League were termed a syntaxis (contribution) instead of phoros (tribute) precisely because the word phoros carried such pejorative connotations from the fifth century: IG ii² 45.21-2; Harpocration s.v. su/ntacij; cf. Dreher (1995: 59-60). More importantly, as IG ii² 123.11-12 indicates, the allied syntaxeis were to be controlled by the synedrion of the League, not by the Athenian dēmos. Unlike with the tribute, the democracy’s administrative expenses simply were not alleviated by the League’s contributions: Davies (1978: 224), Cargill (1981: 124-7), de Ste Croix (1981: 293), Dreher (1995: 79-80). For Athens’ general financial woes during the fourth century, see especially de Ste Croix (1981: 607n.37). Concerning, specifically, the depletion of the treasury after the Social War, Dem. 10.77 remarks that the city’s total post-war revenues were a mere 130 talents. Within ten years, however, this number was up to 400 talents (Dem. 10.37-9; Theopomp. FGrH 115 F 166). Accordingly, much of Eubulus’ policy at the time was directed at generating domestic revenues through leasing the mines, maintaining foreign interests (especially in the Chersonese), and using private monies in public works: on these fiscal policy changes, Cawkwell (1963) and recently Burke (2002: esp. 171-5; 181-2).

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efforts at financial recovery effectively destabilized the status boundaries between citizen and non-citizen—granting to non-citizens what had been citizen privileges in exchange for the financial boon they provided the city—the civic honor inherent in being a citizen was reinscribed in the monies that citizens provided the community. This amplified the symbolic value of those monies so that they became metaphors for a citizen’s loyalty to the polis; indeed, they were emblematic of a citizen’s trustworthiness, as well. As wealthy citizens contributed (financially or otherwise) to the community, increasingly during this period they were publicly honored for doing so. Just as in general during the mid-fourth century we see a roughly two-thirds increase in the number of extant public inscriptions, around the 350’s and 340’s we find an explosion in epigraphic sources recording public honors awarded an official for doing his job well.52 As Lambert (2004: 86) reminds, “it is clear that decrees honoring Athenians were not a wholly new phenomenon in the 340’s; it was the regular inscribing of the decrees by the city that was new.” Indeed, that civic honors were a privileged currency in the polis is an idea familiar from Chapter 2, where we saw how in the fifth century the dēmos’ authority to distribute public honors intimately shaped attitudes towards dōrodokia. Yet in the fifth century, these public honors were awarded infrequently in comparison to the regular provision of wage or misthos—itself also a symbolic reward—for a range of public officials.53 By contrast, in the fourth century, our evidence for a similar misthos is scarce; it appears, instead, that magistrates were not provided a ‘wage’ which also doubled as a symbolic

52

Hedrick (1999: 392 with discussion at 391-3). Of the more than 250 inscriptions honoring Athenian citizens during the democracy, none pre-date the 350’s: for fuller discussion, see Lambert (2004: 85-6). 53 Detailed extensively in Domingo Gygax (forthcoming); see also Gauthier (1985).

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token of gratitude.54 Rather, the dēmos and local deme assemblies increasingly turned to dispensing symbolic honors for magistrates and private citizens alike: crowns of olive and gold, civic privileges, and public inscriptions commemorating the award of these honors.55 Not only were these honorific inscriptions more prevalent from the middle of the fourth century, but, crucially, they were also more specific in how they praised an honorand. For instance, honorific decrees shifted from naming a citizen solely by name to regularly including the names of his father and deme as well.56 In the 360’s the Assembly and deme assemblies began to describe an honorand’s achievements and services more elaborately, employing a range of ‘cardinal virtues’ to characterize the public works and the honorand.57 As David Whitehead has compellingly demonstrated,

54

Whether or not there was pay for public office in the fourth century is a vexed issue among ancient historians. Although it does not significantly affect my argument, I side with Hansen (1979, 1980), who claims, largely based on the silence of our sources, that after 411 there was no systematic misthos (“wage”) for public officials. At the deme level, this is surely correct, as Whitehead (1986: 161) points out; and epigraphic sources confirm that ambassadors were regularly paid a misthos of 20 drachmas, but only upon successful completion of their objectives, meaning the payment itself was not so much compensation as a token of gratitude: IG ii² 102.10-13 (c. 370), 124.12-18 (375/6), 264.9-12 (before 336/5). The opposite viewpoint has been championed most vigorously by Gabrielsen (1981) and supported by Rhodes (1981: 691-5), but the lynchpin in Gabrielsen’s argument, Aristotle’s Ath. Pol. 42.3 and 62.2, states only that the nine archons and certain other officials received payments for “maintenance” (trophē or sitēsis), not a general, all-purpose “wage,” as misthos more regularly connotes: cf. MacDowell (1983: 75-6) pace Gabrielsen (1981: 67-81), and von Reden (1995a: 89-92) on misthos. Again, Gabrielsen (1981: 118-19) erroneously assumes that, because the masses frequently (he suggests almost exclusively) occupied lotteried public positions, they must have been remunerated or else they never would have chosen to enter office. Yet this premise is contradicted by the fact that every year hundreds of citizens—including those from lower social strata—spent a number of months serving as chorus members (chōreutai) in the city’s major festivals. Significantly, these citizens, like most public officials according to Hansen, received only the provision of meals as ‘remuneration’. In a city with a remarkably strong ethos of civic participation, it is not inconceivable that poorer citizens would have opted to run for public office, even without ‘compensation’, once or twice in their lifetime. After all, as Gauthier (1985: 118-9) reminds, political office was fundamentally an honor (timē). 55 Henry (1983: 22-42; 241-6; 262-78) catalogues the awarding of crowns, exemption from taxes (ateleia), and public dining, respectively. 56 This development continued well through the democracy to the point that at the end of the fourth century there emerged detailed relative clauses which still more specifically described the honorand: Henry (1983: 10-11). 57 Naming: Henry (1983: 13). Elaboration in 360’s: Whitehead (1983: 61); cf. Henry (1983: 42-3). Cardinal virtues: Whitehead (1983; 1993: esp. 52-7, 67-72) on the division between general, all-purpose

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by the middle of our period, in the 340’s, words cognate with philotimia (“love of pursuing honor”) “were integral to the language of achievement and reward in all Athenian honorific decrees.”58 By the mid-fourth century, then, specifically identified citizens were regularly given specific rewards for specific actions in office. The honor a citizen won through exchanging goods with the community was more closely identified with the citizen himself. It thereby commemorated his trusted standing within the polis. Accordingly, the preponderance of civic honors for citizens and misthos for public office appears to have switched from the fifth to the fourth centuries, and by the time of the last few decades of the democracy, it was the currency of symbolic honors that was most highly prized. Simultaneous with this shift towards the more regular award of civic honors, citizens counted more and more on receiving some sort of regular, institutional recognition for jobs or services performed well. In other words, by the middle of the fourth century, just as much as services, liturgies, and public outlays from citizens had become essential for the democracy to function, the civic honors these citizens received had become a necessary inducement for their participation in the system.59 If in fact there was no regular misthos for public office, these honors had become the only formal reward for services to the community; and even if there were pay for office, the currency of honors awarded by the dēmos was manifestly more valued than

cardinal virtues and those that describe more specific actions or attitudes; and, more generally on the language of fourth-century public honors, Veligianni-Terzi (1997: 165-227). 58 Whitehead (1983: 62, emphasis retained). Similarly, Hedrick (1999: 422-3, catalogued at 434-5) notes that the incidence of the disclosure formula OPWS AN FILOTIMWNTAI (“so that [others] engage in the pursuit of timē”) is heavily concentrated in inscriptions dated to around the mid-fourth century. Of 40 occurrences in the corpus of Athenian honorific decrees, he tallies, 29 date to the fourth century, and 16 come from the 330’s. Cf. Whitehead (1983: 63-4). 59 See further Domingo Gygax (forthcoming: 284-91).

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any ‘wage’ provided.60 While wealthy citizens on trial frequently cited their public works in the hopes of receiving favorable treatment from a jury, an informal reward of this kind was at best irregularly awarded and hence could not be counted on. By contrast, civic honors voted by the dēmos and by deme assemblies had become symbolic cornerstones of the community.61 To reject the pursuit of civic honor was thus to reject the symbolic foundations of citizenship and the city itself; it was to deny the very ethos of a democratic citizen. We can now begin to see why the aforementioned rhetorical shift from presenting dōrodokia in terms of logos to casting it in terms of ethos and pathos appeared, crucially, at this point in the democracy. To examine this trend further, let us take a look at the most famous case of dōrodokia in Athenian history, the Harpalus Affair.

In 324,

Alexander was only just returning from India and finally disciplining various corrupt officials who had been overseeing affairs for him in Greece and Persia. Harpalus was one such official infamous for rampant corruption and extortion while treasurer at Babylon. Upon Alexander’s return, Harpalus fled with 5,000 talents of silver to Athens, where he had been granted citizenship and where he hoped to find sympathy among the

60

Hence the reciprocal exchange of philotimia and communal charis became standardized and formalized at this time: see especially Hakkarainen (1997: 14-19). 61 On this point, Demosthenes is particularly vehement in his prosecution of Leptines for proposing a law in 355 to abolish the awarding of ateleia, or exemption from taxes in return for services to the city (Dem. 20). As the orator warns, to eliminate such an honor would effectively discourage anyone from wanting to benefit the city (Dem. 20.5). His argument is predicated on the notion that citizens assumed that one good turn would merit another from the people (cf. Dem. 20.151), and that civic honors for services rendered were a mark of pistis, or good faith, in the reciprocal relations between private individual and public community. To revoke previously granted honors would thus render all civic honors a)pi/stouj or “untrustworthy” (Dem. 20.124). This would have been catastrophic for the dēmos, Demosthenes intones, because it would have removed the one factor that made civic honors in a democracy more valuable than those in an oligarchy or tyranny: public authorization of the honors (Dem. 20.15-17). Without such publicly authorized honors, Athens might very well become another Pydna, a city supposedly betrayed by traitorous citizens who had been bribed by Philip with none other than dwreiai/, that is, the very ‘honors’ which a democratic polis usually bestowed on its citizens. Cf. von Reden (1995a: 98-9) on public dwreiai/.

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Though initially forbidden to enter the city with a

sizeable number of troops, he was later granted entry as a suppliant. Immediately, there arrived envoys from Alexander’s mother and Antipater, the viceroy of Greece, demanding that Harpalus return the treasure he had stolen (Hyp. 5.8; Diod. 17.108.7). In response, Demosthenes proposed that Harpalus be held in jail and the treasure be placed in the Acropolis for safe-keeping until official word from Alexander arrived (Din. 1.70, 89, 90; [Plut.] X. Or. 846b). The people agreed and decided that Harpalus’ money— which the Macedonian claimed totaled 700 talents (Hyp. 5.9-10; [Plut.] X.Or. 846b)— would be taken to the Acropolis the following day. The next day, Demosthenes departed for Olympia on a political embassy; upon his return, Harpalus escaped from prison, and the Athenians discovered much to their dismay that only 350 talents remained in the Acropolis.62 It was assumed that Harpalus had used the missing 350 talents to bribe his way to freedom; most of the city’s leaders were consequently under suspicion. This was a truly grave offense, for the Athenians could not have imagined that Alexander would be happy that they had let escape a former official who had stolen a tremendous sum from the King. The city panicked amid a growing number of accusations of treason and plots against the people (Ath. 8.341f-342). Most of the suspicion focused on Demosthenes, 62

The Harpalus Affair cannot properly be understood without reference to the larger political context of Alexander’s return from India, at which time the king decreed that all Greek poleis accept the return of their exiles and mercenaries—displaced groups whose presence posed a direct threat to Alexander (cf. Hyp. 5.18-19). Though the Exiles Decree loomed large in the background of the Harpalus Affair—in particular Athens, wishing to retain Samos rather than have the island’s exiled population return, sought to appease Alexander perhaps by getting rid of his antagonist Demosthenes—this political background does not play any discernible role in how the prosecution condemned Demosthenes. In other words, it is in itself significant that the specific, compelling arguments used to convict Demosthenes refer only to this second narrative of dōrodokia qua treason and not at all to Demosthenes’ adversarial relations with Alexander. Moreover, it is not at all clear that Demosthenes’ role in the Harpalus Affair would have placed Athens in any more precarious role vis. Alexander: as Dinarchus reports, Alexander never even asked that Harpalus’ money be returned (Din. 1.68). On the historical and political context, see further Badian (1961), Sealey (1993: 212-15), Whitehead (2000: 355-64), Worthington (2000b: 41-77).

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who had played a central role at every step of the way, but others too were publicly accused, including Demosthenes’ ally Phocion and the anti-Macedonian Hyperides (Plut. Phoc. 21-22). On Demosthenes’ initiative they turned to the Areopagus to investigate the matter (e.g. Din. 1.4). After six months of investigation and deliberation, the Areopagus produced a list of ten names with ten monetary amounts: Demosthenes at the top of the list, then Demades, Aristogiton and seven others (Hyp. 5.5-7). All ten were tried for dōrodokia before a jury of 1,500 citizens: of the ten, only Demosthenes and Demades were convicted for sure; fined 50 talents, Demosthenes left the city in exile.63 We have four prosecution speeches from the trial—Hyperides’ speech against Demosthenes (Hyp. 5), and Dinarchus’ three speeches each written on behalf of one of the prosecutors against Demosthenes, Aristogiton, and Philocles (respectively, Din. 13)—all of which orations employ essentially the same rhetorical strategies against their opponent.64 Indeed, this is unsurprising given that, beyond the Areopagus’ terse report (Hyp. 5.5-7), there was no evidence against the defendants. Here we will focus on Dinarchus’ speech against Demosthenes, by far the longest and best preserved of the foursome (Din. 1). As we will see, although the nature of the trial naturally focused on condemning Demosthenes, in Dinarchus’ speech the greatest threat to the city was not

63

Demades’ punishment is mentioned in Din.1.29, 104. Of the other citizens on trial, Philocles was probably convicted (cf. Dem. Ep. 3.31-2); Aristogiton was acquitted (Dem. Ep. 3.37, 42), as perhaps were Hagnonides and Polyeuctus of Sphettus ([Plut.] Mor. 846c-d). This split in convictions based on the exact same evidence has only reinforced scholars’ suspicions that the Harpalus Affair was a political trial aimed at removing Demosthenes and Demades from Athens: so, for example, Worthington (1992: 58-73; 1994: 308-9; 2000b: 106); cf. Badian (1961: 34-5). While this possibility cannot be ruled out, it should be noted that, although the prosecution admittedly had the same positive evidence against each defendant—i.e. the Areopagus’ report (Din. 1.113, 2.21; Hyp. 5.5-7)—the assumption that the same evidence fit the character and history of each defendant identically is erroneous. After all, forensic oratory is rife with ethical arguments which predicated the plausibility of guilt or innocence on a defendant’s character. Thus, despite the Areopagus’ report, it might have been easy to believe that Demosthenes, but not Aristogiton, say, was the kind of person who would readily be suspected of being part of a network of corruption. 64 Recent commentaries on these speeches are provided in Whitehead (2000) for Hyperides and Worthington (2000b) for Dinarchus.

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Demosthenes but a veritable network of corrupt statesmen. By convicting Demosthenes, Dinarchus urged, the people could preserve Athens’ honor, her laws and her constitution. The formal charge brought against Demosthenes was probably one of “taking dōra against one’s country” (kata\ th=j patri/doj), as it is this specific formulation which recurs verbatim throughout the speeches of Dinarchus and Hyperides.65 Clearly, then, Demosthenes and the others were thought to have committed treason by taking dōra from Harpalus—a connection explicitly made at least nine times in Dinarchus’ speech66—and the prosecution is careful to point out how Demosthenes, at least, had been implicated in betraying Thebes, too, long before he had attempted to betray his own city.67 In a page seemingly taken from Demosthenes’ own prosecution of Aeschines, Demosthenes himself is portrayed as a traitor as much to his friends as to his city (Din. 1.41), a man who was of use only to the city’s enemies for the way he consistently acted against the interests of Athens herself (Din. 1.33). In the same vein, Demosthenes is even compared to those iconic traitors of yore, the elite leaders who overthrew Olynthus (Din. 1.26; cf. 2.24-5). By comparing Demosthenes to the traitors who overthrew Olynthus, Dinarchus conjures up a by now familiar paradigm of dōrodokia leading to the destruction of a city.

65

Cf. Harvey (1985: 108n.114). The phrase “against the country” (kata\ th=j patri/doj vel sim.) recurs eleven times in Dinarchus (Din. 1.13, 1.26, 1.60, 1.64, 1.67, 2.6, 3.18, 3.22; cf. 1.3, 1.99, 2.26), two times in Hyperides (Hyp. 5.21, 5.38). To this, add four times of “against the city” (kata\ th=j po/lewj, Din. 1.29; cf. 1.4, 2.7, 3.2) and two instances of “against the constitution” (kata\ th=j politei/aj, Din. 1.3, cf. [e)pi\] th|= politei/a| k[ai\ toi=j] no/moij, Hyp. 5.2). Although Dinarchus more frequently refers to taking dōra “against your [sc. the people’s] interests” (kaq’ u(mw=n)—cf. Din. 1.11, 1.15, 1.40, 1.46, 1.47, 1.53, 1.88, 1.108, 2.1, 2.3, 2.15, 2.20, 2.22, 2.23, 3.2, 3.6, 3.18; cf. Hyp. 5.40—this can easily be taken as a more personal reformulation of the actual charge. On such ‘catapolitical’ bribes, see Harvey (1985: 108-13). 66 Din. 1.33, 1.47, 1.64, 1.66, 1.77, 1.101 (Demades), 1.103, 1.107, 1.109. Cf. Hyp. 5.22. Demosthenes apparently admitted to receiving some funds from Harpalus as a loan to the theoric fund; crucially, the orator thus depicted these monies as taken for, not against, the city’s interests: Hyp. 5.13. 67 Din. 1.10, 1.15, 1.18-21, 1.24, 1.26. This was a common, if untrue, attack leveled against Demosthenes: cf. Aeschin. 3.156-7, Hyp. 5.17, 5.21 with Worthington (1992: 139-43 ad 1.10; 164-8 ad 1.21).

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Given that paradigm, it is unsurprising to find that Demosthenes and his purported consorts in the Harpalus Affair did not seem to be the only problem in Athens: as Dinarchus warns, there were “many people (pollou/j) in the city taking bribes against your [sc. the people’s] interests” (kaq’ u(mw=n, Din. 1.11). Like Demosthenes before him, Dinarchus underscores how the city was endangered by a class of “leaders and demagogues” conspiring to mislead the dēmos and profit privately (oi( h(gemo/nej kai\ oi( dhmagwgoi/, Din. 1.99; cf. 2.22-3, 3.1, 3.19), and it was precisely these many others who needed to have a strong message sent to them (Din. 1.11). Hence, the conviction of Demosthenes and the rest would be a necessary, and necessarily forceful, indication that the Athenians would not tolerate traitors in their midst. Unlike Demosthenes, however, who posited that the internal threat at Olynthus was instigated by an external source (Philip), Dinarchus identifies what is essentially a wholly internal threat. Harpalus was no Philip or Alexander, and as a matter of fact this dangerous group of traitors was plotting against Alexander (and the city), not for him.68 As Dinarchus warns, there was no hope in times of danger if the city allowed widespread dōrodokia with impunity, for corrupt leaders would consistently betray the city’s interests (Din. 1.67, 1.88, 1.107, 3.10, 3.19). According to Dinarchus and Hyperides, the life of the city was thought to hang in the balance of this trial, and it was the specific culprit of widespread, domestic dōrodokia which endangered the very foundations of the city.69

68

Only once does Dinarchus suggest that Harpalus posed an external threat to the city, and this mention comes only in passing, at that (Din. 2.30). While I do not deny that Harpalus could have been involved in fomenting a revolt against Alexander—so Badian (1961)—the important point to remember is that the orators do not specifically mention this: they certainly could have imagined a scenario in which Demosthenes was plotting to endanger the polis from harm at Alexander’s hands, but they never do so. The danger is consistently viewed as coming from within the city. 69 Cf. Din. 1.2, 1.31, 1.88, 1.99, 1.109, 2.1, 2.5, 2.7, 3.3; Hyp. 5.2, 5.34-5.

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While dōrodokia by a foreign autocrat and domestic dōrodokia were equally perceived as threats to the life of the city, the ways in which they endangered the city were not the same. As we have seen, taking money from Philip was tantamount to subordinating the city’s interests to his interests; if Olynthus, Pydna, and a host of other Greek cities were any indication, this entailed placing the city under his control. Even if the constitution itself were not radically altered, the threat of Macedonian hegemony was still a powerful one. In the case of domestic bribery, however, the stakes were rather different.

As Dinarchus and Hyperides point out repeatedly, the apparently

commonplace dōrodokia of which Demosthenes was but one of many corrupt practitioners was a threat to the city insofar as it entailed contempt for the city’s honor, its laws, and its politeia, or political constitution.70 The concern here was that elites were rejecting the symbolic foundations of Athens’ polity, in effect dishonoring the democracy by opting out of it. Accordingly, although this picture of rampant domestic dōrodokia was also thought of as treason, there were additional elements that were contributing to this conceptual frame. Let us take a closer look. Men like Demosthenes were thought to bring ill-repute, adoxia, upon the city through their corrupt actions; only by convicting Demosthenes could Athens thus hope to regain her honor (Din. 1.93; cf. 3.21). In the extant speeches of the Harpalus Affair, there are a number of permutations of this argument—that Athens lost her honor and goodstanding in the Greek world because of the policies proposed by corrupt statesmen (a)doci/a,| Din. 1.31); or that, in taking Harpalus’ money, a corrupt few implicated the Athenian people as a whole in a “shameful charge” (ai)sxra=j ai)ti/aj, Din. 1.93; cf. 70

Din. 1.65, 1.87, 1.113; Hyp. 5.12. Cf. Val. Max. 6.3.ext.2. Tellingly, in a rhetorical move familiar from the other contemporary narrative about dōrodokia, Dinarchus frames this overturning of the city’s institutions as a betrayal of the people’s trust (Din. 3.4).

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ai)sxu/nhn, Din. 3.7)—both of which variations were relevant concerns for dōrodokia from an external source, too (e.g. Dem. 18.63; kataisxu/naj, Dem. 19.255). Yet there is a third variation that seems best to encapsulate the dishonor done the city by pervasive domestic bribery, a frame which has the added advantage of bringing together all of the elements at play in conceptualizing domestic dōrodokia as treason. Dinarchus seems to get at the heart of the matter when he posits that leaders like Demosthenes disgraced the city—literally, made it ‘base’ or ‘lowly’ (tapeinh/, Din. 1.98)—by so flagrantly defying its laws.

According to this condemnation, corrupt

leaders who were part of a broader network of corruption were debasing the city precisely by the way they placed themselves above the law. There were two interrelated elements in this condemnation: Demosthenes and others had contempt for the laws, and they displayed a more general contempt for the values of the city. It was obvious that anybody guilty of dōrodokia had broken the law, but Dinarchus’ more damning point is that Demosthenes thought himself above the law when he broke it. So Demosthenes is contrasted with the general Timotheus, who captured over 24 cities yet willingly acquiesced to the penalty imposed upon him for taking money from the Chians and Rhodians (Din. 1.14-17, cf. 3.17).71

Despite

Timotheus’ great services to the city, Dinarchus notes, the general did not ask for pardon, but rather submitted himself to the law and the jury’s decision.

By contrast,

Demosthenes seemed to think himself above the law, as if his previous services for the city, incidentally far less impressive than Timotheus’, outweighed his current crime.72 In

71

On Timotheus, see further Worthington (1992: 148-57 ad 1.14). Isoc. 15.129; Din. 1.14, 31.17; Diod. 16.21.4; Nep. Timoth. 3.4-5, Iphicr. 3.3; Aelian, Var. Hist. 14.3; DH Din. 677, Lys 680; [Plut.] Mor. 605f. 72 Dinarchus later expands on this argument by pointing out that even the gods fairly submitted themselves to trial at Athens (Din. 1.84-7). That Demosthenes first proposed that the Areopagus investigate the

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this respect, were the jurors to acquit him, Dinarchus warns, they would effectively betray justice (to\ di/kaion), favoring Demosthenes’ reputation over the honor the city would recoup by punishing him (cf. do/cai, Din. 1.27). Dinarchus similarly contrasts Demosthenes with Themistocles, Aristides, and other renowned Athenians to imply that, no matter how great Demosthenes’ reputation, or doxa, it should never be placed above that of the city. Demosthenes, in fact, is thought to have diminished the city’s own doxa by placing his own safety above that of the community (cf. a)docote/ran, Din. 1.40).

In this way, Demosthenes assumed an

undemocratic air, as if he considered himself somehow better than the city and the people or, worse still, somehow immune to the laws and the Areopagus’ report (Din. 1.40; cf. 1.45, 87; Hyp. 5.12).73 As this last comparison suggests, Demosthenes’ symbolic contempt for the city’s laws also betokened contempt for the symbols and values of the city itself. Unlike the city’s great benefactors—men like Themistocles or Aristides who built the city’s walls and brought in the first tribute from Athens’ allies—Demosthenes refuses to give any good (agathon) to the city, watching over only his own safety and treating everything as a source of income (Din. 1.40; cf. 2.15). Accordingly, his corrupt activity, so indicative of his contempt for the city’s laws, indicates, too, a conscious refusal to perform public

Harpalus Affair and then tried to escape the court’s verdict thus inflates his own unseemly arrogance (beyond that of the gods!) and denigrates the authority of the laws. See further Dem. 24.5; Aeschin. 1.4, 3.6, 3.196; Din. 2.19, 3.3; and Ober (1989: 217-19) on the Athenians’ antipathy towards legal advantages for anyone, especially the wealthy. 73 Pseudo-Demosthenes makes a similar point in underscoring how those who sell the interests of their country have regard for neither laws nor oaths ([Dem.] 17.13). It was readily assumed, therefore, that citizens accused of crimes like sykophancy or dōrodokia—which appeared to involve a malicious disregard for the law (cf. Dem. 19.101, 120)—considered themselves above the law. So, Demosthenes warns the jury not to let Aeschines become “greater than the masses” (mei/zw...tw=n pollw=n, Dem. 19.296), nor to pardon Theocrines, accused of sykophancy, for consciously and arrogantly casting aside the laws (Dem. 58.15, 24).

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Rather than be an engaged citizen using his money for the city’s benefit,

Demosthenes moved away from the city to the Piraeus port, where he spent his time living in luxury amid the city’s misfortunes.74 This lifestyle is instructively described as “bringing shame on the city’s doxa” (kataisxu/nwn th\n th=j po/lewj do/can, Din. 1.35). What is more, the comparison to Timotheus underscores how Demosthenes then tried to pass off his corrupt profiteering as an actual benefaction in exchange for which he might escape conviction (Din. 1.17).75 Implicated in this nexus of corruption and contempt for the city’s laws, therefore, is a veritable weighing of bribes against good works. Such a weighing is familiar from the last chapter, where we saw how, for instance, the defendant of Lysias 21 weighed his public works against the charge of corruption. Demosthenes seems to go one step beyond simply not using his gains for the greater good, however, for he seems to reject the value of such a system altogether, actively preferring the corrupt currency of bribe monies to the symbolic currency of honoring, and being honored by, the city. As we saw in the previous section, the kinds of commercial dealings at the Piraeus in which Demosthenes purportedly engaged were devoid of any real civic content, for they 74

trufw~n e0n toi=j th~j po&lewj kakoi=j, kai\ e0pi\ forei/ou katakomizo&menoj th_n ei0j Peiraia~ o(do&n,Din. 1.36. Cf. Din. 1.69; Aeschin. 3.209; Hyp. 5.16b. Demosthenes’ location in the Piraeus had its own ideological significance of removal from the asty (city) of Athens, for it was the civic space of the Piraeus which so many foreigners, traders, and foreign cults occupied. In fact, throughout the fourth century, the Piraeus was conceptualized in just this way as some kind of other world to the city-center itself: von Reden (1995b), Roy (1998: esp. 198-201). Demosthenes’ purported allegiance to the Piraeus thus marked him as morally corrupt and not truly allied with the city itself: cf. Plato, Laws 705a-b, Dem. 32.10-11, Arist. Pol. 5.1303b7-12. Here, Dinarchus’ reference to the luxurious lifestyle of Demosthenes (cf. trufw~n) also plays off of class tensions within the polis: rather than adhere to the middling, egalitarian ideology of the polis, Demosthenes flaunts and wastes his wealth. For more on the civic ideology of the ‘middling’ (metrios) citizen, see e.g. Ober (1989: esp. 257-9). 75 In passing off his venality as a public service, Dinarchus says, Demosthenes “instructs” the people about what to think about his greed (peri\ th=j e(autw=n pleoneci/aj paragge/llein, Din.1.40). The verb paragge/llein is normally used of a general giving orders (LSJ. s.v. paragge/llw II) and thus regularly connotes a disparity in authority between two people. That Demosthenes so “commands” the people to reinterpret his selfish gains as public benefactions only reinforces the notion that he thinks himself above the people and the laws.

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entailed the intermingling of arms-length citizens with metics or foreigners who had citizen privileges—in short, people whose interaction was not at all predicated on the content of some civic tie. Equally by living off in the Piraeus and by taking dōra, Demosthenes was thought to be devaluing the city’s symbolic economy of civic honor. In rejecting the symbolic foundations of citizenship and the city itself (Din. 1.89), he implicitly disavowed a democratic character and threatened the very ethos of the city. The purportedly corrupt activity of other public speakers, too, was conceived as a threat not just to the laws, but even to the character of the city. Dinarchus details, for example, how on at least six different occasions Demosthenes was purportedly bribed to propose actual laws or the award of honors, statues, and even citizenship (Din. 1.41-5). This list is prefaced with a telling detail, namely, that his corrupt activity as a public speaker made him “unworthy” (a)na/cion) of the city (Din. 1.41). The word a)na/cion, often used of measuring the value of two different things, picks up on the exact same symbolic measuring we have been examining: by taking dōra and cheating the system of public honors, Demosthenes proved both that he was “unworthy” of the city’s honors, that the values he privileged were clearly not those of the city.76 By implication, to honor Demosthenes with an acquittal would be tantamount to dishonoring the city itself. 76

Further, a)na/cion picks up on a verb only a few lines prior: talking about rogues like Demosthenes, Dinarchus comments, “They have made the city more disreputable (a)docote/ran) than themselves, and now, convicted of taking bribes against you (dw=ra kaq’ u(mw=n), they deceive you and think it worth it (a) a)ciou=si), i after conduct such as this, to give you instructions (paragge/llein) on their own greed” (Din. 1.40). What Demosthenes and other corrupt traitors value is first to dishonor the city (a)docote/ran) by privately gaining without giving back to the community and then to presume themselves sufficiently above the law to instruct (paragge/llein, cf. supra n.63) the people on how to esteem their public ‘works’. Their valuing of private gain (a)ciou=si) is antithetical to the city’s valuing of public outlay (a)na/cion). Such explicit evaluation of public outlay was commonplace in this period, as is clear from two formulae from contemporary honorific inscriptions, in which the dēmos provided a “worthy” (a/)cion, etc.) reward or thanks to an official who had done his job well. Honorands were either provided “very worthy thanks” (e.g xa/ritaj...[k]ataci/aj, IG ii² 505.43 ; cf. IG ii² 423.5; restored at IG ii² 183.7, 269.10-11, 391.11-12, 392.2-3, 425.13) or were to be granted “whatever good they are deemed worthy of” (a)gaqo\n o4tou a2n dokei= a1cioj ei]nai, IG ii² 360.75, 412.5, 424.11; cf. IG ii² 232.13, 235.2, Dem. 20.151). In the same vein,

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On the one hand, by taking dōra to bestow honors on others, Demosthenes implicitly devalued the entire system of public honors: no longer could Athenians tell which honors were well-deserved, which earned only through bribing a public speaker.77 Such an offense was bad enough to dishonor the city, yet the gravity of the offense was compounded by the implication of an entire network of similarly corrupt citizens. Although Dinarchus does not explicitly accuse Demosthenes, in particular, of being part of just such a corrupt network, the jurors certainly might have inferred as much given Demosthenes’ purported contempt for the laws and shameful dishonoring of the city. Other orators, for instance, were more explicit on this point, describing an entire system of corruption, wherein those guilty of malpractice—including dōrodokia—would bribe public speakers not to prosecute them at their audit for public office (euthyna). So Timarchus is lambasted by Aeschines for doing damage to the city by receiving bribes from crooked public officials trying to escape audit (Aeschin. 1.106-8).

Similarly,

Aeschines describes how the law against receiving a crown before undergoing a euthyna was first passed in reaction to bribe-givers who were consistently getting away with crimes. Before they came up for audit, these purportedly corrupt officials would bribe a public speaker to award them a crown. According to Aeschines, after these officials received a crown from the dēmos, jurors refused to convict the officials at their audit lest Dinarchus castigates Philocles for committing dōrodokia and thereby selling the “worth” (a)ci/wma) of a public office conferred by the people (Din. 3.12). 77 Compare Demosthenes’ own castigation of those who speak in the Assembly or move resolutions after being bribed (Dem. 23.146-7): that such men proclaim someone either good or bad (xrhsto\n kai\ ponhro/n), not on account of his character but because of the wishes of their bribe-giver, implicitly devalues similar estimations by all public speakers. Because the Athenians cannot know which estimations are true, which are motivated by money, their entire system of public recognition is devalued, destabilized, and dethroned. For this reason, Demosthenes asserts, the “most wicked” class of men is that of bribed public speakers (ponhro/taton, Dem. 23.146). For similar accusations of bribed rhētores in this period, see Dem. 15.32, 20.132, 23.201, 24.3, 24.14-15, 24.99, 24.122, 24.123, 24.203; Aeschin. 1.106-8, 1.114-5, 1.154, 2.23, 2.93, 2.144, 2.148, 2.152, 2.154-5, 2.165, 3.58, 3.66, 3.81-2, 3.85, 3.103-5, 3.113-4, 3.129. 3.221, 3.237, 3.242. cf. Aeschin. 3.9.

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the people be disgraced for contradicting themselves by honoring someone who later was shown to be corrupt (Aesch. 3.9). Clearly, this purported network of corruption, like Demosthenes himself, both threatened the city’s laws and devalued its symbolic economy of honors.78 On the other hand, as was noted above, Demosthenes’ activity signaled more than just a devaluing of the city’s economy of honors; it was a wholesale rejection of that economy, as well. In this light, it is helpful to return to Demosthenes’ prosecution of Aeschines to see how this exact same accusation—that Aeschines preferred Philip’s bribes to the dēmos’ honors—casts Aeschines as a traitor. Pointing out that Aeschines’ bribe-taking achieved nothing for Athens, whereas the Thebans’ own refusal to take bribes gained them Philip’s favor, Demosthenes explicitly weighs the symbolic rewards of civic honors against Philip’s bribes: And what have the [Theban] ambassadors gained? Nothing at all except the satisfaction of having achieved these results for their city. Ah, but that is worth having, men of Athens; a glorious reward, if you set any store by that virtue (a)reth/) and good repute (do/ca) which Aeschines and his friends bartered for money (xrhma/twn a)pe/donto, Dem. 19.142).

By taking Philip’s dōra, Aeschines manifestly did not pursue the ‘honor and good repute’ offered by the polis.

By contrast, Demosthenes juxtaposes his own actions with

Aeschines’ to show how he, himself, acted honorably, pursuing philotimia rather than Philip’s money (Dem. 19.223).

His point is an apt one, for he underscores that a

conscious calculus of values led him to follow a course of truth and justice (tou= dikai/ou kai\ th=j a)lhqei/aj, Dem. 19.223, cf. 19.28); although each could certainly be pursued for its own sake, he explicitly calculated that public honor, timē (cf. timhqh/sesqai, Dem. 78

In a similar blending of these two narratives, Demosthenes considered Philip, too, a threat to Athens’ laws and the democracy: Dem. 6.25, 8.41-2.

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19.223), would come only by abstaining from dōra. To receive money from Philip, therefore, would have entailed losing honor from the people and even rejecting the city’s values in order to benefit its enemies, as Aeschines had done.79 It is ironic, then, that the same weighing of civic honors against monies from corruption would later prove Demosthenes’ downfall in the Harpalus Affair. Although he mentions this only in passing, it is crucial that the ultimate guarantor of trust and justice in Demosthenes’ vision of Athens was the currency of public honor and recognition. Without this glue binding elites to the straight and proper course of justice, they might have strayed onto a treasonous course, like Aeschines did, and bring the utmost ruin upon the city. Given the pronounced threat of stasis and the distrust it engendered, we can see how at this time the Athenians began to rely more heavily on both their laws and system of public honors, qua sanctions and incentives, to keep elites pursuing the community’s interests. This is one reason why contemporary accusations of dōrodokia were comprised of arguments from ethos and pathos, not logos.

The

opportunity for winning timē proved a powerful carrot for the wealthy, yet this inducement was necessary to help protect against their immediate defection.

The

prospect of winning public honor encouraged elites to act justly, in the sense of privileging the honor of the democracy, and thereby to reinforce what were then thought to be dangerously weak bonds of trust among citizens. 79

Note how Demosthenes earlier accuses Aeschines of being a “noble gentleman and just (ka)gaqo\j kai\ di/kaioj) to that man [sc. Philip] while a traitor to you” (Dem. 19.110). The orator’s choice of epithets here is significant, for Aeschines is thought to exhibit the civic virtue of kalokagathia, which by this period could be considered the virtue of an ideal citizen: e.g. Dem. 18.93, 278 and generally Ober (1989: 260-1). Yet in that case it is extraordinarily troubling that Aeschines is just to Philip while being a traitor to the Athenians, for he effectively pursues the civic ideals of justice and virtue but only insofar as they benefit Athens’ enemy Philip. In other words, Demosthenes here underscores how Aeschines pursues civic ideals only to the extent that they harm, not help the polis. Likewise, as we saw above, the leaders of Pydna were thought to have sought out public gifts (dwreai/) not from the city, but from Philip in exchange for betraying the city (Dem. 20.63).

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It was therefore noteworthy when a citizen manifestly did not act corruptly, that is, when he was vindicated for having pursued public office—and the timē it might win him—not for the sake of gain, but for the sake of the community and its system of honors. In fact, we find this concept attested in three honorary inscriptions from the middle of the fourth century, where citizens are praised for their actions: in one, a thesmothetēs is given an olive crown for doing his job “[well,] justly, and adōrodokētōs”; in another, a judge of the Thargelia festival is honored for judging the winner of a competition in the same manner; and in the last the public speaker Phanodemos is honored and crowned for having given counsel “well, in pursuit of honor, and adōrodokētōs.”80 Although some scholars have posited that the adverb adōrodokētōs means “placing communal ahead of personal obligations,”81 if we turn to the orators’ usage of the adverb (and cognate adjective), we find a clear indication that, as might be expected of an alpha-privative formation, the adverb simply and literally meant “not engaging in dōrodokia.”82

What is striking about this usage is that in five of the seven passages, the

adverb is used in contradistinction either to an accusation that an official had committed dōrodokia or to another person who demonstrably had committed dōrodokia (Aeschin. 3.82; Dem. 19.4, 19.27, 19.232, 58.35). Of the two remaining passages, one probably has 80

Respectively, IG ii² 1148.4-5 (before mid-fourth century): [kalw=j kai\ d]ikai/wj kai\ a)dwr/[odokh/twj h]rcen] th\n a)rxhn; Veligianni-Terzi (1997: C8, 206). IG ii² 1153.5-7 (mid-fourth century): kalw=j ka/i\ dikai/wj kai\ a)dworodokh/twj e)/krine th\n [f]ul[h\n] nika=n Qarg/h/lia; Veligianni-Terzi (1997: C12, 206). IG ii² 223A12 (342): kal[w=j k]ai\ f[i]loti/mwj kai\\ a)dwrodokh/twj; Veligianni-Terzi (1997: B5A, 207). For post-classical uses of the word, Whitehead (1993: n.68) helpfully collects the following citations: IG ii² 649.29-30, 1011.44, 1165.23-4, 1215.9, 1299.2, 1304.31, SEG xxv.112.9-10.  81 So Whitehead (1993: 68n.12) follows Herman (1987: 77-8) in understanding the adverb adōrodokētōs as signifying that an official had put communal obligations before the personal ones entailed in giftexchange, in other words, that one had actually abstained from gift exchange (cf. Herman [1987: 77]). Similarly, Harvey (1985: 98n.78). Veligianni-Terzi (1997: 289) rightly questions Herman’s conjecture but offers no better substitute. 82 Cf. Aeschin. 3.82, Dem. 18.250, 19.4, 19.27, 19.232, 19.274, 58.35.

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the same nuance, namely, that the dēmos expected Callias to have an honest and adōrodokētos character, but apparently he did not on his embassy to the Persian King (Dem. 19.274). And the other, in the phrase dikai/wj kai\ a)dwrodokh/twj, might pick up on the language from a euthyna at which Demosthenes would have been prosecuted for dōrodokia but acquitted as having acted “justly and adōrokētōs” (Dem. 18.250). Based on these comparanda, it appears that the adverb adōrodokētōs on inscriptions might very well have indicated that someone had been accused, but absolved, of having committed dōrodokia. Still, while the strict meaning of the adverb adōrodokētōs might simply be “not having engaged in dōrodokia,” those inscriptions which praise an official for having acted adōrodokētōs indicate that he was rightly praised for pursuing the very honors and virtues praised by the community rather than for seeking money. Rather than take monies symbolic of treason, he had worked within the civic economy of public honors. In the first and last of these inscriptions, for instance, the honorand is later praised for acting “for the sake of honor (aretē) and [a sense of justice (dikaiosynē)] towards the dēmos.”83 Note, too, how in the third inscription the speaker is explicitly said to be acting with philotimia.

Given how at this time public officials were honored for

exhibiting philotimia even when they merely discharged the duties of their office satisfactorily, we might posit that where dōrodokia—and a job unsatisfactorily done— began, philotimia ended.84 Officials vindicated and praised for behaving adōrodokētōs

83

a)reth=j e4neka kai\/[dikaiosu/nhj th=]j ei)j to\n dh=mon (IG ii² 1148.8-9, IG ii² 223A12). For this phenomenon, see the examples provided by Whitehead (1983: 73n.32). Note how, by the time of Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens (late 330’s to early 320’s), the Council regularly received a dōrea of a gold crown after successfully submitting its accounts: AP 46.1; Aeschin. 1.111-12, Dem. 22.36, 22.38-9; cf. Dem. 22.8-20. 84

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were thus honored as much for discharging their duties ‘uncorruptly’ as for valuing the community’s interests and the very honors bestowed by the community. Ultimately, Demosthenes was not vindicated as having acted adōrodokētōs, but was instead convicted and fined 50 talents. A man who only seven years earlier had been crowned as one of Athens’ greatest patriots and counselors was imprisoned, though allowed to escape into exile (Plut. Dem. 26.2-5). Much of the political atmosphere at Athens had of course changed in the interim. Still, as Dinarchus’ prosecution speech suggests by connecting Demosthenes to other corrupt traitors through outright comparisons or more subtly through various tropes from contemporary narratives of dōrodokia, much of the political atmosphere was the same, as it had been since Philip’s emergence. Although Demosthenes was no Aeschines—part of a corrupt network of traitors hired out to a foreign king—he was deemed a traitor all the same, just one of a group of leading citizens who debased the city and endangered her laws through their systematic domestic corruption. That the dōrodokos became a traitor—and, specifically, a traitor working with other traitors within the city—pointed to deep rifts in the democracy during the last half of the fourth century. The fear of elite defection, which would have entailed civil war and probably constitutional change as well, was persistent; if the rest of Greece was any indication, this fear was a veritable threat at Athens. The bonds of trust between citizens were increasingly diluted as Athens tried to effect a financial recovery. So the Athenians looked to their laws and their own system of public honors as stick and carrot to induce elite members of the community to participate in the democracy. And so, Demosthenes,

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like others before him, was convicted perhaps in a desperate effort to salvage the city’s honor and deter the rest of his purportedly corrupt band from further ruining the city.85 With the hindsight of history, the city’s efforts to curb elite defection from the democracy could not save the democracy itself. By the end of 323, Athens’ leaders, newly invigorated by the death of Alexander, had led the city into what would be her last war as a sovereign entity: a war on behalf of all of Greece against Alexander’s viceroy Antipater. But the Lamian War proved yet another failure, as Athens and the rest of Greece came to be completely controlled by Antipater (Diod. 18.17.3-5).86 Meanwhile, Demosthenes, at long last recalled to the city during the lead-up to the Lamian War, fled Athens after Antipater’s victory and, pursued by the Macedonian’s men, sought refuge in a temple to Poseidon. When asked to give himself up, he stalled for time, feigning to write a letter to his relatives while really withdrawing in private to drink some poison concealed in the tip of his writing reed (Plut. Dem. 29). Though Demosthenes died a free man, his city remained under Macedonian control for centuries until the advent of the Romans. Given the warnings of the oracle at Dodona, of Dinarchus, of Hyperides and even of Demosthenes himself, it is perhaps ironic that ultimately the democracy was done in not by a crop of traitors but by a group of patriots hoping to reclaim the city’s freedom— in other words, by democrats, not dōrodokoi. In this light, the Harpalus Affair, and the indomitable specter of a political set-up which the trial brings to mind, raises important questions about the role of dōrodokia trials and accusations in the larger workings of the

85

Sealey (1993: 214) notes that within just six months the Assembly had pardoned or at least partly exonerated most of the men suspected of involvement in the Harpalus Affair; by the summer, only Demosthenes for sure was still in exile. 86 Lamian War: e.g. Ashton (1982) and, for the aftermath of the war in Athens, Habicht (1997: 36-66).

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democracy. If the previous chapters have shown how the meaning of dōrodokia was articulated in tandem with changing conceptions of the democracy, the following chapters will examine in closer detail how such conceptual change was reflected in the law and political institutions. By investigating how these formal responses reinforced, complemented, or even contradicted informal mechanisms for regulating the behavior of politicians and citizens alike, we will uncover crucial ways in which bribery helped shape the Athenian democracy.

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What to Do with the dōrodokos? Approaching Bribery and the Law at Athens

We have spent the past few chapters investigating the role of the dōrodokos within Athenian public discourse: the social meaning of the space he occupied in the community, and how this meaning, along with his defining features, changed over the course of the democracy. Essentially this investigation has amounted to tracing the place of the dōrodokos within the moral community of the dēmos. As we have seen, merely describing the dōrodokos’ role within the community has entailed considering his relationship to that community: was he an insider or an outsider? Was the civic violation at the heart of his dōrodokia the transgression of someone who belonged, or did not belong, in the polity? The last chapter, for example, revealed how a purported dōrodokos like Demosthenes was considered a traitor to the city, an outsider who had made his way into the moral community of the dēmos and thereby threatened it from within. Throughout, we have investigated not simply who the dōrodokos was, but especially who was allowed to make that call in the first place. This last point is a crucial one, for descriptive claims about the moral standing of the dōrodokos—as insider (disobedient citizen), outsider (traitor), or insider desiring to become outsider (thief)—were always also implicit claims about what his moral standing would or should be going forward. If Demosthenes qua a dōrodokos was inherently a traitor, the thinking went, he would and should always be considered an outsider to the democracy. Indeed, Dinarchus comments, it was precisely those wishing ill upon the city who thought that Demosthenes should be allowed to live (and the city harmed), while 212

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those hoping for the city’s own prosperity wished to see Demosthenes dead (Din. 1.65), thereby permanently removed from the community. To contemplate a dōrodokos like Demosthenes within the polity was thus to envision, and perhaps hope for, a polity without him. Moving our investigation of the dōrodokos forward in this way—pushing it past descriptions of the here and now and looking into what role the figure would play in the city’s future—helpfully underscores how discursive representations of dōrodokoi mapped onto public deliberation about the future of the democracy. Thinking with the dōrodokos was a way to think through the democracy. How, then, did this powerful discursive role shape the way the Athenians legislated against dōrodokia? If the Athenians always looked to the outcome of the dōra given or received, and if in instances of potential bribery they implicitly weighed in which direction their democracy should head, what kind of space did the dōrodokos occupy in their political and legal institutions? Although this claim will be fully argued in the chapters to come, already we can see how the Athenians’ specific conception of the dōrodokos could have had a profound impact not only on how dōrodokia was framed within the laws—what kind of offense was it? how was it defined?—but even on how it was punished—should the dōrodokos become an insider or an outsider? Expanding our inquiry in this way immediately raises important questions about how the Athenians created laws and for what purpose they did so. Were laws against dōrodokia strictly deterrents—legal process merely an extensive apparatus for enforcement—or was the role of law in Athenian society more broadly construed? What were the formal norms governing dōrodokia, how did these relate to informal

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understandings of what constituted dōrodokia, and what was the relationship between these norms and the courts? The inherently political nature of dōrodokia also brings up tangled questions about the relationship between law and politics. In short, did the courts merely enforce norms concerning dōrodokia, or were dōrodokia suits used as deliberative moments when such political norms were contested and ultimately legitimated by a mass jury? These are all central questions that will be explored in the next few chapters, as we use the laws against dōrodokia as a case-study for understanding broader trends in the relationship between Athenian law and society. Broadly speaking, we will be attempting to trace the story of how Athenian dōrodokia legislation was created—that is, how legal innovation came about in ancient Athens—and, consequently, what role this legislation and the legal process it engendered played in Athenian society. On both counts my approach diverges from that by recent scholars working on the legal regulation of bribery, whether in the ancient Athenian setting or in more contemporary societies. This chapter outlines the theoretical framework underpinning our analysis and then put this framework to the test by examining what I argue was Athens’ first law against bribery.

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Athenian Legal and Institutional Responses to Bribery: By the end of the democracy, the Athenians had developed a range of formal measures concerning dōrodokia. A series of public oaths and curses condemned those who committed dōrodokia, and at least six different legal procedures covered dōrodokia of one form or another. These included four public procedures (graphai), each most likely pertaining to a distinct law against dōrodokia: the graphē dōrōn for a general law against giving and taking dōra illicitly, as well as for making corrupt promises; the graphē dekasmou for a law against bribing judicial bodies; the graphē dōroxenias, presumably attached to a law against bribing a jury for acquittal in a citizenship trial; and an unnamed graphē for indicting public prosecutors or witnesses (synēgoroi) who had taken dōra for a public or private suit.1

Moreover, there were two procedures for

prosecuting public officials either while still in office or at the end of their term: respectively, public impeachment (eisangelia) of generals who had taken dōra while on campaign and public speakers who had spoken against the city’s interests after taking dōra; and prosecution of a public official during his regular audit (euthyna) at the end of his term.2 In the second half of the fourth century, there was also the possibility of

1

On these laws and procedures, see generally Thonissen (1875: 213-21), Lipsius (1905-15: 2.401-6), Calhoun (1913: 66-77, 117-18, 131-3), MacDowell (1978: 170-3, 183-6; 1983), MacDowell (1983a), Hansen (1991: 193-4), Kulesza (1995: 34-7), Taylor (2001: 154-7), Hashiba (2006), of which the overviews by Thonissen, Lipsius, MacDowell, and Hashiba are by far the most detailed and comprehensive. General law and graphē dōrōn: Dem. 21.113, Lipsius (1905-15: 2.401-4), MacDowell (1983a: 74-6), Hashiba (2006: 67-74). Graphē dekasmou: [Dem.] 46.26; Lipsius (1905-15: 2.402), MacDowell (1983a: 63-8), Hashiba (2006: 67-74). Graphē dōroxenias: AP 59.3; MacDowell (1983a: 68-9). Unnamed graphē: mentioned in [Dem.] 46.26 as a graphē before the thesmothetai; Rubinstein (2000: 52-3). 2 Eisangelia: Hyp. 4.7-8, 29; Lipsius (1905-15: 1.176-211), Hansen (1975), MacDowell (1978: 173-6; 1983a: 62-3). Euthyna: AP 54.2; Lipsius (1905-15: 2.286-98), Piérart (1971), Carawan (1987). Hansen (1991: 193) argues that an apographē—or a list of money or property received as a bribe, to be confiscated—could also be employed to prosecute someone for dōrodokia. However, his one attested example, IG ii² 1631.361ff., refers to a case in which one Sopolis already owed money to the treasury

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investigation (apophasis) by the Areopagus Court into an alleged instance of dōrodokia. Finally, depending on the offense and procedure used, there were three different penalties for illicitly giving and receiving dōra: outlawry or, later, disfranchisement (atimia), death, and a tenfold fine for the amount of the dōra.3 Taken as a whole, these measures exhibit two characteristics strikingly at odds with each other. There is a wide range of coverage, including a variety of offenses (illicitly giving and taking dōra, making corrupt promises) by a variety of specific agents (generals, public speakers, and political assemblies of various kinds are all singled out). Yet there is also considerable overlap in the offenses and procedures, where bribing a group of people conceivably falls under any of three different graphai, to say nothing of the possibility of investigating the offense under an apophasis or, if the offender was a public official, an eisangelia or euthyna. How do we account for such rich legal innovation? For scholars of Athenian law, this variety of reforms straightforwardly indicates a persistent anxiety in the democracy about dōrodokia.4 They assume either that the Athenians first identified a range of

(precisely the kind of property normally confiscated under an apographē); that part of his property came from bribes he received is thus purely incidental. 3 Our sources give conflicting accounts of the penalties for dōrodokia; this is an intractable problem for any legal history of dōrodokia. Atimia: explicit in the law cited at Dem. 24.113; cf. And. 1.74, Aeschin. 3.232. Tenfold fine: AP 54.2, Hyp. 5.24, Din. 1.60, 2.16-17. Death: Isoc. 8.50, Aeschin. 1.86-7 for the graphē dekasmou; Din. 1.60, Hyp. 5.24 (conjectured). Of these sources, Aeschin. 3.232 lists only atimia as a penalty for the graphē dōrōn, while both Din. 1.60 and Hyp. 5.24 claim that the penalty was either death or a tenfold fine. I argue below that these last two penalties applied only at a euthyna or eisangelia procedure (although originally instead of death atimia qua outlawry was used), while, as Aeschines attests, atimia (qua disfranchisement) was the only penalty used in a graphē dōrōn suit: see note 33 below. The penalty under an apophasis could vary according to the public decree calling for the investigation: in the case of the Harpalus Affair, for example, Demosthenes was fined 50 talents after being suspected of taking 20 talents in dōra (Plut. Dem. 26.2). It is unknown what the penalty was for conviction in a graphē dōroxenias, but atimia qua outlawry was likely: see Chapter Six below. 4 Such a baldly functionalist view underpins the consensus scholarly view. So, for example, Strauss (1985: 73) remarks, “Bribes threatened to turn an individual against the commonwealth, hence they were outlawed.” Similarly, MacDowell (1983a: 57): “It is...not surprising that some attempts were made to check corruption by legislation and prosecution.” Cf. Calhoun (1913: 67), Harvey (1985: 95), Taylor (2001: 157), Hashiba (2006: 72).

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discrete offenses and later grouped them together into a comprehensive law (thereby creating overlap), or that they first identified a general offense (dōrodokia) and later relegislated its most egregious types, perhaps with harsher penalties in a further attempt to discourage potential offenders.5

Alternatively, it is surmised that the overlap was

consciously created to increase the likelihood of prosecution; procedural flexibility would enable someone to prosecute a dōrodokos and thereby incur just the right amount of risk.6 There are considerable problems in painting a broad legal history based on such generalizations about the development of Athenian law7; even if we put these to one side, however, there are still further problems with this approach. In accounting for legal innovation, these scholars have proceeded from two basic assumptions:

to curb

corruption, the Athenians decided to define dōrodokia in law and they thereby created legal penalties that would act as deterrents to future dōrodokoi. To my mind, both of these assumptions are incorrect. These assumptions are remarkably similar to contemporary legal scholars’ discussions of the rule of law. For those scholars, the rule of law is a central goal of antibribery legislation: the law, and ideally only the law, is to be used to provide a definition 5

Broadly, these are the approaches taken by Hashiba (2006: esp. 76) and MacDowell (1983a), respectively, who have offered the only in-depth examinations of the legal history of dōrodokia in classical Athens. Of these, only the treatment of MacDowell (1983a) is comprehensive, but its conclusions have been rightly criticized by Todd (1993: 303n.16) and especially Hashiba (2006), whose own examination is more evenhanded yet does not aim to be exhaustive. 6 Demosthenes posits precisely this reason for the variety of Athenian laws on theft: Dem. 22.25-7. He has been followed by Osborne (1985), Ober (1989: 144-5), Todd (1993: 160-3); see especially Carey (2004) for the criticism that this explanation does not account for the entire Athenian legal system. As I will argue in Chapter Seven, the motivation behind procedural flexibility in dōrodokia suits potentially stemmed from the need for different authoritative bodies to be the judge in different circumstances. 7 See especially Humphreys (1983: 229-31), Cantarella (1987), Cohen (1989: 91), Todd (1993: 69-70) on the various dangers of adopting an evolutionary approach in the study of Athenian law. It is puzzling, in this regard, that Hashiba (2006: 68n.27) notes the problems with making evolutionary assumptions about the development of Athenian law, yet nevertheless posits that the general law against dōrodokia (as cited in Dem. 21.113) evinces “some intellectual sophistication of legislative language.” In effect, diachronic changes in the Demosthenic law are understood as increasingly sophisticated attempts at defining dōrodokia comprehensively. I offer a different approach below.

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of what is and is not socially legitimate; and the law is to provide a series of incentives and penalties that structure how political agents behave. In essence, advocates of anticorruption reform argue, by designing the right laws and the right institutions—with clearly defined norms and stringent penalties to hold officials accountable—a polity can effectively curb the cancer of corruption.8 In response to both sets of scholars, however, it is unclear that the Athenians had such an impulse to define things systematically, let alone to use the law to do so.9 As we have seen, the Athenian word for bribery was ‘dōrodokia’, which meant approximately “the receipt of gifts in exchange for a bad outcome” (dōra + dekomai), yet nowhere was this ‘bad outcome’ further defined.10

Even a superficial look at Athenian laws on

dōrodokia confirms this claim, for the offense of dōrodokia is never legally defined beyond the receipt of dōra resulting in some kind of ‘harm’ or ‘bad’ to the dēmos11; in any case, those definitions certainly do not amount to “taking gifts [sc. in office],” as some classicists have tacitly assumed.12 Nor is dōrodokia the only offense which the Athenians did not rigorously define.13 If the Athenians had a more exact understanding 8

See recently Rose-Ackerman (1978, 1999), Klitgaard (1988), Doig (2000), della Porta and RoseAckerman (2002), Johnston (2005). 9 Note, by contrast, how the law code of Zaleucus was famous for its precision in calibrating a different penalty for each offense: Ephorus FGrH 70 F 139. 10 See above Chapter One. 11 See further MacDowell (1983: 74-6). The law against dōrodokia cited at Dem. 21.113 mentions only giving or taking “to the harm of the dēmos.” Likewise, the eisangelia against public speakers defines bribery as taking money and speaking against the interests of the Athenian dēmos (Hyp. 4.8); the graphē dekasmou simply calls the offense dōrodokia; and apophasis by the Areopagus was based on a public decree which need not define the offense more specifically than taking gifts “against the country” (kata\ th=j patri/doj, e.g. Din. 1.13). 12 Harvey (1985), Kulesza (1995), Taylor (2001), Hashiba (2006). Harvey’s (1985: 108-13) discussion is particularly relevant here, as he seeks to differentiate ‘catapolitical’ bribery—i.e. bribery “against the community”—from other kinds of taking gifts in office. Ultimately, though, he concludes that both offenses were surely outlawed even though our legal sources consistently refer only to catapolitical bribery. I differ from his approach in saying that dōrodokia was, and was only, catapolitical bribery. 13 Commonly noted in our ancient sources: AP 9.2, cf. AP 35.2; Arist. Rhet. 1.1354a27-30, b11-16, 1374a8; Pl. Polit. 294a10-295a7; Rhodes (1981: 162 ad AP 9.1). For a good discussion, see Harris (1988: 367-70), Todd (2000a: 26-7).

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of what constituted dōrodokia—which kinds of things were ‘bad’ gifts, under which specific circumstances a gift might be deemed ‘bad’, etc.—that definition is not in our record. Just as we might query scholars’ focus on the substantive aspects of dōrodokia legislation, so, too, might we cast doubt on their functionalist conclusion for why specific legal procedures or penalties were created for dōrodokia suits. As the orator Dinarchus explains in a prosecution speech against Demosthenes on the charge of dōrodokia, the laws against dōrodokia established two possible penalties. The dōrodokos was to be punished either with death, “to ensure that anyone happening to receive this punishment would be an example (para/deigma) to others,” or with a fine ten times the amount of the bribe, “so that those who commit the offense would not profit” (i3na mh\ lusitelh/sh| toi=j tou=to tolmw=si poiei=n, Din. 1.60).14 To a degree we can readily understand both penalties as deterrents, yet it is worth pointing out that they function as deterrents in different ways. A financial penalty is thought to deter the original dōrodokos, while the death penalty is intended to deter other dōrodokoi. If Dinarchus is correct, then the death penalty was not merely a deterrent, but played a broader, one might say educative, role within the polity.15 More generally, therefore, a second reason for resisting the functionalist approach taken by scholars of ancient and modern law alike is that such an approach tends to minimize the rich variety of Athenian legislation, especially the range of penalties and procedures created. What may appear to be ‘harsher’ penalties—adopted presumably as 14

Dinarchus’ testimony here is actually erroneous on two counts—on which, see note 3 above–but is helpful evidence all the same that Athenians consciously crafted different penalties for dōrodokia for different reasons. 15 Recall from the Introduction, too, how the death penalty was viewed in the case of Timagoras’ dōrodokia as a means of deterring the Persian King from giving bribes (cf. Dem. 19.137).

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a greater deterrent—may actually reflect new conceptions of dōrodokia, the law, or penology. Accordingly, we should ask not just why the Athenians decided to adopt formal regulations concerning dōrodokia, but especially why they enacted these particular measures with these particular penalties and procedures. In other words, what tends to get lost in approaches premised on broad generalizations about Athenian lawmaking is the tremendous social meaning legislation had for the Athenians. Certainly there was overlap in Athenian legislation on dōrodokia, but this was motivated by profound social and political considerations, as we will see, not necessarily by a conscious desire to promote the rule of law, that is, to effect strictly legal definitions of legitimate action backed by legally enforced penalties. Dinarchus’ testimony exposes an additional problem in assuming that Athenian dōrodokia legislation aimed at something similar to the modern notion of the rule of law. The rule of law presupposes a specific role for law as the ultimate arbiter of legitimate action; in a rule of law context, the polity is structured by, specifically, legal norms, and this system of norms—the law—is ideally kept separate from the contestation of political norms in deliberative, legislative bodies. Legal penalties thus should be the primary means of deterring illicit action.

For classicists examining Athenian legislation on

dōrodokia, all of these purposes were implicitly served by creating not only a comprehensive definition of dōrodokia within the law but also an effective system of accountability to enforce that definition. To be fair, the Athenians certainly believed in equality before the law—all citizens had equal access to the courts, and nobody was to be above the law—and the laws themselves were constantly hailed as one, if not the, central authority on communal

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norms. Yet it would be misleading to conclude that, for the Athenians, ‘the law’ was a predictable, autonomous system of rules that constituted legitimate action.

The

Athenians did not adhere in that sense to what we might call ‘the rule of law’.16 Athens was a legally pluralistic society: although citizens used the courts to legitimate certain actions, as we will see shortly, law did not have a monopoly on legitimacy, nor did its authority always trump that of other socially legitimate sources of authority.17 This was particularly true with bribery, as noted by the fourth century orator Hyperides (5.24): the laws forbad profiting from public office, but the people nevertheless allowed officials to take gifts provided that doing so did not harm the dēmos.18 Like broader cultural narratives about dōrodokia, then, Athenian legislation and institutional reform actually tell us a lot more about dōrodokia than these scholars would allow. In essence, their view provides a plausible reason for some kind of legal or institutional change—dōrodokia was a ‘problem’ in society that needed to be addressed—yet fails to explain why the Athenians made the precise changes that they

16

This is contra the view taken by Ostwald (1986) and Sealey (1987) and Harris (2006), on which see the succinct reply by Todd (1993: 299-300), Lanni (2006). The extent to which the Athenians developed a concept like ‘the rule of law’ has been hotly debated among ancient historians: see Ostwald (1986), Sealey (1987), Cohen (1995), Todd (1993: 299-300), Allen (2000: 168-96), Lanni (2006; forthcoming), Karayiannis and Hatzis (2008). 17 Much sociolegal literature from the 1980’s is devoted to this idea of legal pluralism, a helpful overview of which is provided by Merry (1988). On legal pluralism generally, Moore (1973, 1978), Galanter (1981), and Griffiths (1986), Woodman (1998) are essential. Arthurs (1985) details how the normative order of formal law has a constitutive influence on other normative orders in society, while Felstiner, Abel, and Sarat’s description of the way divorce attorneys give counsel describes how the legal order can be constituted by the norms of other social fields, in their case professional lawyers (1980). For the relevance of legal pluralism to archaic Greek law, see Lakin (2005), Papakonstantinou (2008: esp. 143-4 n.50). Fourth-century evidence that ‘laws’ were sovereign: Aeschin. 1.4-5, 3.6, 3.169; Dem. 21. 223-5, 23.73, 22.46, 24.5, 24.75-6, 24.118, 25.20-1, 57.56; Lyc. 1.3-4; Din. 3.16; Hyp. 4.5. Cf. Hansen (1975: 48; 1990: 239-42), Ostwald (1986: 497), Ober (1989: 299-304). Yet the modern conception of sovereignty here is misplaced; certainly the laws were authoritative, but they were still only guides, not absolute authorities: Todd (1993: 59), Allen (2000: 176-7). 18 Hyperides’ distinction has rightly become the accepted view among ancient historians since at least Harvey (1985: 108-13). I would point out, however, that we have no evidence of any law prohibiting mere profiting from office; Hyperides’ comments might instead be read as rhetorical manipulation designed to empower the jury to vote against his opponent.

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did.19 A different approach to Athenian legal and institutional reform might focus more on the differences than on the similarities among these responses: why did the Athenians develop these particular laws, with different penalties and different procedures, and why did they modify their political institutions in these particular ways? For that matter, when did the Athenians choose to create a new legal procedure, and when did they choose to reform an institution? The rest of this chapter will lay out a theoretical approach for addressing these questions; Chapter Six will put the theory to work by examining the democracy’s formal and informal responses to dōrodokia. Both Dinarchus and Hyperides press on implicit assumptions we might make about the role (and rule) of law in Athenian society.

We can re-examine those

assumptions by investigating how the laws against dōrodokia worked in practice—the subject of Chapter Seven. Who were the litigants, what were their underlying concerns, and what were the broader causes and consequences of dōrodokia suits? To an extent, the answers to such questions will also give us a better handle on why the Athenians drafted the particular dōrodokia legislation that they did. Further, such questions will return us to one of the central ideas that has framed this dissertation: that, in defining dōrodokia, the Athenians subtly deliberated over democracy. As the next few chapters will examine, it was in the legal space created for the dōrodokos that the Athenians could weigh whether an official, process, or policy should be aligned with dōrodokia or democracy. 19

Essentially, these functionalist views focus on the direct effects of legislation, positing that Athenian legislation against dōrodokia was designed to eliminate the taking of gifts in office (vel sim.), not the indirect effects of these actions—say, the poor performance of one’s public duties or official action that went against the dēmos’ interests. On the difference between direct and indirect effects of legislation, see especially Griffiths (2003). I would maintain instead that, inasmuch as illicit exchange was the paradigm through which the Athenians understood other, distinct problems in their polity, the law gave expression to this offense, but primarily for the purpose of curbing these other problems.

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Towards a Theory of Athenian Legal Innovation: If how the Athenians innovated is something of a black-box question in Greek history, how they created legal innovation is perhaps closer to a black hole. Most of the precious few testimonies we have about deliberative politics in action—Thucydidean speeches and the occasional report in other historiographers, comic parodies, as well as scattered, biased references in the orators—pertain to policymaking not legal regulation in its own right.

Recently, in an attempt to explain how the Athenians innovated

politically, Josiah Ober has examined the specific ways in which Athens’ political institutions aggregated the knowledge of her citizens and thereby fostered collective action and innovation.20 Ober’s idea can be helpfully mapped onto legislation like that on dōrodokia, but we are still left with a couple key questions. First, what kinds of knowledge were considered ‘expert’, or what kinds of considerations went into drafting such legislation? Did the Athenians focus only on solving a discrete ‘problem’, or did they tailor the legislation so that the overall shape of the legal system was ideally maintained? And second, to what extent did the intended effect of this legislation shape how it was created? Did the Athenians modify, say, the legal process or penalty involved so that the law might act as more than a mere deterrent? For Ober’s framework to be readily applicable to Athenian laws on dōrodokia, we must unpack the social meaning of that legislation, in effect defining the various kinds of

20

Ober (2008), the basic conclusions of which I build off of in constructing a theory of Athenian legal innovation. It should be noted that my argument does not require that the Athenians strived for efficiency in legal regulation, or what we might call legal efficacy. Still, Ober’s perceptive model will be a helpful backdrop for understanding how the Athenians strove to reach the ‘best’ policy, by whatever criteria that might be judged. Chapter Seven offers a couple different aims of Athenian laws on dōrodokia, each predicated on a different way in which the law in action was being used for broader political purposes.

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‘expertise’ that went into its creation. Accordingly, this chapter outlines how the social meaning of such legislation was generated through a dialectic process involving social and legal representations of the dōrodokos. Two main points will be sketched here and argued for in greater detail in the chapters to come. First, creating new legislation on dōrodokia entailed ‘translating’ the social figure of the dōrodokos into a legal entity. The final form of that legislation was thus shaped both by the social meaning of dōrodokia— changing conceptions of the dōrodokos—and by the social meaning of law and legal process more generally. This process of translation occurred in three different ways: in the legal definition of dōrodokia, the penalty assigned to it, and the process by which it could be prosecuted. One crucial aim of this section, then, will be to abstract general principles for each area of translation. Of course, translating the dōrodokos into a legal entity implies knowing the intended effect of a law or new legal process, so our final point will concern the various functions that dōrodokia legislation played in the democracy. Our first concern is straightforward: how do we move from an action in society to its legal regulation? Some kind of abstraction of this action must occur in order to create a general legal rule applicable to a range of specific cases. In other words, an offense must be defined in the law in some way, yet doing so fixes a particular, albeit general, idea of what the offense is: both what constitutes the offense and what its broader significance is.

This process of abstraction inevitably entails a kind of

translation, for a fixed legal definition can never fully match up with how an offense might be described by its participants (or even by its observers). When litigants bring a

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dispute to law, therefore, invariably there are ways in which legal space constrains or expands, distorts, refracts, or clarifies litigants’ narratives about an offense. Legal historians of ancient Athens have helpfully outlined a number of ways that the law in action transformed everyday experiences.21 I focus here on three specific areas in which such translation would have occurred when a law was first drafted: defining an offense, assigning it a penalty, and choosing a process by which it could be prosecuted. For each of these areas, I would like to underscore that there were two kinds of considerations that shaped the final form of the legislation: the social meaning of an offense, viz. the way it was understood in society irrespective of any legal meaning attached to it; and the social meaning of law more generally, that is, how specific features of the law were articulated in relationship to each other, irrespective of how the offenses were commonly conceptualized in society. For Athenian laws on dōrodokia, therefore, we would expect that how dōrodokia was conceptualized in society would have at least some bearing on how it was consequently defined, punished, and prosecuted in law; yet as dōrodokia was transformed into a legal space, its precise shape may have been conditioned by other entities within that space, like how similar crimes were punished or prosecuted. These considerations amount to, respectively, exogenous and endogenous factors that affected the process of translation: the first affecting the starting point, or how dōrodokia was understood within society; the second, the end point, or how dōrodokia was incorporated into law.22 If we 21

See especially Humphreys (1983, 1985), Todd (1993), Carey (1994, 2004), Johnstone (1999), Lanni (2006). 22 Ultimately, we should not seek to isolate completely these exogenous and endogenous factors. As recent sociolegal scholars have demonstrated, the way an offense is conceived affects how it is incorporated into law, but how it is incorporated into the law shapes, too, how it is conceived in society. In this sense, law both structures and is structured by cultural norms: Silbey (1992, 2005), Sarat and Simon (2001), Ewick and Silbey (2005), Mezey (2003), Rosen (2006).

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think of these factors as endpoints on a sliding scale, then ultimately our goal here is to pinpoint the balance struck between them. At different points in time, and for different aspects of a given law, the balance will shift closer to one end or to the other; tracking these shifts for any given law will provide a framework for tracing the role of that law in society. In terms of defining an offense, Athenian laws were notorious for being substantively vague.23 Moreover, there is little reason to think that legal definitions entailed considerable translation from common understandings of what an offense was. After all, there were no real legal professionals in Athens, so there was no institutional context by which a legal definition could be fixed, have precedent, and consequently be refined over time—traditionally the very processes by which ‘law’ becomes divorced from social realities.24 Even when litigants referred to the legal definition of an offense, for example, they did so only informally, focusing on the spirit not the letter of the law.25 We can expect, then, that when dōrodokia was given legal expression, its definition closely matched prevailing ideas of what constituted dōrodokia. Inasmuch as Athenian litigants commonly cited legal definitions only informally—and only rarely tried to determine whether an offense in question matched its legal definition—we would expect that there would be relatively little correlation 23

Noted already in antiquity: AP 9.2, cf. AP 35.2; Arist. Rhet. 1.1354a27-30, b11-16, 1374a8; Pl. Polit. 294a10-295a7. 24 Precisely because it was left to jury members to define, for themselves, which social norms applied to a particular case, rigorous legal definitions were unnecessary: see further Chapter Seven, cf. Carey (1994: 178-9), Lanni (2006: 117-18). The divorcing of legal norms from social experience has been underscored in sociolegal scholarship on legal consciousness. To the extent that social actors are aware that their actions are constituted by legal norms in particular, they reframe their own experience of those actions: see especially Yngvesson (1989), Ewick and Silbey (1992, 2003), Silbey (1992: esp. 45-6). 25 Todd (2000a: 29-30) rightly points out that informal definition of the law, focusing on the broader meaning of a statute, not on the details of its wording, was common in Athenian courtrooms in large part because statutes were mere evidence (cf. Arist. Rhet. 1.15.2-12), not strict rules by which evidence was judged: cf. Harrison (1971: 134-5), Harris (1988: 367-70), Todd (1993: 58-60), Carey (1994: 178-9).

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between changes in the wording of a law and how litigants presented their case. As we will discover in Chapter Seven, however, this was not the case with Athens’ laws on dōrodokia. There, changes in the legal definition of dōrodokia seem to have had a direct effect on how litigants conceptualized the offense. This exception needs explanation, and the same chapter will accordingly take up the question of the specific role dōrodokia legislation played. How did the Athenians assign a penalty to a particular offense?

Hyperides

suggests that the punishment should fit the crime (Hyp. 3.4-6), and we can understand this idea in two different ways. A punishment should meet general expectations for what kind of recompense is required for a particular crime. Officials guilty of adikion, or petty financial mismanagement, were thus liable to repay the sum in question (AP 54.2). We can readily imagine that this particular penalty ‘fit’ the crime insofar as the offense was conceptualized as a financial offense—it was investigated by financial auditors, after all—and an insignificant one at that, requiring only repayment of lost monies. In this way, both the type and magnitude of the penalty could be calibrated with how an offense was conceptualized by the Athenians. At the same time, a punishment might be calibrated to other legal punishments; in this sense, it might reflect how an offense was incorporated into law, rather than how it was conceptualized within society. Note how the magnitude of the penalty could also be measured according to other legal penalties, not necessarily to the offense itself. For instance, certain orators remark that dōrodokia was given a tenfold fine, whether opposed to the simple fine of adikion or equivalent to the tenfold fine for embezzlement, precisely

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because it was such a grave offense.26 Here it is clear that the penalty for each offense was grouped together with other similar legal offenses—similar because they were prosecuted in the same manner and applied to the same legal category of individuals (i.e. public officials or archontes)—and the grouping of offenses was thought relevant for how to assign a specific penalty for each offense. Thus, both exogenous norms about the kind of recompense demanded by a crime and endogenous norms about how other similar crimes were punished could be used to determine whether a punishment fit a crime. As we will see in the next chapter, in assigning a penalty to dōrodokia, Athenian law translated the dōrodokos from a social to a legal entity in very specific ways. He was first deemed either an ‘insider’ of or an ‘outsider’ to the moral community of the dēmos; it was then determined, also based on the way that the offense was conceptualized, whether or not he deserved to be an ‘insider’ or an ‘outsider’. These determinations were based on the kind of social figure he was. The disobedient citizen was an insider who needed to be kept out of the community; the thief was an insider who tried to become an outsider, so his punishments reflected a desire either to keep him out or to try to reintegrate him into the community; finally, the traitor was an outsider who must always remain an outsider.

These assignations underpinned both the content of the laws on

dōrodokia and hence the changing penalties for dōrodokia throughout the democracy. In tracing this process of translation, we have tacitly assumed that law’s role within society is to settle disputes and restore reciprocity, yet this is never a given in any society.27 Indeed, we saw above how Dinarchus posits two different functions of law

26

Din. 2.16, Hyp. 5.24; cf. AP 54.2. Din. 1.60 errs in calling the simple fine a twofold fine, but nevertheless singles out dōrodokia for the death penalty. 27 Cohen (1995: 9-24) helpfully lays out recent legal anthropological work outlining, and critiquing, just such a functionalist approach to conflict and the law’s assumed role in defusing it.

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when he points to divergent penalties for dōrodokia: whereas a tenfold fine might prevent an official from profiting through dōrodokia, capital punishment was intended to deter others from committing dōrodokia (Din. 1.60). Indeed, when Demosthenes relates how the Persian King stopped giving dōra after Timagoras was put to death for dōrodokia, the stringency of capital punishment appears akin to political signaling about the kind of city Athens was.28

Punishments could certainly restore reciprocity and

thereby function as deterrents, but they might also be bound up within broader processes of signification, cultural negotiation, and even education.29 Once an offense had been defined and matched with an appropriate penalty, by what criteria did the Athenians decide how it could be prosecuted? This is perhaps the least intuitive of the areas of translation we will investigate, but it will prove one of the most important when we turn to examining the role of Athenian dōrodokia legislation. It was noted above that there was considerable procedural flexibility in the laws on dōrodokia, as for a number of offenses in ancient Athens.30 Demosthenes attests that this procedural flexibility stemmed from a desire to foster litigation: with more legal options available, litigants would choose the process that made the most sense to them (Dem. 22.25-7). Although this idea does not seem common to all areas of the law, even if it were true in principle, it would still tell us little about why specific legal processes were chosen for specific offenses. After all, nowhere does Demosthenes, or any Athenian for that matter, purport that the Athenian legal system allowed maximal procedural 28

Dem. 19.137. Note how in his prosecution of Demosthenes for dōrodokia, Dinarchus claims that Athens needed to kill Demosthenes in order to show the rest of the world that she would not tolerate dōrodokia from her officials: Din. 1.93, cf. 3.21. 29 A point commonly noted by sociolegal scholars: e.g. Silbey (1992: 41-6), Sarat and Simon (2001: 1521). For the broader role of punishment in Athenian society, see Allen (2000), Karayiannis and Hatzis (2007: esp. 11-12). 30 See above, p.122.

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flexibility, viz. every offense could be prosecuted by every process.31 Rather, specific legal procedures had specific meanings, and I suggest that this meaning had to be matched with an offense. Prior to 399, laws were publicly displayed in a somewhat chaotic fashion around the city. Still, there was some order to this chaos, as at least the laws of Draco and Solon were grouped together in the Stoa Basileus, probably from the time of Ephialtes.32 After 399, this practice continued, but the centralized re-publication of the laws near the Stoa of the Basileus listed laws according to the magistrate who presided over the trial; moreover, many new laws were published in the area to which they applied.33 We can detect in both practices a common inclination to group together laws belonging to the same space or domain. Whereas originally this space had been defined according to the lawgiver, in the second half of the democracy the focus was on the domain of the presiding magistrate: that is, on the domain over which he could pass authoritative (kurios) judgments. Not all judicial bodies were created equally at Athens: both functionally and symbolically, juries were distinct from the Assembly, which was distinct from the Areopagus Court. In practice this meant that different judicial bodies were differently qualified to render judgment on a particular matter. In the creation of the homicide courts 31

On the contrary, by the end of the democracy we find complaints that the eisangelia process was being abused by those who were prosecuting trivial offenses like hiring flute-girls at below-market price (Hyp. 4.3): see further Hyp. 1.12 with Philips (2006). That this was considered an abuse of the system strongly suggests not only that the social meaning of legal process was differentiated, but especially that such differentiated meaning played a role in which process would be matched with which offenses. 32 Ostwald (1986: 410) brings out this point about the haphazard location of laws throughout the city in the fifth century. AP 7.1 says that the Solonian kyrbeis were located near the Stoa Basileus. See further Ruschenbusch (1966: 14-22). 33 On the re-publication of the laws near the Stoa Basileus, see And. 1.82 and compare IG i3 104.7-8 (Draco’s homicide law); Dow (1961), Rhodes (1981: 131-5; 1991: 90-1), Clinton (1982), Ostwald (1986: 513n.60, 519), Hansen (1990a). Organization according to procedure: Hansen (1991: 165) with Dem. 24.20-3, Lanni (2006: 142-8), cf. [Dem.] 46.26. Laws published throughout the city: e.g. Nikophon’s law on the testers of silver coinage, SEG xxvi 72.45-6 (375/4 BCE).

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and courts for commercial suits (dikai emporikai), for example, the Athenians demonstrated considerable sensitivity to how the details of legal process, including who was authorized to judge a suit, needed to be calibrated to the offense in question.34 One part of this calibration was determining which judicial body would be kurios: so the archon basileus dealt with offenses involving religious matters, while the authoritative domain of the archon polemarchos was offenses relating to war; similarly, as Athens’ most hallowed body, the Areopagus consistently dealt with the gravest religious offenses.35

These domains of authority, as we might call them, were not mere

jurisdictions, but were fields of an expertise of a sort that rendered an official or judicial body kurios over a particular group of legal offenses. In creating new legislation, I suggest, the Athenians utilized this concept of domains of authority, in effect matching an offense to its relevant domain. Of course, this was never a static process: the Athenians did not simply divide up the kosmos into various domains and assign new offenses accordingly. Rather, the boundaries of various domains of authority could be contested with the result that over time domains could expand or shrink, be combined with or substituted for other domains. Ultimately, the logic of how these domains were utilized was contingent on the specific circumstances under which a law was drafted; still, as the next chapter will show, these four operations on domains recur in Athenian legislation on dōrodokia throughout the democracy. For the definition of an offense, its penalty, and the legal process by which it was prosecuted, we have seen how both exogenous and endogenous, social and legal factors shaped how a law was crafted.

One final consideration, then, is the intent of the

34

Thus, one defining feature of the homicide courts was that they were held in the open air supposedly in order to minimize the risk of spreading the homicide’s pollution to the jurors: Ant. 5.11, cf. AP 57.4. 35 Hansen (1991: 165). Cf. AP 56-8. On the Areopagus’ domain of authority, see below, n. 80.

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legislation. We have already seen that different penalties very well might imply different roles of the law in action, so it is worth outlining what these roles might be. There are two different roles that will be of importance in our investigation in Chapter Seven: an educative and a legitimating function of the law. Law and legal institutions are commonly understood as shaping communal expectations, defining or signaling norms, and enacting social rituals that tap into the collective consciousness of a polity: broadly speaking, this is law’s impact on culture and public discourse.36 What we will be interested in here is a conscious motivation to use legislation to impact public discourse. One idea that will emerge in Chapter Seven is that the Athenians consciously matched vague legal definitions and high penalties with the proper domain of authority in order to signal publicly what constituted an unacceptable political outcome (i.e. dōrodokia). By watching dōrodokia trials, or even by simply focusing on the outcomes of the trials, Athenians could gauge better what kinds of actions were considered democratic, which were considered undemocratic or characteristic of the dōrodokos. Such an educative role for the law is itself predicated on a different, legitimating function of the law. As we will see, to the extent that the Athenians used dōrodokia trials to define which political outcomes were acceptable, they were using legal process as a legitimizing force in society. In essence, litigants unhappy with a given political result frequently called foul and brought someone to trial for dōrodokia in order to contest the legitimacy of the original result. Legal process thus opened up a political space in which the two litigants could debate not only whether a given outcome constituted dōrodokia,

36

On which, see Todd (2000a), Lanni (2006, forthcoming), Papakonstantinou (2008) for the Athenian context; Silbey (1992, 2005), Sarat and Austin (2001), Mezey (2003) for contemporary law.

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but even how the norms governing dōrodokia should be defined.

Chapter Five Positing such a

legitimizing role for law helps explain the relationship between how dōrodokia was defined in law and how this definition shaped the ways in which litigants framed the offense. We can test the value of the above framework by turning the rich yet tangled story of what I argue is the first Athenian law concerning dōrodokia.

As we will see,

uncovering the text of this law implicates a number of discrete legislative acts throughout the democracy, including changes in the law’s substance, penalty and procedure. Only by outlining this diachronic change will we be in a position to understand why the law was drafted in the first place, and why it was drafted in the form that it was. After tracing the history of this one law, we will then turn, in the next chapter, to the remaining formal measures adopted during the democracy.

The Original Law against dōrodokia: The first Athenian legislation on dōrodokia probably pre-dated the democracy by nearly a century. Although we have no direct evidence that such a law existed—no record of any sixth-century trials for dōrodokia, no ascription of any such law to an early lawgiver—a few scattered clues alert us to the probability that in 594 the Athenian lawgiver Solon drafted a law forbidding public officials, especially judges, from committing dōrodokia.

The text of the law comes down to us from a speech of

Demosthenes, who cites the law as evidence that his opponent had committed a grave

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offense in allegedly bribing the family of a recently deceased to claim that the man had been murdered by Demosthenes37: e0a/n tij 0Aqhnai/wn lamba/nh| para/ tinoj, h@ au0to\j didw|~ e9te/rw|, h2 diafqei/rh| tina\j e0paggello/menoj, e0pi\ bla/bh| tou~ dh/mou h@38 tino\j tw=n politw~n tro/pw| h@ mhxanh~| h|)ntiniou~n, a1timoj e1stw kai\ pai=dej kai\ ta\ e0kei/nou. If any Athenian should receive from another, or himself should give to the other, or should he corrupt a few men by freely making promises, to the harm of the people or one of the citizens in any way whatsoever, let him and his children and property be outlawed. (Dem. 21.113)

37

The law as we have it was not included in the speech first published by Demosthenes, but instead was inserted later by a scholiast who conjectured which law Demosthenes had read out to the jury on the occasion of his trial. As a result, doubts about the law’s authenticity have been echoed for at least a century: Drerup (1897: 304-5), for example, assumes on Pollux’ authority that the graphē dōrōn covered only taking bribes (Pollux 8.42). Pollux is contradicted by Lex. Seg. 237 s.v. dw/rwn grafh/, which claims that the procedure could be used for both giving and taking bribes. In any case, Pollux’ neat division of procedures for giving (dekasmou) and taking (dōrōn) bribes cannot be correct if [Dem.] 46.26— which includes both—refers to the graphē dekasmou. Cf. Glotz (1904: 502-3) with refutation by Hansen (1976: 88n.25). MacDowell (1990: 43-6) has compellingly argued in favor of the law’s authenticity. 38 h2: h2 i)di/a| Westermann; kai\ i)di/a:| Reiske; h2 dia\: Iurinus; kai\ dia\ S vulg. With the exception of this one phrase the text of the law is otherwise certain in the manuscripts that do not omit the law. The manuscript reading e)pi\ bla/bh| tou= dh/mou kai\ dia\ tino\j tw=n politw~n clearly has to be emended: why would giving or receiving dōra “through one of the citizens” have been a necessary condition in addition to harm to the dēmos? Iurinus’ emendation only creates an odd antithesis between giving/receiving bribes “to the harm of the dēmos” and “through one of the citizens.” Reiske ingeniously suggested that dia/ conceals i)di/a,| which Westermann further changed to h2 i)di/a| tino\j tw=n politw=n. Westermann’s reading has been standard for over a century but, as I argue here, the use of the word i)di/a| creates nonsensical Greek. On purely philological grounds, both Westermann’s and Reiske’s reading are untenable. If i)di/a| is taken as an adjective modifying bla/bh|, we would need a definite article before the adjective; and to take it as an adverb, as most scholars seem to do, significantly strains the sense of the words, for we would expect that it would then modify the offense as done ‘privately’, not that it would redundantly clarify that an individual’s harm was ‘in private’. On legal grounds, too, the word is problematic, for it is unclear why an offense explicitly marked out as part of the ‘private’ sphere—as i)di/oj regularly connotes: cf. Pl. Euth. 2a; Isoc. 11.28, 32, 35; AP 59.2-3, 67.1; Dem. 18.210, 24.192-3, [Dem.] 46.26—would actually be treated as a public offense punishable under a graphē: see especially Drerup (1897: 304), who accordingly thinks the law spurious. For precisely this reason, in fact, the unparalleled phrase grafa\j i)di/aj is often excised from the law against hybris, also cited in Demosthenes’ speech against Midias. For that law as well as for yet another law cited in the same speech (cf. i)di/aj decia\j, Dem. 21.52), MacDowell (1990: 268 ad Dem. 21.47) shrewdly posits that the word i)di/a| had originally been written next to these quoted laws in order to indicate that they were ‘separate’ from the rest of the speech; he posits that a later scribe incorporated the annotation into the text of each law, thus inadvertently creating textual difficulties. By the same process i)di/a| could have entered the general law against dōrodokia, as well. When combined with what came before, this addition would have created HIDIA, later misread as AIDIA or KIDIA and emended to KAIDIA, as per the manuscripts’ kai\ dia/. By excising i)di/a,?| Iurinus’emendation of kai\ to h@ is clearly correct, and we are left with a much more straightforward reading that neatly balances harm done to the dēmos and that done to individual citizens.

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Buried within the text of the Demosthenic law are indications that it could not have been drafted at a single point in time; instead, various clauses point to distinct periods in time when the law was modified. For instance, the third clause, “should he corrupt a few men by freely making promises” (diafqei/rh| tina\j e0paggello/menoj), likely was not drafted before the late fifth century when the verb diafqei/rein was first used in conjunction with dōrodokia.39 Similarly, as we saw in Chapter Two, actively giving bribes was not condemned until about the same time.40 By contrast, the final clause on punishment, “let him and his children and property be outlawed” (a1timoj e1stw kai\ pai=dej kai\ ta\ e0kei/nou), suggests a date prior to the first half of the fifth century, for it was only during this time that atimia meant ‘outlawry’. Under the later meaning of atimia as ‘disfranchisement’, the phrase referring to the offender’s property (kai\ ta\ e0kei/nou) would have been meaningless, for only people, not property, can be ‘disfranchised’ in this way.41 This clause suggests that a kernel of an earlier law, at least as old as the first half of the fifth century, is concealed within the law transmitted by the Demosthenic corpus.42

Given the necessarily later context for giving bribes and

39

Hashiba (2006: 70n.31) following Harvey (1985: 86-7) suggests a mid-fifth-century date for this meaning of diafqei/rein, but Harvey’s argument is based entirely on a purported play on words in Herodotus 5.51, which is dated sometime between the 440’s and 420’s. In fact, this meaning of the verb is not again attested until the fourth century (e.g. Lys. 2.29, 28.9; Xen. Hell. 7.3.8), and I have already argued that the Herodotean passage need not connote bribery: see Chapter One above. Harvey (1985: 111) rightly suggests, however, that the clause containing e0pi\ bla/bh| was added later: see page 124 below. 40 Cf. Kulesza (1995: 36), Hashiba (2006: 69). 41 On the meaning of atimia, see Harrison (1971: 169-76), Hansen (1976: 55-6), MacDowell (1978: 73-5; 1983: 74-6), Maffi (1979), Rhodes (1981: 222 ad AP 16.10), Vleminck (1981), Rainer (1986), Hall (1996: 79-80). Although Thonissen (1875: 214) argues that atimia in Dem. 21.113 could actually entail confiscation, too, his interpretation has not been followed by others. In fact, Hansen (1976: 88-9) proposes either to follow Drerup in deleting kai\ ta\ e)kei/nou or to change it to oi( e)c e)kei/nou; similarly, Lipsius (190515: 2.401n.100) deletes the entire penalty clause. Hansen (1976: 55-6) rightly points out that the later meaning of atimia was broader than ‘disfranchisement’, for atimoi lost all civil rights and all standing under the law. Nevertheless, without any direct English translation, here and throughout I use the translation ‘disfranchisement’ to describe the later meaning of atimia. 42 Cf. Hashiba (2006: 71).

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corrupting through promises, this earlier law probably outlawed only taking bribes; effectively, it was a law against dōrodokia. Just as important as what the law does say, what the law does not say tells us much about its legislative import and history. One curious feature of the wording of the law as we have it is that the verbs lack a direct object: the regulation forbids anyone from ‘taking’ (lamba/nh|) or ‘giving’ (didw|~) or ‘freely promising’ (e0paggello/menoj) to the detriment of the dēmos or any of the citizens, but it is unspecified what is given, taken, or promised in each case. This is less of a problem for a verb like dido/nai (give), which can be used absolutely without any expressed object, but for lamba/nein (take) and e)pagge/llesqai (promise unasked) the lack of a direct object requires explanation.43 We might emend the text to include a direct object (e.g. ti or dw=ra), but it is not at all clear how an entire word could have dropped out of the text, nor is it clear that an object would regularly have been inferred from these verbs in context.44

Why, then, would the

Athenians have omitted an object in the wording of this law? This problem disappears if we remember that the law as we have it is actually a redrafting—and, I argue, an explicit redefinition—of an earlier law which included the older meaning of atimia. Keeping in mind that the original law would have been drafted before the mid-fifth century, the verb used to describe the offense probably would have been de/xesqai (“receive in exchange for something bad”), not lamba/nein (“take”). As

43

Didonai without a direct object: e.g. Hom. Il. 9.37, 24, 529, Od. 1.348, 7.35; Hes. WD 354-5. See LSJ s.v. lamba/nw II.1a,h and e)pagge/llw A.4. 44 So MacDowell (1990: 337 ad Dem. 21.113) is rightly dubious. Of the two alternatives, dw=ra is the more likely omission, as it was consistently used in public documents concerning dōrodokia: cf. Dem. 24.150, AP 55.5, IG ii² 1183.8. Further, it is more likely that dw=ra was understood from context than that it dropped out of the text, as most critics tacitly accept in their alignment of the law against dōrodokia with the graphē dōrōn process. These scholars do not offer why dw=ra was not expressed in the original law, but see further below for reasons why the omission might make sense.

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we saw in Chapter One, in the archaic period it was the verb de/xesqai which was most often used to describe illicit exchanges. Indeed, that verb lies semantically at the root of dōrodokia and was the verb par excellence in Athenian regulations against dōrodokia: it is used in the oath of the jurors, in the curse announced at the beginning of every meeting of the Assembly and Council, as well as in a phrase from the law against bribing juries.45 Significantly, in these other legal regulations and in a few scenes of archaic bribery, the verb de/xesqai is combined with, specifically, the object dw=ra.46

The frequent

conjunction of the two words meant that the omitted dw=ra could have been understood from context. Accordingly, given its antiquity and the later omission of a direct object, the original law probably read, “If someone is bribed by another...” (e0a/n tij 0Aqhnai/wn de/xhtai para/ tinoj...), without an explicit mention of dw=ra.47 If this wording is correct, the original law most likely did not include the clause e)pi\ bla/bh| tou= dh/mou h@ tino\j tw=n politw=n (“to the harm of the people or one of the citizens”), for this clause essentially repeats the meaning of de/xesqai, which already implies that damage was done by the receipt of the dōra.48 Incidentally, the clause is necessary, and hence makes more sense, with lamba/nh| (and didw|~); without it, the giving and taking of all gifts would have been banned under the Demosthenic law. Because 45

Oath of the jurors: ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai th=j h(lia/sewj e#neka, Dem. 24.150. The public curse has not been preserved, but a parody of the curse in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae uses the same verb (cf. de/xetai, Ar. Th. 346). Law against bribing juries: dexo/menoj, [Dem.] 46.26. 46 Cf. Hom. Il. 24.429, 24.434, Od. 2.186, 8.483, 9.353; Ar. Th. 346; Dem. 24.150. 47 For the sake of clarity, I use the passive voice in my English translation here—“If someone is bribed by another...”—for what in Greek is properly a middle-voiced verb. A more precise translation, however, would be much more cumbersome—“If someone receives from another in an illicit way...”—and in English would seemingly require a direct object. For this meaning of de/xesqai, see Chapter One. 48 I find only one instance when the verb de/xesqai is explicitly reinforced with mention of the harm done: a scholiast’s note on Demosthenes’ speech On the False Embassy. There, the scholiast explains Demosthenes’ retort that his opponent had harmed the city by speaking to the Assembly after taking dōra from the city’s enemies: a)ll’ e)ch=n soi (fhsi/) le/gein e)n a1lloij, a)ll’ ou)k e)n oi{j e1blaptej th\n po/lin dw=ra deca/menoj (scholia 371c ad Dem. 19.184, Dilts). Even here, though, the supplementary aorist participle deca/menoj suggests that the orator intended to underscore the already implicit harm of dōrodokia: “you harmed the polis by taking dōra illicitly.”

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these later additions to the law needed to be limited in some way in order to define when ‘receiving’ or ‘giving’ dōra was illicit, the e)pi\ bla/bh| clause—including explicit mention of harm done to either the dēmos or to an individual—most likely entered the law only at a later date. I suggest, therefore, that the original law against dōrodokia read as follows: e)a/n tij A)qhnai/wn de/xhtai para/ tinoj tro/pw| h@ mhxanh|= h|)ntiniou=n, a!timoj e!stw kai\ pai=dej kai\ ta\ e)kei/nou. If some Athenian49 is bribed by another in any way or manner whatsoever,50 let him and his children and his property be outlawed.

Reconstructed so, this regulation was substantively vague:

like a number of early

Athenian laws, it essentially outlawed an offense (de/xesqai) that was nowhere explicitly defined.51 Given that the law was probably modified at least once at a later time (to add the didw|,~ diafqei/rh|, and probably e)pi\ bla/bh| clauses), it is possible that one impetus 49

All other instances of the subject “some Athenian” (ti/j 0Aqhnai/wn) imply a distinction either between Athenians and foreigners or between Athenian citizens and non-citizens (metics, slaves): see, respectively, Plut. Pel. 6.5, Dem. 35.50 with plausible restoration in IG i³57.11, 227.24, 228 fr.B.9, IG ii² 229.9; the laws cited in Aeschin. 1.16, 1.19 need not imply a distinction, but their authenticity is not secure. It is this latter distinction that I think is play here: if ‘some Athenian’ committed dōrodokia, he would no longer be an Athenian. This interpretation thereby relieves of us of having to posit that a separate (unattested) law applied to metics, slaves, or foreigners, as MacDowell (1983a: 74n.19) conjectures. 50 Given our limited evidence, the general clause “in any way or manner whatsoever” (tro/pw| h@ mhxanh=| h)|ntiniou=n) cannot be more precisely dated, so I have tentatively included it in my reconstruction of the original law against dōrodokia. Although this precise phrase is unparalleled in extant literature and inscriptions, there are a number of similar phrases attested in the Classical period (usually in the negative, “in no way or manner whatsoever”): mh/te te/xnh| mh/te mhxanh=| mhdemi/a| (Th. 5.18.4), ou!te te/xnei ou!te mexanei= ou)demia=i (IG i³ 40.22-3), ou!te te/xnh| ou!te mhxanh|= ou)demia=| (Dem. 24.150), te/xnh| h@ mh/xanh|= h(|ntiniou=n (Dem. 59.16). More relevant comparanda can be found in various judicial oaths: mhxanh=i h2 t]e/[xnh]i ou0demia=i (IG ii² 1183.8-9, dated after 340), [te/xnai h2 maxana=i ou)d]-/emia=i (IK Knidos I.221A2.30-32, c.300), and, during the Hellenistic period, o[u1te t]e/xnhi ou1te pareure/sei ou)demia=i (MDAI(I) 1979: 249-71: II side B 4.32). These last examples, all of which vow that a person will not take dōra “by any way or contrivance whatsoever,” suggest that in the law against dōrodokia the same clause limits the actual act of taking dōra, not the harm done to the dēmos: for text, see footnote 7 below. This would suggest an earlier date for the phrase, before the e)pi\ bla/bh| clause was inserted into the law, but our evidence is ultimately only suggestive and cannot be taken as conclusive either way. 51 Athenian laws, particularly in the archaic period, notoriously lacked rigorous legal definitions, as was commonly pointed out in the democracy: AP 9.2, cf. AP 35.2; Arist. Rhet. 1.1354a27-30, b11-16, 1374a8; Pl. Polit. 294a10-295a7; Rhodes (1981: 162 ad AP 9.1). So, for example, the law against hubris simply states, “If anyone commits hubris against another (e)a/n tij u(bri/zh| ei1j tina, Dem. 21.47)...” a vagueness considered problematic already in antiquity: Todd (2000a: 26-7), Lanni (2006: 67-8, 117-8).

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for this subsequent change was to specify the meaning of de/xesqai. In fact, by assuming that the later law was an explicit redefinition of the verb de/xesqai, with only an implicit direct object, we can make sense of the fact that the verb lamba/nein, though transitive, also omitted the object when the law was redrafted. This one crucial omission thus provides us with a skeleton for reconstructing the original law against dōrodokia and some of its subsequent development. Although the law lacks any mention of procedure, the omission of dōra as a direct object also makes it likely that this original law was associated with the graphē dōrōn procedure, under which anyone who wanted could come forth and publicly prosecute an offender.52 Given that the Athenians used the word dōra to mean only ‘gifts’—recall that they distinguished ‘gifts’ from what we call ‘bribes’ by context or semantically by the verb used (e.g. de/xesqai)—the graphē dōrōn properly regulated the receipt of gifts, not necessarily bribes per se. In other words, the graphē dōrōn defined at what point, or in what context, licit actions (the receipt of gifts even by a public official) became illicit (when there was a bad outcome). This is precisely the kind of regulation found in our original law. If that law contained the verb de/xesqai—a fair assumption, as we have seen—then it was designed to define the kinds of exchanges that were allowed in the community; that is to say, it was 52

The law’s association with the graphē dōrōn is commonly assumed but is based on scant evidence: Lex.Seg. 237.3 says that the graphē dōrōn covered both active and passive bribery, as is suggested by Demosthenes’ own commentary on the law (Dem. 21.104-7), but Pollux 8.60 claims that the graphē dōrōn applied only to taking, not giving, bribes. The law itself gives no indication of procedure, and we have no secure attestation of someone prosecuted under a graphē dōrōn, but see Ant. 6.50 with discussion further below. Still, there does appear to be evidence that the law was tied to the graphē dōrōn, and precisely with the subsequent changes envisioned here. Dinarchus 2.16-17 claims that “the first law givers” (oi( prw=toi nomoqe/tai) created the graphē dōrōn with a penalty of a tenfold fine. The phrase is a hapax—usually orators refer to the ‘first lawgiver’, i.e. Solon, on which see Hansen (1989: 80), Johnstone (1999: 25-33)— but it can be explained by assuming that Dinarchus is combining two different legislative acts: the initial creation of the graphē dōrōn by Solon and the subsequent addition of a monetary penalty by later nomothetai. Cf. Hansen (1989: 91) and see below.

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a law designed to regulate dōra.53 After all, de/xesqai is a marked verb which connotes not a general kind of action (like ‘give’ or ‘take’ or ‘promise’), but a specific kind of exchange (i.e. illicit). When it was combined with the noun dōra to form the offense dōrodokia, it explicitly marked those dōra as illicit by indicating that their receipt resulted in a bad outcome. It is important to note, moreover, that this meaning of de/xesqai was never coupled with other nouns to form new compound words: for the Athenians only dōra could be marked as received in an illicit way.54 Insofar as the original law against dōrodokia regulated exactly what we might expect was covered under the graphē dōrōn, both the law and the graphē dōrōn process were probably coupled from the law’s original drafting. Thus far we have identified substantive changes in what the original law against dōrodokia regulated, but linking the law to the graphē dōrōn in this way implicates still further change with regard to the penalty and procedure mandated by the law. Here it will be sufficient to identify that there was legal change; in the next chapter we will examine the significance of these changes. The only penalty mentioned in the law is atimia—‘outlawry’, later interpreted as disfranchisement—yet by the second half of the fourth century, sources indicate that the penalty for dōrodokia under the graphē dōrōn could be atimia or, as is more often cited, payment of a fine ten times the amount of the bribe.55 Some of these sources also mention that death, not atimia, was a possible

53

Although less straight-forward, this point holds for the later law, as well. The Demosthenic law defined when dōra became illicit to take, give, or promise unasked; it was a law about gifts, not bribes per se. 54 dw=ra + de/xesqai as intended to change the mind of someone else: early examples in Hom. Il.24.434 with scholiast, Hom.Hym. Herm. 549, Sappho fr. 1.22 (Page), Ar. Av. 937; cf. Harvey (1985: 83). That dōrodokia was the only noun formed from this meaning of the verb de/xesqai is illustrated by the peculiar morphological classes of compounds ending in –dokia: see further Chapter One. 55 Only Aeschin. 3.232 explicitly confirms that atimia was a penalty in a graphē dōrōn. Note how in two late-fifth-century sources, atimia qua disfranchisement is used with regard to those convicted of dōrodokia: And. 1.74 (400, although the reference might refer to atimoi in 405, when the relevant decree was passed)

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punishment.56 Despite such contemporary accounts, these additional penalties have no clear place in the wording of the Demosthenic law. While it is certainly possible that the scholiast lopped off these additional penalties when incorporating the law into Demosthenes’ speech, we would still need to identify when they were added to the law. After all, it does not seem likely that all three penalties were simultaneously included in the initial drafting of the law. Unlike most early Athenian laws, which tend to outline both an offense and a legal process for prosecuting offenders, the Demosthenic law is silent on procedure.57 We know from other sources, however, that the graphē dōrōn entailed bringing a graphē before the thesmothetai, who comprised six of the nine archons, the most important nonmilitary magistrates in Athens (AP 54.2). In terms of procedure, therefore, we are left with two questions: why is legal process omitted from the Demosthenic text, and was a graphē before the thesmothetai the original procedure employed when the law was first drafted? It is possible that, when the Athenian law code was revised in 409-399, because laws seemed to have been grouped together by procedure according to the magistrate who presided over the trial, some laws may have been redrafted and displayed without explicit mention of procedure in the law itself.58 So, for instance, another speech of

and Lys. 21.11, 25 (403/2). This is good evidence that the atimia stipulated in the original law was interpreted as disfranchisement by the end of the fifth century. 56 Din. 1.60, Hyp. 5.24 (conjectured). 57 On the procedural, as opposed to substantive, emphasis of (especially archaic) Athenian law, see Gagarin (1986: 51-97), Todd (1993: 64-7). The locus classicus for this idea is the law governing the graphē hubreōs, cited at Dem. 21.47: “If a man commits hubris (u(bri/zh|)…” and proceeds to lay out the procedure for bringing him to justice without defining what actually constituted hubris. 58 Quoting the decree of Teisamenus, which ordered the revision of the laws, Andocides says that the laws were to be drafted on tablets initially and handed over to the magistrates (Andoc. 1.83); Ostwald (1986: 515) plausibly takes this to mean that each magistrate received the laws that fell within his domain of authority. In that case, although the decree omits this detail, it is likely that the final publication of the laws

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Demosthenes preserves a ‘law’ which, in fact, is a collocation of distinct laws with the same procedure.59 Conceivably, in the fourth century this summary grouping of laws, together with a single procedure, was displayed next to the full text of each individual law, each of which texts may not have duplicated the procedure involved.60 In this way, when the scholiast inserted the law against dōrodokia into the Demosthenic text, his source might very well have lacked any mention of legal process. I suggest that the graphē dōrōn underwent the same legal changes as some of the other offenses collected in the ‘law’ cited at Demosthenes 46.26—all of which also called for a graphē before the thesmothetai. Some of these offenses are found in the so-called impeachment law (nomos eisangeltikos), which, though drafted around 411/0, actually reflects a much older catalogue of public wrongs.61 Originally, a number of offenses in the nomos eisangeltikos may have been intended specifically for public officials, who were subject to a written indictment, alternately called an eisangelia or graphē.62 Only

also would have been grouped according to the presiding magistrate, although Gallia (2004: 455) rightly stresses that in fact the anagrapheis would have had some latitude in how they gathered together the laws for republication. For further background on the revision of Athenian laws at the end of the fifth century, see Hansen (1990a; 1991: 162-5), Rhodes (1991), Gallia (2004), Lanni (2006: 142-8). Papakonstantinou (2008: 61-2) points to precisely the same kind of ‘dialogue’ between statutes in the archaic law code of the Cretan city of Gortyn. 59 [Dem.] 46.26, discussed in further detail below. The ‘law’ transmitted in the text combines various laws against conspiracy, bribing juries, and forming a hetaireia, each of which offenses was prosecutable by a graphē before the thesmothetai, brought by anyone who wanted. See Lavency (1964: 91ff.) on the law’s authenticity. For further compilations of this sort, see IG i3 105, 236-41, Gallia (2004: 454-5). 60 The procedure and penalty for overthrowing the dēmos, for example, were listed separately: see respectively [Dem.] 46.26 and And. 1.96. 61 Note how both contain provisions against forming a hetaireia or overthrowing the dēmos: [Dem.] 46.26, Hyp. 4.8. 62 The entire second clause of the nomos eisangeltikos, on treason, seems to have applied primarily to stratēgoi. Similarly, conspiring to overthrow the dēmos and trying to set up a tyranny were essentially one and the same—Demophantus’ law against tyranny contains both, after all (And. 1.96-8)—yet the real concern with tyrants was that a prominent official might try to appropriate too much power, as feared with Cylon, Solon, Pesistratus and Isagoras. I follow Ruschenbush (1968: 73-4), Carawan (1985: 117) in positing that the verb ei)sagge/llein may originally have applied to any public indictment against a magistrate, whether in office or having just completed his term: cf. AP 4.4. Because these indictments could have been presented in written form (a graphē), it is understandable that later sources use the words eisangelia and graphē interchangeably to describe denouncements of public officials.

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later was this general list of offenses by magistrates compiled in the form of the nomos eisangeltikos and, crucially, turned into a series of offenses by private individuals, too, who could then be prosecuted under a graphē to the thesmothetai.63 We have only one tantalizing bit of evidence, but it suggests that the graphē dōrōn went through the same changes. In the collection of laws from Demosthenes 46.26, the manuscripts read, “If anyone bribes (sundeka/zh|)...whether giving or illicitly receiving money for the purpose of dōrodokia (e)pi\ dwrodoki/a| xrh/mata didou\j h2 dexo/menoj)...” The grammar is strained here, for it is untenable that the person illicitly giving money (sundeka/zh|) also illicitly received it (dexo/menoj). Possibly, though, our text conceals a reference to the original law against dōrodokia; if so, and even if not, then that law, like others collected in the same group, might have originally applied only to public officials.64 On this view, the original procedure for the graphē dōrōn would have been a simple ‘indictment’ (whether called an eisangelia or a graphē) of a public official. At a later time, perhaps when changes to the law’s wording were made, it was turned into

63

On this later compilation, see Calhoun (1913: 67-8 n.6). The thrust of my argument holds even if the original offenses governed by an eisangelia (public denouncement) were, technically, applicable to any citizen; in other words, even if the original nomoi were nowhere restricted to public officials, per se, I suggest that in actuality the motivation behind and application of them concerned only public officials until the formal codification of graphai at the end of the fifth century. Note how with Demophantus’ law in 409/8 the Athenians essentially redrafted the law against overthrowing the dēmos so that it applied to anyone (cf. e)a/n tij dhmokrati/an katalu/h| th\n 0Aqh/nhsin, And. 1.96). 64 Plausible restoration is impossible given the strength of the manuscript tradition, but it should be noted that the clauses about illicitly giving and receiving money only repeat the force of sundika/zh|. More telling is Pollux’ testimony that the graphē dekasmou concerned only active bribery, as the name suggests (Pollux 8.42); after all, despite this testimony that a bribed juror could be prosecuted by a graphē dōrōn, we never hear of jurors, Assembly members, or Council members on trial for committing dōrodokia (pace Aeschin. 1.86-7: see below). Thus, I suggest, h2 dexo/menoj could have been later added, presumably because a scholiast was thinking of the law against dōrodokia; an h1 dropped out between th\n boulh/n and e)pi\ dwrodoki/a|; or the participles either in the dexo/menoj clause or in both clauses should be emended to finite verbs, e.g. di/dw|...h2 de/xhtai.

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a regular graphē before the thesmothetai, by which procedure any citizen could be prosecuted.65 Having outlined all of the above changes to the law’s substantive meaning, punishment and procedure, we can finally turn to establishing its date and significance. Although we lack positive evidence either way, two aspects of the graphē dōrōn suggest that it dates back to Solon’s laws, instituted in 594/3 nearly one century before the democracy. Inasmuch as the original graphē dōron appears to have been a general regulation demarcating the illicit receipt of gifts only in broad terms, it is not likely to have been drafted in response to a specific new phenomenon, say, taking dōra from the Persians during the Persian wars.66 Instead, it appears to have been an innovation which

65

Ant. 6.49-50, dating to 419/8, may be evidence that the graphē dōrōn already existed by this time: see note 58 below. Note how, when AP 59.2 lists the graphē dōrōn among the list of graphai before the thesmothetai, there is no hint that these laws were archaic: see Rhodes (2006: 258). At any rate, it is unlikely that the original graphē dōrōn, which effectively established the accountability of magistrates, would have entailed a graphē before the thesmothetai. All other public indictments of officials came before the Areopagus, and there is no reason to think that dōrodokia would have been singled out as an exception to this rule, particularly given the fact that the thesmothetai were, themselves, prime magistrates who might be suspected of dōrodokia. On the institution of public accountability, see further below. 66 As recently conjectured by Hashiba (2006: 72-3), who is forced to posit a date for the graphē dōrōn only after the 480’s based on the (erroneous) assumption that such legislation was forged from “a strict attitude towards bribery” (2006: 72) and constituted “a condemnation of bribery from a standpoint representing the public interests of the polis” (2006: 72n.42). As we have seen, however, Athenian condemnations of dōrodokia need not entail a “strict attitude” towards taking dōra in office, and it only begs the question to claim that legislation on dōrodokia represented the public interests of the polis. Even if we do follow Hashiba’s dating, however, his (admittedly conjectural) argument on the contents of the first law on dōrodokia is nonetheless purely associative. Precisely because our sources on dōrodokia in the first half of the fifth century happen to refer to taking dōra from the Persians and ‘Medizing’, he argues that the original law against dōrodokia outlawed taking dōra from the Mede (2006: 73). As David Lewis (1979) points out, however, this fear of bribe-induced Medizing probably reflects late—not early—fifth-century bias, for there is no secure evidence of Persian gold actually entering into Greek relations until the second half the fifth century. Even so, to make his case, Hashiba adduces two examples: in 480, Lycides and his family were stoned to death because Lycides had proposed that the Athenians vote on surrendering to the Persian King (Hdt. 9.5), and perhaps in 461 Arthmius of Zelea was decreed an enemy of the people for allegedly conveying gold from the Persian King to Sparta (Aeschin. 3.258; Dem. 9.42, 19.271; Din. 2.24-5; Aristides 1.310 Dindorff; cf. Thuc. 1.109; Diod. 11.74.5). While these examples “support the proposition that in the 470s and 460s the Athenians believed that bribery associated with Medism should be punished by outlawry”(72), they also suggest that at this time the Athenians were content to employ informal, extrajudicial means to do so. In other words, we need not posit the creation of a formal, legal sanction in response to dōrodokia associated with Medism.

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fits better in the context of a series of large-scale reforms that essentially mapped out the entire terrain of licit and illicit actions within the community. Indeed, precisely this kind of legislation was common in the archaic period, when poleis frequently defined in law under what conditions an otherwise regular action became illicit. Solon’s regulations on who could or could not marry (F47, F48) or adopt (F49, F58) are typical in this regard. Similarly, archaic prohibitions on enslaving or hitting citizens, on killing—licit in war, illicit otherwise—as well as regulations on various kinds of property transfers, including sale, inheritance, and theft all divided basic social interactions into licit and illicit classes.67 In Athens, at least, many of these laws date back to Solon’s extensive reforms and cohere with each other as a broad-based reorganization of social and political space within the law. The graphē dōrōn seems likely an innovation of the archaic period also because it established mere accountability, not accountability to the people, specifically. Were we to posit that the process was first implemented in the early decades of the fifth century, in those cases where it would have been applied the suit would have been heard by the elite Areopagus Council, not by the Assembly or a popular jury.68 In this respect, the graphē dōrōn would have stood counter the trend in the early democracy of establishing the dēmos’ control over magistrates and citizens, alike. By contrast, if we look to when accountability, not public accountability, was first established, tradition holds that it was first institutionalized by the lawgiver Solon (Arist. Pol. 2.1274a15-18, 3.1281b31-4; AP 9.1). 67

On the range of archaic Greek law, see especially Gagarin (1986: 63-77) and Papakonstantinou (2008: 51-63). 68 Assembly and treason trials: Carawan (1987: 168-91). Properly, the Areopagus Council was a standing body of all previous archons. Prior to 487, and perhaps prior to 457, however, the only citizens eligible for the archonship were those from the highest census classes.

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For these reasons, the original law against dōrodokia and the graphē dōrōn were most likely implemented by Solon, when he drafted a series of reforms in 594/3. We can hypothesize that, as a general regulation, the law might have been part of Solon’s broader plan of re-mapping the legal contours of the polis; it is significant, in this regard, that the measure fits in with a number of the lawgiver’s other legislative reforms, many of which were aimed at curbing elite abuses of power.69 In archaic Athens, there were few public officials, and the chief magistrates, the nine archons, had both executive and judicial duties. One of Solon’s concerns, a sentiment common in archaic Greece, was that public officials were giving ‘crooked judgments’ when deciding disputes: in effect, they were being bribed to favor one party of the dispute.70 In his poetry, Solon recognizes that judges gave both just and unjust decisions (cf. a)rxw=n a!koue kai\ di/kaia ka!dika, fr. 30 West), and he subtly encourages them to change their ways from bad order (dusnomia) to goodly order (eunomia), which would “straighten out [their] crooked judgments” (eu)qu/nei de\ di/kaj skolia/j, fr. 4a.35 West). Due in no small part to dōrodokia, these actions were considered tremendously harmful to the community. As Solon laments, the city itself was being destroyed by elite citizens who were “persuaded by material goods” (xrh/masi peiqo/menoi, fr. 4a.6 West); that is to say, dōrodokia was ruining the city.71

69

Based on Solon’s introduction of the graphē (AP 9.1), ephesis (AP 9.1), eisangelia (AP 8.4) and euthyna (Arist. Pol. 1274a15-17, 1281b32-4) processes and the introduction of property qualifications for holding office (AP 7.3-4; Plut. Sol. 18). On Solon’s restraints on magistrates’ powers, see especially Humphreys (1983: 237-9; 1988: 469-70). Note how Solon claimed to have provided a proper ‘prize’ or ‘honor’ for the dēmos (ge/raj, timh=j, Sol. fr. 5.1, 5.2W). 70 For the complaint of crooked judgments (sxolia\i di/kai), see also Hom. Il. 16.387, Hes. WD 219, 263-4, Theog. 45-6 and perhaps ML 8A; Gagarin (1974; 1986: 81-97), Papakonstantinou (2008: 107-12). 71 Solon’s complaint is strikingly similar to Theognis’ description of how kakoi were destroying the dēmos (fqei/rousi, Theog. 45). For Theognis, this destruction was caused by judicial bribery: “[sc. the kakoi] provide unjust judgments for the sake of gain and power” (di/kaj t’ a)di/koisi didw=sin/ oi)kei/wn kerde/wn ei3neka kai\ kra/teoj, Theog. 45-6). Cf. Mülke (2002: 110), Papakonstantinou (2008: 111-12).

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One of Solon’s major reforms, therefore, was to establish greater control over the judicial process and the magistrates who administered it. The lawgiver created the legal process of appeal (ephesis) to the Heliaia, which was the Assembly seated as a jury: in case a magistrate had given a seemingly unjust judgment, a citizen could appeal that decision to the popular court. Although in practice the appeals process was rarely used, it at least gave a citizen some control over the judicial process.72

While the ephesis

procedure has thus rightly been taken as a significant, if fledgling, step towards citizen control of the courts (i.e. the creation of popular juries), effectively it only corrected an abuse of power.

Holding accountable the magistrates who had intentionally given

crooked judgments or otherwise overstepped their bounds was a different matter altogether. Although in the fourth century Solon was perhaps erroneously credited with instituting a range of accountability procedures, it is generally assumed that the lawgiver did institute some kind of oversight for public officials, most likely scrutiny by the Areopagus Council.73

For a process like the graphē dōrōn, the Areopagus could

prosecute an official on its own undertaking or it could first assess the complaint of any willing citizen who lodged an indictment before it and then conduct the trial as needed.74 The graphē dōrōn thus complemented both the ephesis procedure and the lawgiver’s other attempts to hold magistrates accountable for misconduct in office; it 72

AP 9.2, Arist. Pol 2.1273b35-1274a5, 2.1274a15-18. Cf. Pl. Sol. 18.2-3. ephesis: Wilamowitz (1892: 1.60), Lipsius (1905-15: 28, 954 n.2), Ruschenbusch (1965: 381-4), Harrison (1971: 72-3), Rhodes (1981: 160-2 ad AP 9.1; 2006: 255-6), Ostwald (1986: 9-12). The derivation and significance of the Heliaia are still controversial. Largely on the testimony of AP 9.1, Hansen (1975: 51-2) says that the Heliaia was a court of sworn jurors, but it was probably only a judicial session of the Assembly: Rhodes (1981: 160 ad AP 9.1), Ostwald (1986: 10-11n.29); cf. Rhodes (1979: 103-6). Rhodes (1981: 162 ad AP 9.1) and Ostwald (1986: 12) rightly emphasize that we have no attestation that the ephesis was actually used in the archaic period. 73 See note 69 above for references. Cf. Aesch. Eum. 704-6; Isoc. 7.36-55; AP 8.4, 25.2. Areopagus and nomophylakia: Rhodes (1981: 315-17 ad AP 25.2), Ostwald (1986: 8-13), and Cawkwell (1988). 74 See especially AP 4.4: e)ch=n de\ tw=| a)dikoume/nw| pro\j th\n tw=n 0Areopagitw=n boulh\n ei)sagge/llein a)pofai/nonti par’ o4n a)dikei=tai no/mon. Cf. Ostwald (1986: 12-14), Carawan (1987: 188)

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introduced a kind of control over an official’s judgments.75

Chapter Five Because at this time

magistrates like the archons regularly received dōra—court fees of a sort—for their service as adjudicators, the graphē dōrōn straightforwardly regulated the receipt of these dōra.76 If an official had been suspected of giving a crooked judgment because of the dōra he had taken, any citizen could have lodged an indictment before the Areopagus Council. If this reconstruction is correct, then the original law against dōrodokia and the graphē dōrōn procedure were drafted by Solon primarily as recourse to the crooked judgments of corrupt magistrates. I would like to underscore two important details in this reconstruction. If we can push back the Athenian conception of the dōrodokos as a disobedient citizen to the archaic period, it is striking how readily this figure seems to have been translated into the Solonian regulation. After all, Solon’s attempt to institute some kind of check on the judicial process, whether through ephesis or the graphē dōrōn, was analogous to the ways in which the dēmos would later try to control the disobedient dōrodokos.77 The penalty of atimia, in particular, might have implied a kind of disobedience. Frequently atimia was used as a penalty for magistrates (and citizens) who had failed to perform their civic duties satisfactorily.78 One reason why, I suggest, is that precisely because disobedient officials could not effectively be controlled, they needed to be cast outside the moral community of the polis. Like the fifth-century dōrodokos, they were essentially insiders who were forced to become moral outsiders vis-à-vis the rest of the community. 75

On this point, Humphreys (1988: 469-70) is particularly helpful. Archaic Greek law: Hom. Il. 18.507-8 with Gagarin (1975: 105, 109-10); Hom. h. Herm. 324; so, the judge Deioces claims that he received no profit from his judgments, implying that other judges did profit (Hdt. 1.97). In Classical Athens, certain kinds of cases regularly required court fees: Dem. 47.64, AP 59.3, Poll. 8.127; Harrison (1971: 92-4), Hansen (1991: 261). 77 See above Chapter Two and especially below Chapter Six. 78 Hansen (1976: 72-4) surveys the sources. 76

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Although this point must remain mere conjecture, we can see how thinking about the law as a translation of the dōrodokos from social type to legal entity actually reveals critical nuance in the law’s broader social meaning. In terms of legal process, Solon’s choice of matching the law against dōrodokia with the graphē dōrōn process may seem counterintuitive at first glance, but it makes good sense if we think in terms of domains of authority. If the lawgiver so loathed corruption among a small group of elite citizens, why, in order to address this corruption, would he institute an indictment of elite archons before a standing body of elite former archons (the Areopagus) who may have been opposed to the interests of the people? This question is easier to answer when we note that, as Danielle Allen has perceptively illuminated, a punishment like atimia was akin to religious purification.79 Those who had taken dōra illicitly were thought to have violated the sanctity of their office and aligned themselves against the community’s interests.

By acting against the community’s

interests, the dōrodokos failed to provide a proper return, in essence contaminating his civic friendship with the community. Solon’s response was to purify the community by casting the offender outside its boundaries—precisely the kind of transformation of insider into outsider as was noted above. Crucially, the body that was to judge this offense was the most hallowed political body in the archaic polis: the Areopagus Council. Throughout the archaic and classical periods the Areopagus heard cases incurring the greatest religious pollution—murder, intentional wounding, cutting down Athens’ sacred olive trees, and serious political crimes in the first part of the democracy—meaning the pollution caused by bribery fell

79

Allen (2000: 209-11). On the similarities between religious purification and punishment in the Greek polis, see also Gernet (1981: 240-251, 265-7), Cantarella (1988).

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under their domain of authority.80 Inasmuch as any derelict official had offended both the gods and the community at large, it was the Areopagus that properly assessed this offense and determined the proper recompense.81 Although the people themselves would judge the justice of a magistrate’s specific judgment in an ephesis, the Areopagus was the natural choice to restore the larger relationship of reciprocity between official and community. Thinking in terms of domains of authority, therefore, allows us to make better sense of the Solonian law in action. By probing changes in the substance, punishment, and procedure entailed in the original law on dōrodokia, we have been able to reconstruct a much richer context for the original Solonian legislation.

Although a functionalist approach might explain why

Solon created some legislation on dōrodokia, the significance of this legislation, including its penalty and process, has been gleaned only by uncovering the process of ‘translating’ the dōrodokos into a legal entity. As we extend this legal history in the following chapter, we will find that a number of hallmarks of the democracy—including standardized public accountability and institutional bulwarks for collective action—were articulated in opposition to dōrodokia. By carving out a legal space for the dōrodokos, the Athenians established firm legal grounding for democratic politics. A number of key issues that surfaced within the Demosthenic law will be raised again in the next chapter.

Solon’s concern that a single official or board might

subordinate the community’s interests would trouble the Athenians for at least another 80

The Areopagus’ role as protector of the laws can be understood, in part, as an outgrowth of its role in policing religious pollution. After all, the Areopagus was renowned as a hallowed body: Dem. 59.80, IG ii² 204.16-33 (decree granting Areopagus authority over certain religious sanctuaries, 352/1). Note how the penalty for most of these crimes was exile, a purging of the offender from the community: so Allen (2000: 210-11). 81 Archaic literature depicts corrupt judges as offensive to especially Zeus and the goddess Dikē (Justice): Hom. Il. 16.386-8, Hes. WD 250-1, 256-62, Theog. 330.

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two centuries, yet how this offense would be judged, including under whose domain it fell, would only change as the democracy progressed. Indeed, as the dōrodokos was continually translated into the law, the original law itself would subsequently be revised, redefined, and reconceived.

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Legal Innovation and the dōrodokos

The Solonian graphē dōrōn examined in the previous chapter evinces the interrelationship between political ideas and the creation of new legal and political institutions. As we saw, Solon’s anxieties about the polity focused on the purportedly corrupt judgments that elite officials were making. The specter of the dōrodokos thus seems to have lurked beneath not just the creation of the graphē dōrōn, which explicitly dealt with dōrodokia, but other related hallmarks of his reforms, including the ephesis and eisangelia procedures, as well. This chapter extends that narrative through the democracy by tracing how the creation of legal institutions to address dōrodokia was intimately connected to broader reforms that shaped and reshaped the democracy. In short, this chapter reveals, the very institutions by which democratic values were articulated were themselves forged in opposition to dōrodokia. Just as the dōrodokos as a social type was used to think through democratic principles, the Athenians created a space for the dōrodokos qua a legal entity in order to think through democratic institutions. Decades of civil war followed Solon’s reforms until the Peisistratid tyranny took over in the mid-sixth century. Although the Peisistratids essentially retained the laws and institutions created by Solon—including the authority granted the archons and the Areopagus Council—the last years under the tyrant Hippias were particularly harsh. The Athenian people responded by driving out the Peisistratid family with Sparta’s help and, in 507, passing Cleisthenes’ reforms, thereby formally establishing rule of the dēmos, or democracy. In part as a reaction to the autocratic rule of the tyrants, two significant ideas

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underpinning the democracy were that the dēmos should have power and, consequently, that no single individual should have too much power. Indeed, the previous chapter revealed how this same anxiety over a public official’s authority to make judgments binding on the community was already nascent in Solon’s reforms and the creation of the graphē dōrōn procedure. Beginning with Cleisthenes, the dēmos thus defined its authority within an increasingly broad range of political bodies and processes.

All new administrative

offices were part of boards of multiples of ten (at least one official from each tribe); as detailed in Chapter Two, the dēmos increasingly controlled political rewards in the city; eventually the Areopagus would be stripped of its oversight abilities; and the judgment of the people, not of some official, would be made final and authoritative in the most serious court cases.1 Within the newly established democracy, however, there was increasing concern that officials might disregard their public charge or might act against the dēmos’ interests. In effect, as the democracy progressed, there was a greater anxiety that the dōra often regularly received by officials might render them disobedient dōrodokoi. Amid these broader institutional changes, though, it would be a long time before the original law against dōrodokia was changed or before the dōrodokos would again crop up in the law. Over the course of the next century, up through the first few decades of the democracy, the Athenians instead created a series of informal, extra-legal measures concerning dōrodokia. At the same time as the dēmos was defining its own political authority within various institutional bodies, clauses on the illicit receipt of dōra were added to a variety of public oaths and curses in conjunction with the performance of

1

For an overview of those institutional changes, see especially Ostwald (1986: esp. 77-83), Ober (1989: 68-82), Hansen (1991: 34-6), and Chapter Two.

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political duties. Taken as a whole, these informal measures reflect a clear anxiety over the role of the individual in the polity, and they sought to define that role clearly within a specific political domain. When Solon instituted his reforms, he made the archons swear an oath to the gods that they would perform their public duties “according to the laws” (kata\ tou/j no/mouj), that is, the new laws enacted by the lawgiver; if they did break one of his laws, they swore to set up a golden statue.2 The phrase “according to the laws” recurs in a variety of public oaths that were created over the course of the next century, including the bouleutic and heliastic oaths for the Council and jurors, respectively. In these latter two cases, at least, the punishment for counseling or judging contrary to the law was more severe: destruction to an offender, his family and home.3 Similarly, the Athenians enacted a public curse, to be pronounced before every session of the Assembly and Council, which vowed the same destruction on all traitors and enemies of the state.4 Although the dating of these oaths and curses is controversial, the archon’s oath is certainly Solonian, the

2

AP 7.1, 55.5, Plat. Phaedr. 235d8-e1, Plut. Sol. 25.2, Pollux 8.86, Suida s.v. xrush= ei)kw/n on the archons’ oath. There is some discrepancy in our sources as to whether or not this was to be a golden statue in Athens (AP 7.1, 55.5; Pollux 8.86) or a life-size golden statue in Delphi (Plut. Sol. 25.2), or a statue in each of Athens, Delphi, and Olympia (Suida). Yet it seems clear enough that Plutarch’s account has been marred by confusion over Socrates’ comment in the Phaedrus, that he would, like the archons, set up a lifesize golden statue in Delphi. As Sandys (1912: 25 ad AP 7.1) rightly argues, the account of the Athenaiōn Politeia is preferable here. It is, after all, highly unlikely that an offender would be granted what was an exceptional honor of setting up a (life-size!) statue of himself, an honor usually granted only to athletes and other benefactors: see Doming Gygax (forthcoming, esp. 161-2). Conceivably, the statue would have been a small representation of an offended deity, like the bronze Zanes of Zeus set up at Olympia by athletes who had been bribed (cf. Paus. 5.21.3-17); but this interpretation cannot be pressed given the strength of AP’s testimony that the statue be of a man (a)ndria/nta, AP 7.1, 55.5). Still, assuming an affinity to the Zanes at Olympia might explain why the Suida remarks that offending archons set up a statue at Olympia too. 3 Oath of the Council (bouleutic oath): cf. Lys. 31.1, [Dem.] 59.4, with kata\ tou/j no/mouj at Xen. Mem. 1.1.18; Rhodes (2007: 12-13). Oath of the jurors (heliastic oath): see Dem. 24.149-51, with kata\ tou/j no/mouj explicitly attributed to ‘the lawgiver’ (i.e. Solon) at Aeschin. 3.6; for further discussion, see especially Fränkel (1878: 453-4). Punishment: Andoc. 1.31, Dem. 24.151, Connor (1985). 4 Andoc. 1.31, Dem. 19.70-71, 20.107, 23.97, Lyc. 1.31; cf. Din. 2.16. Although the text of the curse has not been preserved, it is thought to have been closely parodied in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae (33151). For a reconstruction of the curse, see Rhodes (1972: 36-7).

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heliastic oath and curse in the Assembly probably so, while the bouleutic oath seems to date to 502/1 in the beginning of the democracy. What is clear is that these public declarations were enacted in the sixth century and continued to be modified through at least the fifth century.5 Significantly for our purposes, by the middle of the fifth century these oaths and curses came to include clauses outlawing dōrodokia, as well. Again, more precise dating is impossible, but the following additions seem to have been made. The archon’s oath definitely incorporated a clause “not to take dōra for the sake of one’s office” (dw=ra mh\ lh/yesqai th=j a)rxh=j e3neka, AP 55.5, cf. Pollux 8.86), probably sometime between the founding of the democracy and the establishment of the people’s courts by the mid-fifth century.6 We find similar language attested for the heliastic oath: “I will not take dōra illicitly in exchange for my vote in the Heliaia” (ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai th=j h(lia/sewj e#neka, Dem. 24.150).7 Further, the public curse at meetings of the Assembly and Council

5

Archon’s oath: AP 7.1 is explicit that the oath first sworn by the archons after Solon was the same oath sworn in his own time in the latter part of the fourth century, but this cannot be, given that still different oaths are recorded in AP 55.5 (cf. Pollux 8.86) and AP 56.2. Public curse: see Rhodes (1972: 36-7) for discussion. Bouleutic oath: Rhodes (2007: 13); one notable change was the addition of a clause referring to the amnesty of 403/2 (Andoc. 1.91). 6 That this clause is an addition to the archon’s oath is clear from the fact that both Aristotle and Plutarch attest that the original Solonian oath forbad simply breaking his laws: AP 7.1, Plut. Sol. 25.2; cf. Bonner and Smith (1930: 1.169) and contra Rhodes (1981: 621 ad AP 55.5), who feels compelled to choose between the two versions cited in AP. Hashiba (2006: 76) suggests that the addition could have been made at the time of Solon, but when? Solon left Athens shortly after enacting his reforms (AP 11.1, Plut. Sol. 25.4, cf. Hdt. 1.29.2), and our sources insist that he made no changes after his laws had been passed (AP 11.1, Plut. Sol. 25.4). Similarly, the Peisistratids were not known as legal innovators, so it unlikely that they would have modified the oath. This makes the addition a product of the democracy. The terminus ante quem is when the authority of the archons was significantly reduced during the democracy. This would have come not with the establishment of the selection of archons by lot in 487—as most scholars assume—but with the creation of the people’s courts around the time of Ephialtes’ reforms. As Badian (1971: 9-17) reminds, the “quality” of the archons was not affected by the institution of the lot; by contrast, after the creation of the people’s courts, the archons lost much of their authority in judging cases. 7 This clause is preserved only in a version of the heliastic oath which was inserted by a scholiast into a speech of Demosthenes (24.149-51): on this oath, see Fränkel (1878), Drerup (1897: 256-64), Bonner and Smith (1938: 152-6), Hansen (1991: 182-3), Mirhady (2007). A number of the clauses in that speech have been considered spurious—so Fränkel (1878: 465-6), Lipsius (1905-15: 1.151-2)—and the authenticity of

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appears to have condemned a long list of impeachable offenses, including committing dōrodokia and then speaking in public, and this list of offenses was incorporated into the curse as early as 480.8 Although no source explicitly attests to a clause against dōrodokia in the bouleutic oath, such a clause is likely, if only based on analogy to other oaths and to the curse at the beginning of meetings of the Council.9 There is no reason to assume that these clauses were added simultaneously; nor should we assume that these extra-legal measures are straightforward indications either

the clause on dōrodokia was not accepted by Westermann (1858-9), Fränkel (1878: 465-6) and subsequent critics: recently, Hansen (1991: 182), Mirhady (2007). Although I disagree with complete authenticity of the oath presented in Demosthenes, as argued by Drerup (1897: 256-64), I concur with Drerup (1897: 257) and Harrison (1971: 48), contra the orthodox view taken by Fränkel and his followers, that the clause on dōrodokia is authentic. As Fränkel (1878: 457, 465-6) admits, this is precisely the kind of clause we would expect to find in the heliastic oath—one reason that he inserts into the oath that jurors would vote “with neither malice nor favor” (ou1te xari/tou e3nek’ ou1t’ e2xqraj), borrowed from an oath taken by members of the deme of Halimus as they voted on the citizenship of members of the deme (Dem. 57.63). Yet, as Drerup (1897: 257) rightly points out, we need not import a new phrase, particularly when we have striking comparanda for the language used. Drerup (1897: 257) adduces two examples: an oath taken by the euthynoi of the deme Myrrhinus— ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai ou1t’ au)to\j e)gw\] ou1t[e] a1[l]loj v e)moi\ ou)-/[de\ a1]ll ?e ? ei)do/toj e) ?mo[u= mhxanh=i h2 t]e/[xnh]i ou0demia=i (IG ii² 1183.8-9, dated after 340)—and a judicial oath from Kalymnos—ou)de\ dw=ra e1labon ta=j di/kaj tau/taj e3[neken par’ ou)deno\j]/[o]u1te au)to\j e)gw\ ou1te a2loj ou1te a1lla e)mi\n [te/xnai h2 maxana=i ou)d]-/emia=i (IK Knidos I.221A2.30-32, around 300). To these we can add another judicial oath, from Klazomenae: kai\ dw=ra ou)k e1-/labon ou)de\ lh/yomai tw=[n d]ikw=n e3neken ou1te au)to\j e)gw\ ou1te a1l-/loj e)moi\ ou1te a!llh{i} o[u1te t]e/xnhi ou1te pareure/sei ou)demia=i (MDAI(I) 1979: 249-71: II side B 4.32); the same phrase is repeated later in the inscription from Klazomenae in regard to giving dōra as well (4.49-51). On the strength of these comparanda, the oath of the Amphictyonian Council has plausibly been restored as follows: ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai ou1te auto\j e)gw/, ou1te]/ a1lloj e)moi (FD iii 4.278 col B12). Cf. IG xii² 207.9-10. What is puzzling about the wording of the clause on dōrodokia is that it seems to conflate two phrases which are normally not found together. ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai th=j h(lia/sewj e#neka contains both ou)de\ dw=ra de/comai—a straightforward phrase found also in the Myrrhinus oath, the Amphictyonic oath, and elsewhere (cf. mhde\ dw=ra decei=sqai mhde/poka, IG ii² 1126.11)—and e#neka plus a noun, a phrase which repeats the force of dw=ra de/xesqai and is thus otherwise used only in conjunction with the verb lamba/nein, not de/xesqai, as in the archon’s oath and the oaths from Kalymnos and Klazomenae. Perhaps in a redrafting like the one proposed above for the original law against dōrodokia, the oath itself was modified, without changing the verb, to specify the meaning of de/comai. 8 The reconstruction of the curse at Rhodes (1972: 37) accurately records the sense of this clause as “takes bribes to speak against the interests of Athens.” But it should be noted that the phrase, “against the interests of Athens,” taken from Dinarchus (1.47, 2.16), was most likely a product of the fourth century, as we saw in Chapter Four. Indeed, the actual curse appears to have included the verb de/xesqai, as suggested by Aristophanes’ parody of the curse in the Thesmophoriazousae (cf. de/xetai, Ar. Th. 346). If so, the clause seems clearly modeled off the original law against dōrodokia. We cannot know when the addition was added, except that it pre-dates Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae (411/0). 9 Rhodes (1972: 12-13).

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that dōrodokia was prevalent in the early democracy or that informal measures were required because of the Athenians’ inability to regulate political agents through more formal means.10 Yet a common impulse might nevertheless lie behind the emendations to these oaths and curses, all of which were adopted possibly within as narrow a timeframe as the first few decades of the democracy. Indeed, the clauses on dōrodokia might very well have been the means by which the dēmos transformed its political bodies into institutions of, explicitly, a democracy. As I argue, these clauses are illuminated when taken as a whole and placed in conjunction with the clauses on following the city’s laws, for both clauses indicate a desire to mark out the kinds of behaviors that the community expected of its political agents. In this sense, they simultaneously define a political space—a domain of authority—and located individuals’ actions within that depersonalized space. The inclusion of clauses on acting lawfully signaled that political agents in a variety of political bodies were bound by the laws in what they could or could not do. Archons, for example, had specific jurisdictions based on areas of substantive law and were not allowed to prosecute citizens or, later, to conduct trials outside these limits. The clause in the archons’ oath on performing the duties of office “in accordance with the laws” (kata\ tou\j no/mouj) defined the boundaries of a space in which their actions were expressly legal and hence in accordance with the good ordering of the city’s laws.

10

The conclusions reached by Kahrstedt (1936: 64) and Hashiba (2006: 75), respectively. Hashiba (2006: 75) concludes that the creation of an extra-legal measure like the archon’s oath is an indication that a formal, legal measure would have been ineffective. Cf. Faraone (2002: 84-5). That the Athenians did not enact any formal measures, however, only begs the question that dōrodokia was a tremendous problem. Hashiba’s interpretation presumes, moreover, that in the face of such a problem, the Athenians simply would have assumed that no formal resolution could be attained and left the matter at that. Yet the Athenians did make a number of similar institutional changes within a short time of when Hashiba claims they were unable to: notably, Ephialtes’ reforms, on which see below.

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This legally defined space, i.e. one marked out by ‘the laws’ constituted what I am calling a domain of authority. In analogous fashion, the inclusion of clauses on dōrodokia in public pronouncements like the archons’ oath signaled that, while performing their duties within their proper domain of authority, magistrates were not to act contrary to the community’s interests. Even if an archon had prosecuted someone within his own domain, it would have been untenable if his actions in prosecuting or judging the case conflicted with the community’s interests, especially if these actions had been motivated by dōra illicitly received. The oath sworn thus promised that a public official would act only within that political space. Moreover, because this was a legally not socially defined space, the oath signaled an early step towards removing the official’s actions from the world of social exchange relationships. Instead, with the oaths, officials like the archons grounded their actions in some de-personalized externality: the laws of the community.

So these oaths both

defined domains of authority and thereby indicated that magistrates’ actions should be grounded in those de-personalized domains. The de-personalized externality on which political actions were based was itself defined by the community’s interests. It was depersonalized precisely because it privileged civic relations with the community over social relations with individuals. We find one of these oaths in play during the Persian Wars, when in 480 the Persian general Mardonius sent a herald to Salamis to address the Athenian Council and encourage them to make peace with the King after the battle of Salamis (Hdt. 9.3-5). After listening to the herald, one Lycides suggested that Mardonius’ offer be put before the Assembly. Those at the Council meeting, and even those who later heard about it,

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were so enraged by Lycides’ recommendation that they stoned him to death; when the Athenian women heard what had happened, they went on their own bidding to Lycides’ home and stoned to death his wife and children (Hdt. 9.5).11 It is likely that Lycides’ contemporaries suspected him of dōrodokia, as Herodotus’ account suggests (cf. dedegme/noj xrh/mata, Hdt. 9.5).12

Certainly Lycides acted legally in offering his

counsel, but the very idea of considering surrender to the King was manifestly against the community’s interests.

As per the curse pronounced before every meeting of the

Council, the Athenians responded by bringing destruction upon both Lycides and his family. Our main source for this episode presents the Athenians’ reaction—spontaneous, collective action—as an essentially informal, extra-legal response to Lycides’ purportedly corrupt counsel, just the sort of response we might expect was demanded by the public curse.13 Herodotus’ narrative emphasizes, in particular, the role of hearsay as a preface to action. It was hearsay and gossip that gathered together community members so that they could act as a collective whole in combating and controlling the threat posed by Lycides 11

On this episode, see Asheri (1977: 176-9 ad Hdt. 9.5) and Flower and Marincola (2002: 107-8 ad Hdt. 9.5). The story of Lycides is also preserved in Demosthenes, although that passing mention speaks of a certain Cyrsilus, who before the battle of Salamis (not afterwards, as in Herodotus) suggested that the Athenians submit to the Persian King. He was subsequently stoned to death for his recommendation. Cf. Lyc. 1.122, Cic. Off. 3.48 with Verrall (1909) and Allen (2000: 143-5) for further discussion. 12 Ultimately, Herodotus professes ignorance over the real reasons for Lycides’ actions. He presents the two options using ei)/te dh\...ei)/te kai\...., a phrase which elsewhere in the Histories expresses a difference in motivation, whether external (ei)/te dh\...) or internal (ei)/te kai\...): Hdt. 1.19, 1.191, 8.54. In all three examples, both options appear to be equally likely. That said, Herodotus’ conjunction of this episode with the Thebans’ advice to Mardonius that he bribe the leaders of various Greek poleis was probably not his own invention, for he himself records that Mardonius did not listen to the Thebans’ suggestion (Hdt. 9.3). Instead, both Lycides’ purported bribe and the purported conversation between the Thebans and Mardonius seem to rflect contemporary perceptions of what had happened: cf. Verrall (1909), Hohti (1976: 71), Nouhaud (1982: 167). 13 In fact, Lycurgus’ version of the story has the Council members explicitly remove their crowns— thereby acting as citizens, not magistrates—before stoning Lycides (Lyc. 1.122). Allen (2000: 144-5) notes the ways in which Lycides’ stoning inverted standard procedures for punishment, but these inversions are perhaps better understood not simply as exceptions made during wartime, but as informal actions by the dēmos as a whole which need not have followed more formal procedures.

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and his counsel. The Athenians outside the Council meeting eventually “got wind of” Lycides’ recommendation and immediately stoned him to death (cf. w(j e)pu/qonto, Hdt. 9.5), and there was such an uproar (qoru/bou) in Salamis over Lycides that, after the women finally heard about what had happened (punqa/nontai to\ gino/menon, Hdt. 9.5), they too took action, marching to Lycides’ home and stoning his wife and children to death. Significantly, Herodotus uses military metaphors to describe the women’s actions, as each woman “ordered on” the next (diakeleusame/nh, Hdt. 9.5), and they approached the home “at their own command” (au)tokele/ej, Hdt. 9.5). As subtly conveyed by these metaphors, the stoning of Lycides and his family was a concerted, informal response by the entire community, a response which, like an army marching against an enemy, aimed to contain a threat to the city. As with a formal trial or decree of the Assembly, the community came together, heard a report, and collectively pronounced judgment on the offender.14 In this way, Lycides’ apparently untenable counsel was replaced by public speech, then collective action by the people as a whole; in casting Lycides’ actions as outside the Council’s domain of authority, the people effectively replicated the kinds of action permissible within that domain. It is worth pointing out that such permissible actions were manifestly democratic modes of politics. 14

Note how, in Lycurgus’ account, the Assembly was thought to have taken the formal step of passing a public decree about Lycides (Lyc. 1.122). But such a decree, if in fact it existed—cf. Habicht (1961: 212)—would have been drafted only after the fact, as even Lycurgus’ account suggests: Flower and Marincola (2002: 108 ad Hdt. 9.5.2). Herodotus might preserve an oblique hint of this mirroring of formal action in his report that, when the Athenians heard about Lycides’ proposal, they “stood around” him and stoned him to death (perista/ntej, Hdt. 9.5). Such a scene certainly recalls the public nature of archaic court trials, like that represented on the shield of Achilles, where crowds stood around the litigants and judges: Hom. Il. 18.502-3, Hes. WD 29. But, as Asheri (1977: 177 ad Hdt. 9.5.6-9) notes, Herodotus’ precise wording might be a reference to trials in Classical Athens, as well, where at least in the fourth century “those standing around” a trial (oi( periesthko/tej) were frequently invoked by litigants as a critical part of the trial itself: Lanni (1997). Likewise, the qo/ruboj that rose up in the city might suggest the “din” of the crowd often invoked by speakers in court, on which see especially Bers (1985).

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Tellingly, the punishment established by these public oaths and curses resembled the penalty of outlawry set up by the original law against dōrodokia. The destruction called for in public pronouncements was a licit form of community violence against an offender and his home, just as any violence against someone who was ‘outlawed’ was an explicitly sanctioned response without consequence or pollution.15 Like atimia, to curse and stone an offender was a way to remove a pollution threatening the city like a foreign enemy.16 By removing that enemy ‘outsider’, the community reasserted the physical and symbolic boundaries of the Council’s domain. Yet unlike atimia, a kind of expulsion which essentially admitted the community’s inability to control a pollution, stoning was a way to contain a threat; it proved that the dēmos could control an offender.17 Whereas outlawry left the offender’s fate in his own hands, stoning took control of the offender’s life. Both processes thus functioned analogously, but in the newly established democracy it was political oaths and curses that symbolically heralded the dēmos’ authority to control its public officials, the dōrodokos in particular. Even though a citizen like Lycides may have been suspected of dōrodokia, we need not assume that clauses on dōrodokia were added to public oaths specifically because dōrodokia was prevalent or because the Athenians were actually concerned that each and every one of these political bodies was in danger of being corrupted through 15

Asheri’s (1977: 176-9 ad Hdt. 9.5) discussion is particularly insightful on this point; see also Cantarella (1988). Similarly, that contemporary archons swore to set up a gold statue if they took bribes was also a way to mitigate pollution. Note how Olympic athletes and judges, too, swore an oath to Zeus Horkios that they would not do any wrong: Paus. 5.24.4 with Perry (2007). An offender set up a golden statute of Zeus as a votive offering in honor of the offended deity (Paus. 5.21). 16 As suggested by Herodotus’ military metaphors, which paint a picture of the Athenian women marching against an enemy. Note how, according to Lycurgus, Lycides’ recommendation was tantamount to betraying the city (prodido/nai th\n po/lin, Lyc. 1.122). Cantarella (1991: 84-7) helpfully underscores how the act of stoning reinforced the boundaries of the community while configuring an offender as an outsider. For the contiguities between stoning and religious purification, see further Gernet (1981: 265-6), Allen (2000: 205-6) and especially Cantarella (1988; 1991: 80-4). 17 On this crucial difference, Allen (2000: 209-11) is foundational. Cf. Gernet (1981: esp. 265-7)

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dōrodokia. Instead, we can see how clauses on dōrodokia functioned as a broad means for the dēmos to regulate the actions of individuals in the public realm. As specific political bodies like the Council of 500, the Assembly, and the Heliaia were created or became newly significant, their proper domain of authority was defined through a political oath, and the contours of the domain were asserted whenever the community took action against someone who had broken the oath. Through configuring a legal space for the dōrodokos, the Athenians thereby articulated the political space of the democracy. Crucially, as suggested by the addition of clauses on dōrodokia, their members effectively swore that that space would be inherently de-personalized to a degree: it would be grounded in the community’s, not some individual’s interests. Inasmuch as dōrodokia was a ready explanation for how an individual like Lycides could have misjudged these interests, such clauses were also a powerful way for the dēmos to assert control over its political agents. In this respect, the addition of these clauses fits in well with other measures in the early democracy which aimed to assert and enforce the political authority of the dēmos. The clauses on dōrodokia in public oaths and curses were thus an extension of Solon’s earlier legislative efforts to make public officials more accountable. Both sets of measures stipulated that the judgments of individual political agents on the greater good of the community could be subjected to re-evaluation by a political body with authority within that particular domain.

In the case of the graphē dōrōn, whether or not a

magistrate was deemed to have taken dōra illicitly depended in large part on how the Areopagus Council assessed the final outcome of his actions; in the case of public oaths and curses, it was the community as a whole that evaluated the judgments of individual

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These clauses shifted the focus from accountability in general to

accountability to the dēmos as a whole. As such, they indicate that the Athenians were especially concerned about actively enforcing their political authority so that officials consistently complied and acted not simply for themselves, but especially for some greater good. Further, both measures seem to have configured the dōrodokos in the same way as an insider who must be cast out of the moral community of the polis. In short, these early attemp