bribery, Greek

bribery, Greek
Much of the Greek vocabulary for bribery is noticeably neutral (‘persuade by gifts/money’, ‘receiving gifts’), although pejorative terms like ‘gift-swallowing’ are found as early as Hesiod (Opera et Dies 37 ff.). In Attic tragedy, we hear of accusations of bribery against e.g. seers like Tiresias (Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus 380 ff.); Thucydides' Pericles (2. 60. 5, cf. 65. 8) finds it necessary to say that he has not taken bribes; clearly the normal expectation was that politicians did. Accusations of bribery are frequent in the 4th-cent. orators, partly because it was necessary to prove bribery in order to make a treason accusation (eisangelia) stick: Hyperides 4. 29 f. Hyperides 5. 24 f. implies an Athenian distinction between bribes taken for and against the interests of the state; the latter type have been called ‘catapolitical’ (D. Harvey, CRUX...

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