Conceptions of political corruption in ancient Athens and Rome

Abstract

There were two broad discourses of corruption in antiquity. The first (‘corruption 1’) conceived corruption in moralistic terms as a loss of virtue in the polity; a generalised condition afflicting political elites and citizens indiscriminately. The second discourse (‘corruption 2’) is the narrow, legalistic view of corruption as the abuse of public office for private gain and, as with contemporary understandings of corruption, this involved activities such as patronage, bribery, extortion and embezzlement. It is sometimes suggested that the first discourse was either the only, or else the dominant, discourse in antiquity. But, as will be shown in the following discussion, corruption 2 was very well developed in the classical period, particularly in Athens and Rome. I also attempt to map and comprehend the fractures and contradictions in the classical attitude to corruption 2 that prevented it from being either monolithic or universally adopted.