Twisted Transfers
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Edited by:
Filippo Carlà-Uhink
Corruption is a concept that is frequent and present in our daily lives, on the media as well as in private conversations. At the same time, however, the term is difficult to define with precision.
The concept of corruption includes a broad series of conducts perceived and/or defined as illicit, illegitimate or immoral. The common feature of these behaviours seems to be their configuration as principal-agent problem. But, among other things, it is particularly complex to disentangle the moral connotation of the term, understood as degeneration and decay, from its legal and political meaning. This is mainly because the significance of the concept in media and public opinion depends very much on the connection of both sides.
The book series "Twisted Transfers" features studies that examine all possible facets of corruption in the ancient world, including ancient global and comparative approaches to the phenomenon: How was corruption perceived in ancient periods in different parts of the world? How were anti-corruption laws and measures developed? How is corruption discussed in ancient sources, and how did such discourses shape the political and social life of ancient communities? These are just some of the key questions that this series aims to answer.
Topics
This study studies the multifaceted phenomenon of ancient corruption by analyzing discourses of corruption in classical Athens from a gender-specific perspective. It focuses on two areas overlooked by previous research into ancient corruption: adultery and prostitution. It also asks how corruption was constructed within these contemporary discourses in relation to each gender.
Corruption is a process of degeneration activated or revealed by activities defined as illegal, immoral or deviant. Political corruption specifically defines forms of misbehavior damaging the community, as embezzlement; yet, it is impossible to disentangle from moral corruption, as the relationship between individual corruption and that of the entire community can take different forms in public opinion and discourse. The picture becomes even more blurred when considering corruption in ancient Athens and Rome. This is due to the scarcity and the general one-sidedness of ancient sources, as to modern narratives that tend to idealize those societies and to identify specific phases, such as the Late Republic or the Late Roman Empire, as moments of "decadence" and of widespread corruption.
The volume explores a variety of approaches to the study of corruption in ancient Athens and Rome, focusing on how corruption (and anti-corruption) were conceptualized, discussed and represented. Such analysis is relevant for today’s discussions about corruption, too, in particular by demonstrating how discourses of corruption interface with democratic ideology (as in Athens) and with electoral practices (as in Republican Rome).
Defining corruption is an incredibly difficult task. Being at the same time a concept identifying illegitimate and illegal behaviors, mostly connected to positions of power, and a word indicating a process of (moral) degeneration, corruption is hard to tackle and disentangle – especially when one considers how it is perceived and discussed in public discourse. As deviance from the norm, corruption shifts continuously: different cultures recognize different kinds of behavior as "corrupt". Nonetheless, earlier studies on corruption in Greek and Roman antiquity have often tried to define which periods were "more" or "less corrupt", or how corruption influenced the demise of political orders (for example in the late Roman republic or in late antiquity). This volume develops a different approach, focusing on the ways in which ancient sources – literary texts, papyri, laws, etc. – have understood and defined corruption, to gain an emic perspective of corruption in different moments and contexts of Graeco-Roman Antiquity. The volume thus provides an innovative and comprehensive perspective on corruption and anti-corruption in Greek and Roman antiquity, thus providing relevant tools also for today’s discussions about a topic which is and was always current.
