told Periander’s messengers that she refused to answer be-
cause she was cold—clothes had been buried with her at her
funeral but not burned. (Th e idea seems to be that unless
they were burned, the clothes could not go to the world of
the dead.) Th e ghost added that Periander would know that
she was really Melissa because he had put his loaves in a cold
oven. When he heard this, Periander remembered that he
had had sex with Melissa’s corpse aft er she was dead. He an-
nounced to all the women of Corinth that they should come
to the temple of the goddess Hera. Th ey dressed as if it were a
festival and turned out, but then Periander’s guards stripped
them naked, and all their clothes were heaped in a pit and
burned. Aft erward, Melissa’s ghost revealed the information
Periander wanted. In Book 5 of Herodotus’s History, Socles,
a Corinthian, tells this story and concludes by saying, “Th is,
then, is the nature of tyranny, and such are its deeds.” Cor-
rupt governments treat people the way Periander treated the
women of Corinth.
At Athens under the democratic government of the fi ft h
and fourth centuries b.c.e. offi cials had to report to the boule,
or legislative council, at the end of their year in offi ce and
have their accounts examined. In general, transparency was
expected, but the Greek biographer Plutarch (ca. 46–aft er 119
c.e.), in his Life of Pericles, records how in the early 440s b.c.e.
the Athenian statesman Pericles bribed King Pleistoanax (r.
459–409 b.c.e.) of Sparta and his assistant Cleandridas to lead
their Spartan army home instead of fi ghting. When Pericles
presented his accounts for the campaign, he listed 10 talents
mysteriously as “necessary expenses,” and the council passed
the accounts without inquiring closely.
In the fourth century b.c.e. the growing power of Mace-
don placed a strain on Athenian standards of conduct. De-
mosthenes (384–322 b.c.e.), the leading anti-Macedonian
politician at Athens, prosecuted Aeschines in 343 b.c.e. over
events in 347 b.c.e., when Aeschines had been part of an em-
bassy sent to King Philip II (r. 359–336 b.c.e.) to administer
oaths confi rming a peace treaty. Philip cunningly made im-
portant gains between when the peace was agreed and when
oaths were taken. Demosthenes alleged in his speech “On the
False Embassy,” in eff ect, that Aeschines (and other ambas-
sadors) had been bribed to be complicit. Aeschines delivered
a counter oration, and the jury acquitted him by a narrow
majority. But in 324 b.c.e., when Alexander the Great’s trea-
surer, Harpalus, had run away with 5,000 talents of Alexan-
der’s money and come to Athens for protection, Demosthenes
was accused by the Athenian orator Hypereides (ca. 390–322
b.c.e.) in his speech “Against Demosthenes” of accepting a 20-
talent bribe from Harpalus: Demosthenes was found guilty.ROME
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
When looking at the great depravity of some Romans, it is
worth remembering that Rome did not survive as a culture
for over a thousand years because of fools such as Nero (r.54–68 c.e.); it survived because for hundreds of years it had
midlevel civil servants who were dedicated to the welfare of
their nation. A multitude of hardworking government em-
ployees kept the empire running in spite of the greed, lust,
and cruelty of some of its leaders.
Th e Roman Republic began with a scandal, the rape of
Lucretia by Sextus, the son of King Tarquinius Superbus (r.
535–510 b.c.e.). At the time, the Roman army was laying siege
to the city of Ardea, and as a game some Roman offi cers de-
cided they would discover whose wives were the more faith-
ful by paying them a surprise visit in Rome. Of all the wives
only Lucretia was doing exactly what she told her husband
she had been doing in her letters to him. Th e offi cers returned
to the siege, but Sextus remained behind and forced himself
on Lucretia, who wrote to her husband to tell him. Her hus-
band, Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, and some of his friends
rushed back to Rome where Lucretia explained what had hap-
pened, then killed herself. Th is triggered the rebellion that
threw King Tarquinius Superbus out of Rome and began the
Roman Republic.
During the centuries aft er the founding of the Repub-
lic, the upper class of Rome, the patricians, who controlled
the Senate and were expected to take leadership roles in gov-
ernment, worked hard to maintain their elite status. In the
process, some of them engaged in extreme corruption. Mag-
istrates of Italian cities and governors of provinces looted
the public treasury. Th ey stole taxes and property and sold
free families into slavery for profi t. Th is rapacious corruption
reached its peak during the dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius
Sulla (r. 81–79 b.c.e.). He was a Roman general who commit-
ted a grave breach of public trust by invading the city of Rome
with his army.
Sulla had his political opponents murdered and then
went on to murder anyone he disliked. He tried to undo re-
forms that had given power to common people. Among his
laws was one that allowed only juries of senators to hear cases
of senators accused of crimes. Senators found they could get
away with murder, literally, because their fellow senators on
the juries were easy to bribe. Among those who profi ted il-
legally was the governor of Sicily, Gaius Verres. He and his
henchmen stole almost everything that could be moved. It
took almost 10 years to bring the Roman legal system back
to a condition where a rich criminal such as Verres could be
brought to justice. Th e lawyer and orator Cicero prosecuted
him and used the forum of the court to describe the corrup-
tion that had infected the Roman government.
Th e First Triumvirate (r. 60–53 b.c.e.)—Marcus Licinius
Crassus, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey), and Gaius Ju-
lius Caesar—was formed in part as a way of ending corrup-
tion and confl ict in government. Crassus died in an eastern
military campaign, and Pompey was closely associated with
Sulla and some of the corrupt offi cials who had profi ted from
Sulla’s laws. Th is left Julius Caesar the only leader common
people looked to for help. Caesar became dictator in 49 b.c.e.
Although he was a tough and sometimes brutal military916 scandals and corruption: Rome0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i916 916 10/10/07 2:30:25 PM