THE NOT SO PETTY CRIMINALS OF ANCIENT ATHENS

It seems that petty crime was no rare thing in Ancient Athens. There was even a section of the market area called ‘Thieves’ Market’. It may have been what we would call a flea market, where second-hand clothing and other goods are sold but one that also forms a channel for getting money for stolen goods. I bought a bicycle in one such in Dublin some years back, no questions asked. Of course, no bikes in ancient times, so what forms of theft were there?

You could be mugged, of course. If you weren’t carrying money or things you’d just bought in the market, they’d take your clothes and leave you to go home naked. They might even make you spit out any small change you had tucked away in your cheek (yes, that was normal in a time before the invention of pockets). On the longer routes to other towns and villages in Attica, these would be highway robbers.

If you went to the baths or the gym, as the wealthier men did frequently, you paid someone to keep an eye on your clothes, if you had sense, or a ‘cloakstripper’ would be rummaging them for any money or valuables you might have left with them. And, doubtless, if you carried your money in a purse or satchel on a strap over your shoulder, that could be grabbed and made off with by any number of street urchins.

No use reporting it to the police – there weren’t any. The Scythian guards patrolled the central areas to keep order and might nab any blatant wrongdoer they spotted but, in the narrow lanes between market stalls, they couldn’t be everywhere. Law rested really on victims grabbing (arresting) the thief before he got away and taking him to the authorities. 

Not much hope of that if the mugger was threatening you in a deserted alley with a club or a knife and there were two of him. Mind you, if you came upon a burglar on your own property, you could take action even to killing him and be seen as justified – that’s if it’s at night: by day, you could only kill him if he resisted. Always, villains had to be caught in the act or such crimes were difficult to prove.

But, if wealthy houses had no ground floor windows and the street door was guarded by a porter with a dog, how did burglars gain access? Simple. They dug a hole through the wall. Either from a lane beside or from inside an adjoining house. 

In the main, houses were built of sun-baked mud bricks, so not too difficult to chisel away at them when folks are all out, say, at a big religious festival or maybe all asleep. Over the relatively low rooftops and down into a courtyard may have been another way in but not such as easy way out.

However, it wasn’t only the professional criminal that indulged in illegalities. The number of laws and inspectors relating to weights and measure, false coinage, and quality of foodstuffs gives a pretty good idea that such offences were rife. But there are always ways round these things, like two sets of weights, one for when the inspectors are around, the other when they’re not. 

You only have to look at the non-round shapes of coins that have been unearthed by archaeologists to realise how much clipping of the metal at the edges must have gone on even though value of a coin was determined by its weight. If a customer had doubts, there was a public slave stationed in the market place specifically to test coins and weights.

What punishments did culprits face? Well, stallholders faced a fine but, as today, probably not high enough to be a real deterrent. It’s possible there was an equivalent of the medieval stocks and also a wooden device round the ankles that hobbled a culprit in the hope that the public ridicule that went with these would be enough to put people off. 

In the case of more serious theft, it was the death penalty. In Athens, that meant being shackled to a board somewhere outside the city gates and being left to starve to death. Pretty grim.

THE GREAT PERFUMERY CON TRICK

He must have been a sitter for any conman (or conwoman) – our lovesick hero – let’s call him Eubolides. He has fallen in love with a slave boy who works in the scent shop where he buys his perfumes (Athenian gents liked to smell nice).

“Can I pay you to give him his freedom,” he asks Athenogenes the owner. “Sorry, not on, replies Athenogenes, “he won’t go without his brother and his father Midas, who runs this highly profitable business for me.”

Depiction of Agora in Athens

Eubolides is distraught and desperate to get the lad into his bed. Enter Antigona, beautiful ex-courtesan, now ageing but respected pimp-about-town. Knowing them both, she offers to mediate.

“I think, if you offer to buy or free all three slaves, you’d have a deal,” she says and names a sum, not cheap but do-able. Eubolides hustles round, raises the money by borrowing from friends and a meeting is arranged. 

Now what Eubolides doesn’t know is that Athenogenes has given Midas full responsibility for operating the shop and the slave has run up massive debts by borrowing for which his owner is responsible. So, surprise, surprise, looking worried, Athenogenes agrees to the deal but then says, as though trying to be helpful, “Look, have you thought, if you buy the freedom of the three slaves, it’ll just be money down the Great Drain. Why don’t you just buy the business?

“That way, you own the slaves and can do what you want with the boy and they could continue to work and earn a profit for you. If they go, I’ve either got to close it down or buy new slaves to run it.

Of course, you’d have to take over the liabilities as well as assets. There are debts to Pankalos and Prokles but they’re not much - the stock in the shop more than covers that - and maybe a few more. I’ll let you have it for the same amount.” 

Now, the fact that the price was the same should have been enough to warn Eubolides but, as I say, he’s lovesick and doesn’t spot any trickery. Antigona chips in encouragingly, “Sounds a good deal to me. It’ll give you a regular income.”

So he falls for it and signs, or rather applies his seal on the spot for – another surprise – Athenogenes just happens to have the contract, already drawn up, tucked in his cloak.

Athenogenes hasn’t actually lied, just implied the debts were a lot lower than they really are. More important for him, debts are formally mentioned in the contract and that Eubolides takes responsibility for them.

Now proud possessor of his love object and a perfumery business, Eubolides suddenly finds creditors banging on his door, chasing him for their money, and himself saddled with a massive debt on top of his own borrowings.

He approaches Athenogenes, now freed of a heavy burden and looking flush. “You didn’t tell me about all these other debts,” he whines. “Sorry, old chap, business is business. You should have read the contract more carefully.”

Eubolides takes Athenogenes to court for damages and it is from his speech to the jury (written for him by expensive speechwriter Hypereides) that we know this. However, as Athenogenes and Antigona doubtless calculated, he hasn’t a leg to stand on. The law clearly states that contracts freely entered into between two citizens are binding.

Hypereides

“But that’s only ‘fair’ contracts,” he argues. “This contract isn’t fair.” And he cites instances in other areas of law where fair and unfair are differentiated.

Did the jury listen to him? We don’t know. But doubtless Athenogenes’ speechwriter will have found convincing counter arguments. Looks as though Eubolides is bankrupt.

And even now he doesn’t spot, even though he knows that the bigger debts are fairly recent, that Midas has probably been encouraged to take these loans specifically for the con, with Athenogenes pocketing (sorry, no pockets in a cloak – or were there?) after giving Antigona her cut – could it have been her idea? Eubolidesa is even more miffed that he slipped her 300 drachmas for her help. Talk about one born every minute!

Deduced from a speech written by Hypereides on a papyrus rescued from the sands of Egypt – collections of legal speeches certainly had a wide circulation.