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OSTRACISM
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OSTRACISM , a See also:political See also:device instituted, probably by See also:Cleisthenes in 508 B.C., as a constitutional safeguard for the Athenian See also:democracy. Its effect was to remove from See also:Athens for a See also:period of ten years any See also:person who threatened the See also:harmony and tranquillity of the See also:body politic. A similar device existed at various times in See also:Argos, See also:Miletus, See also:Syracuse and See also:Megara, but in these cities it appears to have been introduced under Athenian See also:influence. In Athens in the See also:sixth prytany of each See also:year the representatives of the See also:Boule asked the See also:Ecclesia whether it was for the welfare of the See also:state that ostracism should take See also:place. If the See also:answer was in the affirmative, a See also:day was fixed for the voting in the eighth prytany. No names were mentioned, but it is clear that two or three names at the most could have been under See also:consideration. The See also:people met, not as usual in the Pnyx, but in the See also:Agora, in the presence of the Archons, and recorded their votes by placing in urns small fragments of pottery (which in the See also:ancient See also:world served the purpose of See also:waste-See also:paper) (ostraca) on which they wrote the name of the person whom they wished to banish. As in the See also:case of other privilegia, ostracism did not take effect unless six thousand votes in all were recorded. See also:Grote and others hold that six thousand had to be given against one person before he was ostracized, but it seems unlikely that the attendance at the Ecclesia ever admitted of so large a See also:vote against one See also:man, and the view is contradicted by Plut. Arist. c. 7. The ostracized person was compelled to leave Athens for ten years, but he was not regarded as a traitor or criminal. When he returned, he resumed See also:possession of his See also:property and his civic status was unimpaired. The adverse vote simply implied that his See also:power was so See also:great as to be injurious to the state. Ostracism must therefore be carefully distinguished from See also:exile in the See also:Roman sense, which involved loss of property and status, and was for an indefinite period (i.e. generally for See also:life). Certain writers have even spoken of the " See also:honour " of ostracism. At the same See also:time it was strictly unjust to the victim, and a heavy See also:punishment to a cultured See also:citizen for whom Athens contained all that made life See also:worth living. Its political importance really was that it transferred the See also:protection of the constitution from the See also:Areopagus to the Ecclesia. Its place was afterwards taken by the Graphe Paranomon. There is no doubt that Cleisthenes' See also:object was primarily to get rid of the Peisistratid See also:faction without perpetual recourse to armed resistance (so See also:Androtion, See also:Ath. Pol. 22, See also:Ephorus, See also:Theopompus, See also:Aristotle, Pol. iii. 13, 1284 a 17 and 36; viii. (v.), 3, 1302 b 15). Aristotle's Constitution of Athens (c. 22) gives a See also:list of ostracized persons, the first of whom was a certain See also:Hipparchus of the Peisistratid See also:family (488 B.C.). It is an extra-See also:ordinary fact that, if ostracism was introduced in 508 B.C. for the purpose of expelling Hipparchus it was not till twenty years later that he was condemned. This has led some critics (see Lugebil in Das Wesen . . . der Ostrakismos, who arrives at the conclusion that ostracism could not have been introduced till after 496 B.C.) to suspect the unanimous See also:evidence of antiquity that Cleisthenes was the inventor of ostracism. The problem is difficult, and no satisfactory answer has been given. See also:Aelian's See also:story that Cleisthenes himself was the first to be ostracized is attractive in view of his overtures to See also:Persia (see CLEISTHENES), but it has little See also:historical value and conflicts with the See also:chapter in Aristotle's Constitution—which, however, may conceivably be simply the list of those recalled from ostracism at the time of See also:Xerxes' Invasion, all of whom must have been ostracized less than ten years before 481 (i.e. since See also:Marathon). With the end of the See also:Persian See also:Wars, the See also:original object of ostracism was removed, but it continued in use for See also:forty years and was revived in 417 B.C. It now became a See also:mere party weapon and the farcical result of its use in 417 in the case of Hyperbolus led to its abolition either at once, or, as Lugebil seeks to prove, in the archonship of Euclides(403 B.C.). Such a device inevitably See also:lent itself to abuse (see Aristotle, Pol. 38, 1284 b 22 07QO'ta n-Lx&S EXpWYTO). Grote maintains that ostracism was a useful device, on the grounds that it removed the danger of tyranny, and was better than the perpetual See also:civil strife of the previous See also:century. The second See also:reason is strictly beside the point, and the first has no force after the Persian Wars. As a See also:factor in party politics it was both unnecessary and injurious to the state. Thus in the Persian Wars, it deprived Athens of the See also:wisdom of Xanthippus and See also:Aristides, while at the See also:battle of Tanagra and perhaps at the time of the See also:Egyptian expedition the assistance of See also:Cimon was lacking. Further, it was a See also:blow to the See also:fair-See also:play of party politics; the defeated party, having no See also:leader, was reduced to desperate See also:measures, such as the assassination of Ephialtes. To defend it on the ground that it created and stimulated the See also:national consciousness is hardly reconcilable with the historic remark of the voter who voted against Aristides because he wished to hear no more of his incorruptible integrity; moreover in democratic Athens the " national consciousness " was, if anything, too frequently stimulated in the ordinary course of See also:government. Aristotle, admitting its usefulness, rightly describes ostracism as in theory tyrannical; See also:Montesquieu (Esprit See also:des lois, xii. cc. 19, 29, &c.) defends it, as a mild and reasonable institution. On the whole, the See also:history of its effect in Athens, Argos, Miletus, Megara and Syracuse (where it was called Petalismus), furnishes no sufficient See also:defence against its admitted disadvantages. The following is a list of persons who suffered ostracism:—Hipparchus (488); Megacles (487), Xanthippus (485), Aristides (483), See also:Themistocles (471?); Cimon (461?) See also:Thucydides, son of Melesias (444), See also:Damon, Hyperbolus (417) and possibly Cleisthenes himself (q.v.).
i. 62o; See also: St. i. 446-466 and See also:Greek Constitutional Antiquities (Eng. trans., 1895) ; A. H. J. Greenidge, Handbook of Greek Constitutional Antiquities (1896); histories of See also:Greece in See also:general. The view maintained in the See also:text as to the number of votes necessary is supported by See also:Duruy (H. of G. ii. 1, 36), Boeckh, See also:Wachsmuth, &c.; opposed by Grote, See also:Oman and (on the whole) by See also:Evelyn See also:Abbott. On the danger of privilegia in general see See also:Cicero, de Legibus, iii. 4, and See also:note that in Athens, ostracism gratuitously anticipated a See also:crime which, if committed, would have been punishable in the popular Heliaea. Cf. also See also:article ExILE. (J. M. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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