Ostracism: Political Practice In Ancient Athens

Conny Waters - AncientPages.com - Ostracism in ancient Greece was a political procedure that resulted in a temporary banishment from a city by a popular vote. Under the Athenian democracy, a citizen who threatened the stability of the state could be banished from the city for ten years. Each year the Athenians were asked in the assembly whether they wished to hold ostracism.

Any citizen entitled to vote in the assembly could write another citizen’s name down, and, when a sufficiently large number wrote the same name, the ostracized man had to leave the city within 10 days.

The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino. Credit: Public Domain

In Exile, Ostracism and the Athenian Democracy, Forsdyke Sara writes that "the institution of ostracism has long puzzled historians. Why did the Athenians invent a procedure for exiling citizens by democratic vote in the late sixth or early fifth centuries? How are we to explain the peculiarities of the institution, the fact that there were no speeches of accusation, for instance, or that potential victims were not permitted to defend themselves? Why was the term of exile limited to ten years, after which the victim could return with his property and reputation intact?”

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Forsdyke's theory is that “the problem of exile played a central role in the democratization of Athens.” Forsdyke argues that “the development of democracy was not a conscious process towards a more egalitarian political system but, in part, the result of periods of crisis, crises of exile. In these crises, non-aristocrats were compelled to involve themselves in the political struggles of aristocrats and thus bring stability to the polis.

In doing so, they assumed both power over decisions of exile and political power. The fundamental role of exile in the development of Athenian democracy helps to explain the symbolic importance of ostracism as an expression of popular power.”

Ostracism is said by Aristotle, in his Constitution of Athens, to have been introduced by Cleisthenes in his reform of the Athenian constitution after the expulsion of Hippias (c. 508 bc), but the first use of it seems to have been made in 488–487 B.C. , when Hipparchus, son of Charmus of Collytus, was ostracized.

Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer

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