OSTRACISM, the name for a singular institution existing for some time among the Athenians. When any man became conspicuous by wealth or by power, from whatever source derived, and was in conse quence thought likely to conceive plans of ambition dangerous to the public peace and the stability of the existing form of government, this institution enabled the Athenian people to send him for a time into exile, and thus rid themselves of the danger which they dreaded. It was done as follows :—When the occasion was thought to require it, a day was fixed at an ordinary meeting of the Athenian people, for the purpose of holding an ostracism.. On that day a part of the market place (leyopd) was railed in, ten different approaches being left to the part thus railed In. There was thus one approach for each of the ten Athenian tribes. By these approaches the citizens, distributed accord ing to their tribes, entered the space within the rails, and there deposited, in urns provided for the purpose, their shells or bits of carthenw-are (4(rrpasca, ostraca, whence the name ostracism), marked with the name of the person whom they respectively thought it desirable to banish. The nine archons, together with the Proedri and 1' taxes, superintended, seeing that everything was done properly, and in the end counting the votes. First of all they counted the gross number, which it was necessary should be above six thousand, else there was no valid ostracism. (Neumann,' De Ostracism° Atheniense.) If there were found to be six thousand votes, then they proceeded to count the numbers against different individuals; and the individual against whom there was the greatest number of votes was sentenced to ten years' banishment, or (changing the phrase) was ostracised. He was then obliged to leave Athens within ten days after the sentence, and unless a vote of the people recalled him before the expiration of that time, to stay in exile for ten years ; a period subsequently reduced to five years. The goods of the ostracised person were not confiscated, neither was ostracism considered in the light of a punishment or accounted a disgrace. It passed for what it was,—a declaration of
superior wealth, of superior influence, sometimes indeed of superior virtue, whose ascendancy the state dreaded.
It is well known that Aristides the Just was one of those on whom ostracism was inflicted. The story told by Plutarch of his writing down his own name for ostracism is also well known.
Ostracism was introduced into Athens by Cleiathenes after the expulsion of the Piaistratithe (tElian, ' Var. Hist,' c. 24); and Cleisthenes was the first victim. Themistocies, Cimon, Alcibiades, Thucydidee, were all numbered among the ostracised.
As to the merits of such an institution as ostracism, there cannot be any great difference of opinion. That must be a bad form of polity which needs it, though under a bad form of polity it may be itself a good. The first object of the statesman is to construct a government proof against the wealth and power arising from the ordinary course of social development if he fails in this, ho must defend the government, even at the expense of partial evil. The Athenians took earn to miti gate the severity of the banishment, so far as they could consistently with the object of it. "Though this institution," says Montesquieu, " may be so far a oondetnnation of popular governments, yet it is, on the other hand, well fitted to prove their mildness ; and we should have perceived this, were it not that, exile being with us always a punishment, we have been unable to separate the idea of ostracism from that of punishment." (` Esprit den Lois,' book xxi., chap. 17.) Mr. Grote (` History of Greece ') calls it "a wise precaution," as pre venting the excesses of partisanship by showing decisively the sense of the majority of the community, and less likely to lead even the vic torious party to any infringement of the constitution.
A similar institution is said to have prevailed in Argos, Miletus, and Megara. At Syracuse also it prevailed, and there bore the name Petalism,leaves (wiraAa) being used on the occasion of voting, instead of shells.