Ostracism

Ostracism was a procedure under the Athenian democracy where a prominent citizen could be expelled from the city for ten years. Not considered a penalty, the expulsion could be pre-emptive, to remove someone thought to be a threat to the state (or who just seemed too powerful), or it might be a way of diffusing a major confrontation between rival politicians. But the command that it made was a neutral one: We think it better you not be here for a time.

Analysis of the process

Ostracism is crucially different from a judicial process: there is no charge and no defence can be mounted by the person expelled. The two stages of the procedure run in the reverse order from that used under almost any trial system: here it is as if a jury were first being asked "Do you want to find someone guilty?" and then two months later being asked "So who do you want?" Equally out of place in a judicial framework is the institution's perhaps most peculiar feature – that it can take place at most once a year and for one person only. (In this it resembles the Greek pharmakos or human scapegoat, though there it is a lowly member of the community that is ejected.)

Related Topics:
Pharmakos - Scapegoat

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A further opposition between these two modes and one not obvious from a modern perspective, ostracism was an automatic procedure that required initiative from no individual, with the vote simply happening or not depending on the wish of the electorate, a diffuse exercise of power. An Athenian trial, by contrast, was always the initiative of a particular citizen-prosecutor: while prosecution often led to a counterattack (or was already one itself, and so on in an ongoing chain of retaliation), no such response was possible in the case of ostracism because responsibility lay with the polity as a whole. In contrast to a trial, ostracism reduced political tension rather than increased it.

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Although ten years of exile must have been a hard thing for any Athenian to face, in comparison with the kind of sentences inflicted by courts, it was relatively mild: when dealing with politicians held to be acting against the interests of the people, Athenian juries could inflict such truly severe penalties as death, unpayably massive fines, confiscation of property, permanent exile and loss of citizen rights (atimia). Further, the elite Athenians who suffered ostracism were rich and/or noble men who had connections (xenoi) in the wider Greek world and who, unlike genuine exiles, were able to access their income in Attica from abroad. In Plutarch, following as he does the anti-democratic line common in elite sources, the fact that people might be recalled early seems like yet another example of the inconstancy of mob-rule. However, that automatic figure of ten years was probably often more than enough to bring off whatever had been sought by the expulsion. As ostracism was simply a pragmatic measure, notions like 'serving out the full sentence' do not apply. To repeat: it was not a penalty.

Related Topics:
''atimia'' - ''xenoi'' - Attica

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One curious window on the practice is the cache of 190 ostraka discovered dumped in a well next to the acropolis. From the handwriting they appear to have been written by 14 individuals and bear the name Themistokles, ostracised before 471 BC. Evidently they were meant for distribution to voters. This need not be electoral fraud as they may not amount to anything much worse than modern how-to-vote cards, but their being dumped in the well perhaps suggests the producers were not keen to advertise their efforts. What they do indicate is that groups of people at Athens organised to try and influence the outcome of ostracisms, with what success it is impossible to say. It is, of course, the two-month gap between the first and second phases that allowed them to even try.

Related Topics:
Acropolis - Themistokles - 471 BC - Electoral fraud

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That gap is a key feature in the institution, much like in elections under modern democracies. It worked firstly against the candidate for expulsion being chosen out of immediate anger, setting the decision into a longer time frame (though an Athenian general might not want to lose a battle the week before that second vote: Plutarch Life of Cimon 17.2). And secondly it opened up a period for discussion (or agitation), whether informally in daily talk or in public speeches before the assembly or courts. (Oration IV of Andocides purports to be speech urging the ostracism of Alcibiades in 415 BC, but is probably not authentic.) In this process a consensus, or rival consensuses, might emerge. Further, in that time of waiting to see who would have to go, the ordinary citizens must have felt a certain power over the very greatest members of their city, and those most prominent citizens, on their side, an extra incentive to care how their social inferiors regarded them – and those are very democratic feelings.

Related Topics:
Elections - Democracies - Plutarch - Assembly - Courts - Andocides - Alcibiades

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