Ostracism

Ostracism was a procedure in ancient Athens that allowed citizens to banish someone from the city for a decade. While it sometimes reflected public anger, it was often used preemptively to remove individuals seen as threats or potential tyrants. The term still describes various forms of social exclusion today.

The name comes from *ostraka*—pottery shards used as ballots. These broken pieces of pottery were cheap and plentiful, serving as a kind of scrap paper, unlike expensive imported papyrus. Each year, the assembly voted on whether to hold an ostracism. This question was posed in the sixth month of the civic calendar, around January or February. According to the historian Philochorus, the process had two stages, was open to all citizens, overseen by outside officials, required a specific minimum number of votes, and set clear penalties.

A majority of citizens had to agree to start the procedure. If they did, the actual vote took place two months later. In a roped-off section of the agora called the *perischoinisma*, citizens gave names to a scribe—many were illiterate—who scratched them onto shards. The shards were stacked face-down to keep votes anonymous. Ostracism was a political tool for eliminating rivals, reflecting the Athenian value of civic engagement and collective decision-making. Nine archons and the council of five hundred supervised; the archons counted the shards and sorted them by name. The person with the most shards was banished, provided a quorum was met. Plutarch says at least 6,000 votes were needed for a valid ostracism; a fragment of Philochorus suggests 6,000 votes had to be cast against the banished person. Plutarch’s figure is generally accepted, as it matches the quorum for granting citizenship later.

The ostracized person had ten days to leave Athens; returning meant death. Their property was not confiscated, and they kept their status. After ten years, they could return without stigma. The assembly could recall someone early—for example, before the Persian invasion of 479 BC, an amnesty allowed Xanthippus and Aristides to return. Cimon, ostracized in 461 BC, was also recalled during a crisis.

Ostracism was not used throughout the entire Athenian democracy (roughly 506–322 BC), but only in the fifth century BC. Aristotle’s *Constitution of the Athenians* credits Cleisthenes with establishing it around 506 BC. The first expulsion did not occur until 487 BC, nearly twenty years later. Over the next sixty years, about twelve or more individuals were ostracized. Known cases include: Hipparchos (487), Megacles (486), Kallixenos (485), Xanthippus (484), Aristides (482), Themistocles (471), Cimon (461), Alcibiades (460), Menon (457), Thucydides (442), Callias (440s), Damon (440s), and Hyperbolus (416). About 12,000 political ostraka have been excavated in the Athenian agora and Kerameikos. Megacles is named on 4,647 of them, for a second, undated ostracism. The expulsions cluster in three phases: the 480s BC, mid-century (461–443 BC), and 417–415 BC, suggesting ostracism fell in and out of fashion.

The last known ostracism was Hyperbolus around 417 BC. There is no evidence of its use after the Peloponnesian War, when democracy was restored in 403 BC following the oligarchic coup of the Thirty. However, the procedure remained on the books; the assembly was asked each year whether to hold one, but they never chose to.

Ostracism differed sharply from Athenian law: there was no charge, and the expelled person could not defend themselves. The two stages ran in reverse order of a typical trial—as if a jury first decided “Do you want to find someone guilty?” and then “Whom do you accuse?” This judicial oddity could happen only once a year and for one person. It resembled the Greek *pharmakos* (scapegoat), though that ritual usually targeted a lowly community member.