Ostracism: voting someone out of Athens

For many years, Athens was ruled by a τύραννος (tyrant). A tyrant was one man who took all the power for himself. The last tyrants were thrown out of Athens in 510 BC. After that, the Athenians did not want another one.

Around 508 BC, a leader called Cleisthenes changed the way Athens was ruled. He gave more power to the δῆμος, the people. This was the start of Athenian democracy. According to the Constitution of the Athenians, an ancient book from the school of Aristotle, Cleisthenes also made a new law: the law of ostracism, the ὀστρακισμός.

The idea was simple. If one man became too powerful, the citizens could vote to send him away before he could make himself a tyrant. The same book says that the law was used for the first time in 488/487 BC, two years after the battle of Marathon. The first man sent away was Hipparchus, a relative of the old tyrants.

Ostracism had two steps.

• Step one: once a year, in the middle of the year, the citizens met in their assembly, the ἐκκλησία. There they voted with raised hands: “Do we want an ostracism this year?”
• Step two: if most of them said yes, the ostracism took place some time later in the agora, the big square of Athens. Each πολίτης (citizen) took an ὄστρακον, a piece of broken pottery, and scratched on it the name of the man he wanted to send away.

Broken pots were everywhere in Athens, so they were free and easy to use. Officials counted the sherds. According to the writer Plutarch, there had to be at least 6,000 votes, or the ostracism did not count. Another ancient writer, Philochorus, says instead that one man needed at least 6,000 votes against him. Historians still argue about which is right. The man with the most votes had to leave Athens for ten years. This was a kind of ἐξορία (exile).

It was not a punishment for a crime. The man did not go to prison, and he kept his house, his land and his money. After ten years he could come home.

Some of the most famous men of Athens were ostracised. One was Aristides, who was called “the Just” because he was so honest. Plutarch tells a story about his ostracism, in 483/482 BC. A farmer who could not write gave his sherd to a man in the crowd and asked him to write “Aristides” on it. The man asked: “What has Aristides done to you?” The farmer answered: “Nothing. I don't even know him. I am just tired of hearing everyone call him the Just.” The man was Aristides himself, and he wrote his own name. It is a good story, but historians think it is probably not true.

Aristides did not stay away for ten years. When the Persian king Xerxes came to attack Greece, Athens called the exiles home to help. A few years later, Themistocles, the hero of the battle of Salamis, was ostracised too.

Archaeologists have found more than 10,000 ostraka in Athens, mostly in the agora and in the Kerameikos, the potters' quarter. Many show a man's name and his father's name. Some even have rude words on them! The last ostracism was of a politician called Hyperbolus, between 418 and 415 BC. After that, the Athenians never used it again.

Ostracism ended almost 2,500 years ago, but its words are still part of Greek. Listen to them:

• όστρακο (ostrako) today usually means a shell, like the shell of a mussel, a snail or a tortoise. Archaeologists also use it for a piece of ancient pottery.
• οστρακισμός and εξοστρακισμός are the words Greek pupils use for the ancient vote.
• εξορία still means exile, being sent away from your home or your country.
• ψήφος is today's word for a vote. In ancient Greek, a ψῆφος was a small pebble, used for counting and for voting. The verb ψηφίζω means “I vote”.

English took the word too: when a group leaves someone out, we say that person is “ostracised”.