Ostracism

Ostracism (ὀστρακισμός, ostrakismos) was an Athenian democratic procedure in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the citizen, ostracism was often used preemptively. It was used as a way of neutralizing someone thought to be a threat to the state or a potential tyrant, though in many cases popular opinion often informed the expulsion. The word "ostracism" continues to be used for various cases of social shunning. The term "ostracism" is derived from the pottery shards that were used as voting tokens, called ostraka (singular: ostrakon ὄστρακον) in Greek. Broken pottery, abundant and virtually free, served as a kind of scrap paper (in contrast to papyrus, which was imported from Egypt as a high-quality writing surface, and too costly to be disposable). Each year the Athenians were asked in the assembly whether they wished to hold an ostracism. The question was put in the sixth of the ten months used for state business under the democracy (January or February in the modern Gregorian Calendar). If they voted "yes", then an ostracism would be held two months later. In a section of the agora set off and suitably barriered that was called perischoinisma (περισχοίνισμα), citizens gave the name of those they wished to be ostracized to a scribe, as many of them were illiterate, and they then scratched the name on pottery shards. The shards where piled up facing down, so the votes would remain anonymous. Nine Archontes and the council of the five hundred supervised the process while the Archontes counted the ostraka submitted and sorted the names into separate piles. The person whose pile contained the most ostraka would be banished, provided that a quorum was met. According to Plutarch, the ostracism was considered valid if the total number of votes cast was at least 6,000; according to a fragment of Philochorus, at least 6,000 votes had to be cast against the person who was to be banished.