Related Content The decision whether or not to ostracise individuals was taken once each year. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the citizen, ostracism was often used preemptively. Voting was done anonymously. Modern states have impeachment; ancient Athens had ostracism, a gloriously simple device that gave voters the annual right to impose a decade of exile on a reviled individual. After Hipparchus, four more men, the last of them being Aristides, were ostracized before the amnesty in 481, preceding the invasion of Xerxes I. "Ostracism." Areopagus, earliest aristocratic council of ancient Athens.The name was taken from the Areopagus (“Ares’ Hill”), a low hill northwest of the Acropolis, which was its meeting place.. Another suspicious abuse is the finding of 190 ostraka in a well near the acropolis of Athens, all with the name of Themistocles scratched on them but done so by recognisably few hands. What does ostracism mean? His special interests include pottery, architecture, world mythology and discovering the ideas that all civilizations share in common. Professor John Camp directs excavations of the Athenian Agora, which was a gathering place in ancient Athens. Megacles and Callias, son of Cratius, followed in the next two years. This perhaps indicates that votes were very often cast against the policies of an individual rather than them personally and that voting against one individual gave support to their rival and his policies. How was it less democratic? The procedure was rather simple. What was ostracism in ancient Athens? This was a way of getting rid of a man for 10 years without depriving him of... A further novelty of the early 480s was the first ostracism. The Ancient Roots of Ostracism. Should any one name get 6000 votes, then that man was banished from Athens for ten years. For only $5 per month you can become a member and support our mission to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/Ostracism/. However, the first actual ostracism was not held until c. 487 BCE. Take advantage of our Presidents' Day bonus! Minoan Civilization. Aristotle claims that the actual institution of the process was made in c. 508 BCE under Cleisthenes in order to prevent tyranny by a single individual. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Ostracism was a political process used in 5th-century BCE Athens whereby those individuals considered too powerful or dangerous to the city were exiled for 10 years by popular vote. https://www.ancient.eu/Ostracism/. He holds an MA in Political Philosophy and is the Publishing Director at AHE. But in Athens its implications were much worse than that. Once a year, ancient Athenian citizens would nominate people they felt threatened democracy—because of political differences, dishonesty, or just general dislike. Some of the greatest names in Greek history fell victim to the process, although, as the votes were often not personal but based on policies, many were able to resume politics … According to Hansen, how was Athens’s political system more democratic than democracies we think of today? Ancient History Encyclopedia Foundation is a non-profit organization. At a fixed meeting in midwinter, the people decided, without debate, whether they would hold a vote on ostracism (ostrakophoria) some weeks later. The Areopagite Council probably began as the king’s advisers. 3. 2. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Ostracism, political practice in ancient Athens whereby a prominent citizen who threatened the stability of the state could be banished without bringing any charge against him. The procedure was known at Athens in the fifth century BCE as ‘ostracism’ – a word that has made its way into English to refer to a particular form of social disfavour, whereby the person ostracised is ‘sent to Coventry’, cast out of the favoured social circle. It depended on where you stood whether those banished were an opponent of democracy or a force for good. Then the officials announced which individual had amassed the most votes and that person was ostracised, that is in the original meaning of the term, exiled.
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