Latest / Ancient Greece: Philosophy, Democracy, and Endless War — Fexingo History / Themistocles' Ostrakismos: Exile and Comeback
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Athenian democracy — the Pnyx, the Ekklesia, the bouleutai. But there's one institution that always feels both very democratic and very weird to modern eyes: ostracism. Luna: Ostracism — where they voted to exile someone for ten years, right? Lucas: Exactly. And the word itself comes from ostrakon — a potsherd, a piece of broken pottery. That's what they wrote the name on. Every year, around the sixth prytany, the Ekklesia would hold a simple question: do we want to hold an ostracism this year? If they voted yes, then about two months later, on a day in the Agora, citizens would scratch a name onto a shard and drop it in the urn. Whoever got the most votes — provided there was a quorum of at least six thousand — was packed off for ten years. Luna: Six thousand seems like a very deliberate number. Half the quorum for the Ekklesia? Lucas: Exactly. It was a big threshold — they wanted to make sure it wasn't just a factional trick. And the whole point was to remove someone who seemed too powerful, too ambitious, before they could become a tyrant. It wasn't a punishment for a crime — no property confiscated, no loss of citizen rights. Just a decade of forced vacation. And then they could come back and resume life as if nothing had happened. Luna: So it's like a pressure valve for political tension. Lucas: That's the theory. And it was used against some of the biggest names. The first recorded ostracism was a guy named Hipparchus — not the tyrant, but a relative of the Peisistratids. Then there's Megacles, from the Alcmaeonid family. But the most famous case has to be Themistocles. Luna: The guy who saved Greece at Salamis? They ostracised him? Lucas: Yes — and fairly soon after the Persian Wars. Thucydides tells us it happened around 472 or 471 BCE. Themistocles was at the height of his prestige. He'd rebuilt Athens' walls, pushed the navy, championed the Delian League. But that very success made him enemies. The conservatives, led by Aristeides and later Cimon, saw him as a populist upstart. So the ostraka came out. Luna: Do we have any of those ostraka? The actual shards? Lucas: We do — archaeologists have found hundreds in the Agora and around the Kerameikos. And they're incredible primary sources. Some are carefully inscribed, some are hastily scratched. A few even have little comments — like one that says 'Themistocles, son of Neocles, is too clever by half.' Another just says 'Themistocles the traitor.' And then there are ostraka that spell his name wrong, or vote for someone else entirely — which suggests some people were just voting to get rid of whoever. Luna: Like a protest vote. Or just 'I don't know, exile this guy.' Lucas: Exactly. So Themistocles left Athens and ended up in Argos for a while. But then the Spartans accused him of medising — collaborating with Persia — and the Athenians sent men to arrest him. He fled from port to port, eventually showing up at the court of Artaxerxes I, the son of Xerxes. And here's the strange part: the Persian king welcomed him. Gave him a city to govern — Magnesia on the Maeander. Luna: The man who defeated Xerxes ends up working for his son. That's incredible. Lucas: Thucydides says Themistocles learned Persian and became a trusted advisor. He died there, still a Persian subject, never returning to Athens. And that's the irony of ostracism — it was meant to prevent one man from becoming too powerful, but it pushed a brilliant strategist right into the enemy's arms. The same system that gave Athens stability also cost them one of their greatest minds. Luna: And ostracism itself — did it survive? I know it stopped being used after a while. Lucas: It faded out by the late fifth century. The last known ostracism was around 417 BCE, when a demagogue named Hyperbolus was exiled. But it backfired — the main rivals, Nicias and Alcibiades, apparently united to get him ostracised instead of each other. After that, the institution just withered. Maybe because the Athenian democracy had other tools by then — like the graphe paranomon, a law against illegal decrees. Ostracism had served its purpose, but it was a blunt instrument. Luna: So it's a story about how democracies try to protect themselves — sometimes clumsily. Lucas: Exactly. And you know, that's part of why we keep coming back to these ancient conversations. They're not just about dusty potsherds — they're about how people try to balance power and liberty. If you've been stepping into history with us episode by episode, you've probably noticed that these themes echo across centuries. And for those of you who find value in these conversations, listener support is what keeps this show ad-free and independent. If you'd like to help out, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo — no pressure ever, just a way to keep the history flowing. Luna: Yeah, and it really does make a difference. Now — back to Themistocles. Do we know where exactly he's buried? Or if there's a monument? Lucas: That's a great question, and it's surprisingly murky. Thucydides says his bones were brought back to Attica secretly, because it was illegal to bury a traitor in Athenian soil. But Plutarch, writing centuries later, claims there is a tomb in the Piraeus — right by the harbor he fortified. Whether that's true or just legend, it's a fitting end: the man who made Athens a naval power, resting in sight of the sea. Luna: So his story ends in exile and ambiguity, but his legacy is carved into the city itself. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the kind of complexity that makes Athenian history so rich — nothing is simple, not even a 'democratic' institution like ostracism. It was a tool, a weapon, and a mirror all at once.