Latest / The History of Greece: Philosophy, Empire, and Endless Reinvention — Fexingo History / The Ostracism of Themistocles: How Athens Banished Its Own Hero
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the big battles — Marathon, Salamis, Plataea — and the heroes who won them. But one thing that's always fascinated me is how quickly Athens turned on its own heroes. How a man who saved Greece could be hounded out of the city he built. Luna: You're talking about Themistocles. Lucas: Exactly. Themistocles — the architect of the Athenian navy, the man who convinced Athens to build those two hundred triremes using silver from the Laurion mines, the commander who lured the Persian fleet into the strait of Salamis and crushed Xerxes' invasion. Without him, the Persian Wars end very differently. Lucas: And yet, within a decade of that victory, he was exiled by ostracism. He ended his days not in Athens but at the court of the Persian king Artaxerxes I — the son of the very man he'd defeated. It's one of the most dramatic reversals in classical history. Luna: That's a pretty wild arc. How does that even happen? Lucas: Well, it's a story about Athenian democracy — specifically about how it dealt with the problem of exceptional individuals. And that brings us to the practice of ostracism itself. It's a ritual that feels very Athenian: deeply democratic, but also deeply paranoid. Lucas: And speaking of things that feel deeply Athenian — if you've been stepping into history with us episode by episode, you probably know we keep this show ad-free by choice. It's funded entirely by listeners who enjoy these conversations and want to keep them going. If that's you, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a way to keep this going without corporate sponsors. Luna: Yeah, it's a small gesture that makes a big difference. And speaking of gestures that shaped history — what exactly was ostracism? How did it work? Lucas: Right. So ostracism was a procedure dating from the early 5th century BCE, possibly instituted by Cleisthenes in 508/7 when he was reforming the Athenian constitution. Once a year, the Assembly would hold a vote — a kind of preliminary question — on whether to hold an ostracism at all. If they voted yes, a second vote would be held a couple of months later. Citizens would write on a piece of broken pottery — an ostrakon — the name of the person they wanted to see exiled. Lucas: Whoever got the most votes, provided there were at least six thousand votes cast, had to leave Athens within ten days. They went into exile for ten years. No confiscation of property, no loss of citizenship — just removal from the political scene. It was like a political timeout, designed to prevent any one person from becoming too powerful. Luna: So it was a safeguard against tyranny. Lucas: Exactly. The word 'tyranny' haunted Athens. They remembered the Peisistratids, the family of tyrants who'd ruled for decades. And after the Persian Wars, Athens was flush with power, wealth, and prestige. The fear was that a popular general or politician might use that momentum to stage a coup. Ostracism was a way to cut them down before they could try. Lucas: Themistocles was the perfect target. He was brilliant, ambitious, and not shy about his own achievements. Plutarch tells us that after Salamis, when the Greeks were voting on who deserved the prize for bravery, every general voted for himself first — but Themistocles came in second. He was immensely popular, but also immensely resented. Luna: Who was his main rival? Lucas: The most famous opponent was Aristides — known as 'the Just'. Aristides was the opposite of Themistocles in almost every way: conservative, honest to a fault, a man of traditional land-based power instead of naval innovation. They clashed over policy constantly. And in 483 or 482, just before the Persian invasion, Themistocles had managed to get Aristides ostracised — precisely to clear the way for his own naval programme. Lucas: But when the Persian threat passed, the political winds shifted. Themistocles had been the wartime leader, but in peacetime, his aggressive building programme and his tendency to remind everyone that he'd saved Athens made him enemies. By the late 470s, the man who'd replaced him as the rising star was Cimon — son of Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, and a man who favoured cooperation with Sparta rather than Themistocles' anti-Spartan stance. Luna: So they turned his own tactic against him. Lucas: Exactly. Around 472 or 471, Themistocles himself was ostracised. We have some of the actual ostraka — the pottery sherds with his name scratched on them — excavated from the Kerameikos, the ancient cemetery and pottery district of Athens. Some are very blunt: one reads simply 'Themistocles, son of Neocles' — his father's name — others add insults like 'traitor' or 'mediser', meaning a Persian sympathiser. Luna: Wait — 'mediser'? Was there already suspicion that he was pro-Persian? Lucas: That accusation sticks. After his exile, Themistocles didn't just sit quietly in some Greek city. He fled to Persia. According to Thucydides, he made his way to the court of Artaxerxes I, the new Persian king, and offered his services. He learned Persian, ingratiated himself, and was granted control of three cities — Magnesia, Myus, and Lampsacus — as a gift. Lucas: It's an extraordinary turn. The man who defeated the Persian fleet now governed Persian territory. And he never returned to Greece. He died in Magnesia, probably around 459. There's a story that he committed suicide rather than be forced to lead a Persian army against Athens, but we don't know if that's true. Luna: So in the end, he became exactly what the ostracism was meant to prevent — a threat to Athens from abroad. Lucas: In a way, yes. But it's also a parable about the limits of Athenian democracy. Ostracism wasn't a punishment for a crime; it was a political tool, often driven by factional rivalry rather than principle. Aristotle, in his 'Constitution of the Athenians', notes that the procedure was directed against 'those who were thought to be too powerful' — not necessarily those who abused power. Lucas: And it could backfire spectacularly. The last recorded ostracism was in 417, against a politician named Hyperbolus. He tried to get someone else ostracised, but his rivals — the aristocratic Nicias and the populist Alcibiades — temporarily allied to have Hyperbolus exiled instead. After that, the Athenians apparently lost their taste for it. They'd seen how easily the mechanism could be manipulated. Luna: That's almost comical. So the system collapsed because it was too political? Lucas: More or less. The story of Themistocles is a microcosm of that larger tension: democracy needs exceptional individuals to lead, but it also fears them. The same city that glorified him at Salamis couldn't tolerate him in peacetime. And the irony is, by exiling him, Athens may have pushed him into a position where he could do real harm — offering his expertise to Persia. Lucas: That said, there's little evidence he actually helped Persia wage war against Greece. He lived out his life in comfort, a trophy of Persian largesse, but the disasters Athens faced in the later 5th century — the Peloponnesian War, the Sicilian Expedition — those were self-inflicted. Luna: It's a reminder that even the greatest heroes are human. And that democracy is a messy, imperfect system — just like every other form of government. Lucas: Exactly. And maybe that's why Themistocles' story still resonates. It's not just a history lesson about ancient Athens. It's a story about how societies treat their most gifted individuals — and how quickly gratitude can turn into resentment. Luna: I'm glad we dug into this. It adds a whole new layer to the Persian Wars. Lucas: Absolutely. Next time, we might look at the figure who replaced him — Cimon, and his vision of a dual Athenian-Spartan hegemony. It's a very different kind of politics. Luna: Looking forward to it.