Latest / The History of Greece: Philosophy, Empire, and Endless Reinvention — Fexingo History
The Ostracism Fiasco: When Athens Voted to Exile Its Best
In 482 BC, the Athenian assembly performed an extraordinary ritual: thousands of citizens scratched a name onto a fragment of pottery. The result? Themistocles, the naval architect who had just built the fleet that would defeat Persia at Salamis, was banished for a decade. This episode unpacks the mechanics of ostracism — the quorum of 6,000, the pottery shards called ostraka, the year-long buildup, and the strange cases of Aristides the Just, Hyperbolus the lamp-maker, and Alcibiades the exile who came back. We look at how a safeguard against tyranny became a political weapon, how lucky…
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