Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/170

 152 HISTORY OF that the oyster-shell (or potsherd) was intended to be used" The process of ostracism was carried into effect by writing upon a shell, or potsherd, the name of the person whom a citizen thought it prudent for a time to banish ; which shell, when deposited in the proper vessel, counted for a vote towards the sentence. I have already observed that all the governments of the Grecian cities, when we compare them with that idea which a modem reader is apt to conceive of the measure of force belong- ing to a government, were essentially weak, the good as well as the bad, the democratical, the oligarchical, and the despotic The force in the hands of any government, to cope with conspira- tors or mutineers, was extremely small, with the single exception of a despot surrounded by his mercenary troop ; so that no tolera- bly sustained conspiracy or usurper could be put down except by the direct aid of the people in support of the government ; which amounted to a dissolution, for the time, of constitutional authority, and was pregnant with reactionary consequences such as no man could foresee. To prevent powerful men from attempting usur- pation was, therefore, of the greatest possible moment ; and a despot or an oligarchy might exercise preventive means at pleas- ure, 1 much sharper than the ostracism, such as the assassination of Kimon, mentioned in my last chapter, as directed by the Pei- sistratids. At the very least, they might send away any one, from whom they apprehended attack or danger, without incurring even so much as the imputation of severity. But in a democ- racy, where arbitrary action of the magistrate was the thing of cision commonly lay between two formidable rivals ; bnt it was not publicly or formally put so before the people : every citizen might write upon the shell such name as he chose. Farther, the open denunciation of the injus- tice of ostracism as a system (c. 2), proves an age later than the banishment of Hyperbolus. Moreover, the author having begun by remarking that he stands in contest with Nikiaa as well as with Alkibiades, says nothing more about Nikias to the end of the speech. 1 See the discussion of the ostracism in Aristot. Politic, iii, 8, where he recognizes the problem as one common to all governments. Compare, also, a good Dissertation J. A. Paradys, De Ostracismo Atheniensium, Lugduni Batavor. 1793; K. F. Hermann, Lehibueh del Griechischen Staatsalterthiimer, ch. 130 ; and Schomann, Antiq. Jur. Pufc Gnec. ch. xxxv. p. 233