Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/174

 J56 HISTORY OF GREECE. favor granted to any one, but a peculiar inconvenience, imposed), yet only under circumstances solemn and well defined, with full notice and discussion beforehand, and by the positive secret vote of a large proportion of the citizens. " No law shall be made against any single citizen, without the same being made against all Athenian citizens ; unless it shall so seem good to six thou- sand citizens voting secretly."* Such was that general princi- ple of the constitution, under which the ostracism was a partic- ular case. Before the vote of ostracism could be taken, a case was to be made out in the senate and the public assembly to jus- tify it. In the sixth prytany of the year, these two bodies de- bated and determined whether the state of the republic was men- acing enough to call for such an exceptional measure. 2 If they decided in the affirmative, a day was named, the agora was railed round, with ten entrances left for the citizens of each tribe, and ten separate casks or vessels for depositing the suffrages, which consisted of a shell, or a potsherd, with the name of the person written on it whom each citizen designed to banish. At the end of the day, the number of votes was summed up, and if six thousand votes were found to have been given against any one person, that person was ostracized ; if not. the ceremony ended in nothing. 3 Ten days were allowed to him for settling his af- 1 Andokides, De Mysteriis, p. 12, c. 13. M^de vnpov CTT' uvfyl k&ivai &ivat, EUV fir/ TOV avrbv Ini nuaiv 'Afiyvaioic; tuv [i?j i!;a.KtaxiAioif 66^i/, Kpvpdijv TpTiQi&fievoif. According to the usual looseness in dealing with the name of Solon, this has been called a law of Solon (see Petit. Leg. Att. p. 188), though it certainly cannot be older than Klcisthenes. "Privilegia ne irroganto," said the law of the Twelve Tables at Eomo (Cicero, Legg. iii, 4-19). 8 Aristotle and Philochorus, ap. Photium, App. p. 672 and 675, ed. Porson. It would rather appear by that passage that the ostracism was never for- mally abrogated ; and that even in the later times, to which the description of Aristotle refers, the form was still preserved of putting the question whether the public safety called for an ostracizing vote, long after it luul passed both out of use and out of mind. 3 Philochorus, ut supra ; Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 7 ; Schol, ad Aristophan. Squit. 851 ; Pollux, viii, 19. There is a difference of opinion among the authorities, as well as among Ihe expositors, whether the minimum of six thousand applies to the votes given in all. or to the vetes given against any one name. I embrace ilia