Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/202

 158 Outlines of Europe a7i History Rise of the phalanx ; dis- appearance of the indi- vidual cham- pion Equality of city and country Ostracism The " Seven Wise Men " impenetrable unit throughout the battle. Against such infanlr}^ the horsemen or the individual champions of ancient times, al- ways men of the noble class, were powerless. Thus the demand for the ordinary citizen in the army much increased the impor- tance and power of the people in the State as over against the eiipatrids. The new tribal divisions of Clisthenes were also the military divisions of the country, and again, as in the old nomad days, citizenship and the bearing of arms in defense of the State were more closely identified. In the Assembly of the people and on the field of battle the tovv^nsman and the countiy peasant henceforth stood shoulder to shoulder. In order to avoid the rise of a new tyrant, Clisthenes estab- lished a law that the people might once a year by vo.te declare any prominent citizen dangerous to the State and banish him for ten years. On the day appointed for the voting a citizen had only to pick up one of the pieces of broken pottery lying about the market place, write upon it the name of the citizen to be banished, and deposit it in the voting urn. As such a bit of pottery was called an " ostracon " (Fig. ^^^, to " ostracize " a man (literally to " potsherd " him) meant to interrupt his political career by banishment. Although the men of property (see p. 156) were still the only citizens to whom the office of archon and the other high of^ces were open, Attica had now (about 500 B.C.) gained a form of government giving the people a high degree of power, and the State was in large measure a democracy. Although a tyrant here and there survived, especially in Asia Minor, Greece at this time passed out of the Age of the Tyrants. As a group, the leaders of this age made an impression upon the mind of the people which never entirely disappeared. They were the earliest statesmen in Greece, if not in histor}^ and some of them were led by high-minded motives in their control of the Greek states. The people loved to quote their sayings, such as " Know thyself," a proverb which was carved over the entrance of the Apollo temple at Delphi ; or Solon's wise