In Russian classical studies ostracism, to our regret, virtually has not yet been an object of special study. Apart from brief mentions of that institution in general works on Ancient Greek history, we can enumerate only a few articles on ostracism (S. I. Ginzburg, S. G. Karpyuk, J. G. Vinogradov). The author of this book has written a number of papers on various problems of ostracism.
8. Chapter I «Problems of chronology» is devoted to consideration and solution of chronological problems connected with ostracism. Most important is ascertainment as exact as possible dates of known ostrakophoriai. We consider these questions first in the order of priority because without preliminary solution of them it is virtually impossible to turn to subjects of more general and principal character. We think that in the very beginning we should establish a definite foundation of facts reliably placed and dated, so that then, when analyzing controversial problems, we could base our interpretations on this foundation.
Sources report eighteen cases of ostracism in Athens. As we have managed to ascertain, ten of these cases can be considered quite trustworthy and authentic; they really took place. They are ostracisms of Hipparchus son of Charmus, Megacles son of Hippocrates, an Athenian unknown by name (most probably Callias son of Cratius), Xanthippus, Aristides, Themistocles, Cimon, Alcibiades the Elder, Thucydides son of Melesias, and Hyperbolus). Five ostracisms are unauthentic: those of Theseus, Clisthenes, Miltiades, second ones of Megacles son of Hippocrates and Alcibiades the Elder. Three ostracisms should be considered questionable (those of Menon, Callias son of Didymias, and Damon), although we are rather inclined to recognize them historical.
Considerable difficulties appear in connection with chronology of the enumerated events. As the main result of our chronological investigations, we have established the dates for ostracisms known from sources. Some of these dates are possible to fix with quite sufficient exactness; others have character somewhat more approximate and/or open to question. However, fluctuation of dates rarely exceeds the bounds of a few years. In general, we have managed to reconstruct in some detail the chronological design of Athenian ostracism and its history in the 5^ century B.C. It can serve as the base for further study. The material obtained is the basis of the chronological table (Appendix VI).
9. In Chapter II «The origin of ostracism» we deal with the problems of date, causes and purposes of the institution's introduction. We think necessary singling out several aspects within this theme; so the chapter is divided into three sections.
In section 1 «The date of introducing the law on ostracism in Athens» we examine the question, which by now can be considered in most respects already answered. By efforts of ancient historians belonging to several generations, as a result of continuous discussion, at present we can regard as firmly established that the event in question is a part of Clisthenes' reforms and does not date from any later time. In the series of democratic transformations carried out by Clisthenes, ostracism chronologically takes one of the first places. It is most probable that the law on ostracism was issued in 508/7 B.C., in the course of struggle between Clisthenes and Isagoras.
As regards the socalled «Androtion's testimony» (FGrHist 324 F6), which was previously the main argument of scholars who thought ostracism was introduced in early 480es B.C., that evidence is in fact fruit of misunderstanding. The late lexicographer Harpocration who preserved the fragment incorrectly cited Androtion's «Atthis». There is no forcible reason for maintaining that Androtion believed the law on ostracism to be of such a late date. The twenty-year break between the introduction of ostracism and its first use also cannot be an argument against the direct statement by Aristotle (Ath. pol. 22) and other ancient writers that Clisthenes was the initiator of the law. The break is quite explainable by specific reasons particular for internal political situation in Athens on the verge of Archaic and Classical periods.
10. In section 2 «Ostracism before Clisthenes?» we pose the question in a broader way: should Clisthenes be considered the «father» of ostracism? If we mean the «classical» form of ostracism, in which this institution existed in fifth-century Athens, from the exile of Hipparchus son of Charmus to the exile of Hyperbolus, the answer will naturally be yes. However, on the base of various direct and indirect data aggregated it is possible to say with sufficient confidence that the «classical» procedural form of ostracism was neither the sole nor the earliest one. The institution in some other form (or similar procedures) existed in Athens and in Greece as a whole even in pre-Classical time. Ostracism did not arise finished from Clisthenes' head like Athena from Zeus' head. The reformer did not create something absolutely new; rather he modified an institution already in existence and adjusted it to the conditions of the new-born democratic polis. He made ostracism a prerogative of the demos, the ekklesia, and he perhaps also made it a procedure of regular and not sporadic character. By the way, there was a trend in the narrative tradition that did not consider Clisthenes the inventor of ostracism. In particular, such a competent scholar as Theophrastus (fr. 131 Wimmer) thought that already Theseus had been ostracized. To be sure, we by no means believe in the ostracism of that mythological figure as an historical fact, but it is important that there was a notion of a pre-Clisthenic origin of the institution.
Therefore, procedures that gave birth to ostracism (we call such procedures «proto-ostracism») existed even before Clisthenes, that is, in the archaic and aristocratic epoch of Athenian history. The main difference was that the voting was carried out at that time not yet by the assembly but by the Council (in the sixth century B.C. by the Council of Four Hundred, and earlier, before Solon, possibly by the Areopagus). It is interesting that a procedure similar to ostracism but conducted by the Council of Five Hundred was known in Athens as late as the fourth century B.C. (socalled ekphyllophoria). Even more interesting is that at the Athenian Agora some dozens of ostraka have been discovered, which date manifestly not from Classical but from Archaic period (the seventh and sixth century B.C.), a ballot against Pisistratus among them. If they are not connected with some early form of ostracism, they are in fact impossible to interpret at all.
The shaping of ostracism was, as far as we can judge, not an action that took place at one and single moment but a long process. At its initial stages, rites of religious and magic character played an important part, particularly the rite of scapegoat or pharmakos. However, in any case we should detach the question of the phenomenon's aetiology from the question of its actual function. Whatever ritual roots of ostracism might be, in the fifth century B.C. it was undoubtedly apprehended already as an institution quite secularized, and victims of ostracism scarcely were straightly associated with scapegoats (if only on the subconscious level).
As a result of the democratization in the Athenian polis, on the verge of the Archaic and Classical epochs, ostracism passed on from the hands of the aristocracy to the competence of the whole civil body. Such was the general character the emergence of Athenian democracy had: the demos perceived aristocratic by their origin institutions, aristocratic values, and adjusted them to itself, spread them to the whole mass of citizens. It adapted and did not dismantle them, to use S. Brenne's apt turn of phrase.
11. Section 3 is entitled «Causes and purposes of the introduction of ostracism». In other words, questions of principle are analyzed in it. We insist on distinguishing two aspects within this topic. Usually these aspects are mixed together, and it leads to incompleteness or even inaccuracy of the answers. On the one hand, the idea of ostracism as «prophylactic» banishment of influential persons arose already during the Archaic period at the junction of two trends in the political life, individualist and collectivist ones. These two trends were characteristic of the epoch when polis structures and polis mentality were being shaped. Early forms of ostracism («proto-ostracism») were a means of mutual controlling each other by members of the aristocratic ruling elite, in order to avoid development the power any of them had into tyranny.
On the other hand, as regards Clisthenes' law on ostracism, it was issued in the specific situation on the verge of the Archaic and Classical epochs, and it made ostracism a prerogative of the assembly, that is, it introduced the «classical» form of ostracism, which were to exist during the 5^ century B.C. The law keeps quite well within the framework of the whole series of Clisthenes' reforms, which gave the sovereignty in the polis from the hands of aristocracy to the hands of the demos. The latter, after having adopted the institution aristocratic by origin, became from that moment on the safeguard against revival of tyranny, against sharp outbursts of stasis and destabilizing political life. The demos also exercised through ostracism general control of the noble elite's activities, and that corresponded to its new role in the State. In addition, ostracism, being a measure rather mild and humane, was useful for regulating political struggle, which previously had often taken very brutal forms.
12. Chapter III «Procedural questions» is structured in the following way. In its first section the author brought together all source information on the procedure of Athenian ostracism, which, in general, arouses no or little discussions and perplexities. In other words, under consideration were those of procedural aspects, which appear in more or less clear light. In subsequent four sections of the chapter, we deal more profoundly with debatable problems, which either have no clear answer in the sources, or have several alternative answers, so that one must choose.