Ostrakizein

Ostrakizein is a Greek verb meaning to banish or exile someone by means of an ostrakon, a shard of pottery on which a citizen’s name could be written. The noun ostrakon gave rise to the modern term ostracism, and the practice is most closely associated with ancient Athens.

The mechanism operated as a political check. In the late 6th century BCE, and later within Athenian democracy, the Assembly could initiate an ostracism. Citizens would inscribe the name of the person they wished to exile on an ostrakon and place it in a public ballot. If a candidate received a sufficient number of votes, typically around 6,000, that individual was banished from Athens for ten years. The exile removed the person from political life but did not extinguish their citizenship; upon return, they could resume private life, while the act itself functioned as a preventive measure against tyranny and the accumulation of power by a single figure.

Notable examples in the historical record include Aristides the Just, who was ostracized around 482 BCE and later recalled, and Cimon, who faced ostracism in the mid-5th century BCE. These cases illustrate the practice as a tool for shaping political leadership and diffusing conflict within the city-state.

The use of ostracism declined in the late classical period and faded under Macedonian rule. Today, the term survives primarily as a scholarly reference to this ancient institution and, in modern language, as a broader metaphor for social or political exclusion.