ostrakism

Ostracism is a historical political practice from ancient Athens in which a citizen could be banished from the city-state for ten years following a public vote. The term derives from the Greek ostrakismos, literally “a removal by potsherd,” from ostrakon, the shard on which names were written.

Procedure: Each year, or when called, eligible voters would inscribe the name of the person they wished to banish on an ostrakon. If a candidate's name appeared on at least 6,000 ballots, that person was exiled to a foreign region for ten years. The exile did not involve criminal conviction, and the person's property and civil rights remained intact; they could own land elsewhere and could return after the period ended.

Purpose and impact: Ostracism aimed to prevent the rise of individuals who might threaten the democracy or become tyrants. It functioned as a cooling-off mechanism and a way to defuse factional conflict. It could be used to remove rivals or unpopular figures, and its application required broad political consensus rather than guilt.

Decline: Ostracism fell out of use in the late classical period and gradually disappeared as a practice in Athens.

Legacy: The term ostracism survives in modern language to describe social exclusion or boycott, and the word is used in psychology and social sciences to denote deliberate exclusion from a group.