Ostraka

There is one particular use of pottery which is of considerable importance for fifth-century Athenian history. In the institution of ostracism, by which they had the opportunity each year to send one man into exile for ten years, without finding him guilty of any offence, the Athenians voted by writing the name of the man they wished to exile on an ostrakon, a fragment of pottery - and more than 11,000 of these ostraka have now been found, mostly from the 480s and (probably) 470s. The one essential was the name of the intended victim; often the patronymic and/or the demotic would be added; occasionally there is also some kind of comment, sometimes of an ambiguity which puzzles interpreters (some of the more interesting texts M&L 21, Fornara 41.D), and/or a drawing. We have ostraka bearing the names of all the men who are known from literary texts to have been ostracized, and of very many more (about 140 in all); for some names we have very large numbers (4,462 for

Megakles, 2,279 for Themistokles); for others, including some who are known to have been serious candidates, only one or two (until recently there were none for Nikias, known to have been one of the serious candidates in?415). For a man to be ostracized, there had to be at least 6,000 votes cast, and the man with the largest number of votes had to go. It is clear from the range of surviving ostraka that there was no list of candidates but each voter submitted the name of the man he most wanted to be rid of. Those who attracted large numbers of votes will have been public figures, voted against (largely) because of their public persona; but it is likely enough that some men voted against private enemies - e. g., the man who had diverted a watercourse to flood his land or damaged his vines - with no chance of success.

The institution of ostracism presupposes reasonably widespread literacy, but does not positively require it. An illiterate man could always ask for help. Plutarch Aris-teides 7.7-8 has a story of an illiterate voter who did not recognize Aristeides and asked him to write Aristeides’ own name (if the story is true, was Aristeides honest enough to do what he was asked?); a hoard of 191 ostraka with Themistokles’ name written by about fourteen hands (Lang 1990: 1146-1336) must have been prepared in advance to be issued to voters; on the other hand, joining fragments with different names on them (e. g., one pot from the Kerameikos yields one vote against Hippo-krates, one against Themistokles and two against Megakles) must have been issued blank and marked by or for the individual voters.

A recent book by S. Brenne has used the evidence of ostraka to study the names of Athenians, and the extent to which candidates for ostracism were men attested in various other connections. Further work on the ostraka should add to our understanding of various aspects of Athenian society.