[277] Aristotle and Philochorus, ap. Photium, App. p. 672 and 675, ed. Porson.
It would rather appear by that passage that the ostracism was never formally abrogated; and that even in the later times, to which the description of Aristotle refers, the form was still preserved of putting the question whether the public safety called for an ostracizing vote, long after it had passed both out of use and out of mind.
[278] Philochorus, ut supra; Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 7; Schol. ad Aristophan. Equit. 851; Pollux, viii, 19.
There is a difference of opinion among the authorities, as well as among the expositors, whether the minimum of six thousand applies to the votes given in all, or to the votes given against any one name. I embrace the latter opinion, which is supported by Philochorus, Pollux, and the Schol. on Aristophanês, though Plutarch countenances the former. Boeckh, in his Public Economy of Athens, and Wachsmuth, (i, 1, p. 272) are in favor of Plutarch and the former opinion; Paradys (Dissertat. De Ostr. p. 25), Platner, and Hermann (see K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Gr. Staatsalt. ch. 130, not. 6) support the other, which appears to me the right one.
For the purpose, so unequivocally pronounced, of the general law determining the absolute minimum necessary for a privilegium, would by no means be obtained, if the simple majority of votes, among six thousand voters in all, had been allowed to take effect. A person might then be ostracized with a very small number of votes against him, and without creating any reasonable presumption that he was dangerous to the constitution; which was by no means either the purpose of Kleisthenês, or the well-understood operation of the ostracism, so long as it continued to be a reality.
[279] The practical working of the ostracism presents it as a struggle between two contending leaders, accompanied with chance of banishment to both—Periklês πρὸς τὸν Θουκυδίδην εἰς ἀγῶνα περὶ τοῦ ὀστράκου καταστὰς, καὶ διακινδυνεύσας, ἐκεῖνον μὲν ἐξέβαλε, κατέλυσε δὲ τὴν ἀντιτεταγμένην ἑταιρείαν (Plutarch, Periklês, c. 14; compare Plutarch, Nikias, c. 11).
[280] It is not necessary in this remark to take notice, either of the oligarchy of Four Hundred, or that of Thirty, called the Thirty Tyrants, established during the closing years of the Peloponnesian war, and after the ostracism had been discontinued. Neither of these changes were brought about by the excessive ascendency of any one or few men: both of them grew out of the embarrassments and dangers of Athens in the latter period of her great foreign war.
[281] Aristotle (Polit. iii, 8, 6) seems to recognize the political necessity of the ostracism, as applied even to obvious superiority of wealth, connection, etc. (which he distinguishes pointedly from superiority of merit and character), and upon principles of symmetry only, even apart from dangerous designs on the part of the superior mind. No painter, he observes, will permit a foot, in his picture of a man, to be of disproportionate size with the entire body, though separately taken it may be finely painted; nor will the chorus-master allow any one voice, however beautiful, to predominate beyond a certain proportion over the rest.
His final conclusion is, however, that the legislator ought, if possible, so to construct his constitution, as to have no need of such exceptional remedy; but, if this cannot be done, then the second-best step is to apply the ostracism. Compare also v, 2, 5.
The last century of the free Athenian democracy realized the first of these alternatives.