Ostracism: How the Ancient Greeks Handled Uncool Politicians

Have you ever been asked politely to leave?

greecehighdefinition.com | Ostracism: The Ballot Voting System in Ancient Greece

I think we’ve all found ourselves, at one point or another, in a situation where we were asked to leave, sometimes politely and sometimes not politely. There are also some jobs where no matter what you do, you’re not going to please everyone, like the job of being the president. Today’s story is about one of the processes in the early days of democracy in ancient Greece that figured out their own solution to this problem.

If we think of the word ostracized today, it has connotations of giving someone the cold shoulder or not letting someone hang in your clique anymore. And you don’t do it as a formal thing, it just sort of happens. In ancient Greece and Athens, this was essentially a borderline codified solution to keeping demagogues from rearing their ugly heads in politics. There was a rule built into Athenian society that allowed them to exile a fellow citizen for 10 years if it was decided unanimously that they were a disruption.

If you spend your 10 years in the figurative quarter, and you’re still alive, then maybe you can come back and be a little better behaved. New York Daily News described it as an unpopularity contest. There’s no trial or investigation.