Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Themistocles


There once was a curious custom in Athens called "ostracism". Ostracism was a process where. once a year, one citizen could then be exiled for a period a 10 years without loosing his citizenship of property - it was a safety measure against power hungry and ambitious politicians. The name derives from Ostrakon which means shard of pottery since this was the material that you wrote a name on.

All these pieces of ostraka spells one single name: Themistocles - a leading Athenian exiled in 472 or 471.

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