in Grecian antiquity, denotes the banishment of such persons whose merit and influence gave umbrage to the people of Athens, lest they should attempt any thing against the public liberty. This punishment was called ostracism, from the Greek word, σχάκιον, which properly signifies a "shell;" but when applied to this object, it is used for the billet on which the Athenians wrote the names of the citizens whom they intended to banish. The learned are divided with regard to the substance of which this billet was formed: some insist that it was a small stone, or a piece of brick; some that it was a piece of bark; and others assert, that it was a shell. The word admits most of these interpretations. But what determines its true sense, is the epithet given it by ancient authors, of ceramite magiae; which words signify, "The punishment of potter's clay;" and this expression seems to us a proof, that the word σχάκιον, when applied on this occasion, signifies a "piece of baked earth, in the form of a shell;" and undoubtedly the Latin authors had this idea of the word here, for they translated it by tefula.

The ancients are likewise divided with regard to the time when ostracism was instituted. But they all agree, that the person who moved the law was its first victim. But as to the name of its patron, and the time of its establishment, they differ extremely. Many are of opinion, that ostracism owes its origin to very remote times.

However that be, the punishment of ostracism was inflicted by the Athenians when their liberty was in danger. If, for instance, jealousy or ambition had fowed discord among the chiefs of the republic; and if different parties were formed, which threatened some revolution in the state; the people assembled to propose measures proper to be taken in order to prevent the consequences, of a division which in the end might be fatal to freedom. Ostracism was the remedy to which they usually had recourse on these occasions; and the consultations of the people generally terminated with a decree, in which a day was fixed for a particular assembly, when they were to proceed to the sentence of ostracism. Then they who were threatened with banishment, omitted no advantage or art which might gain them the favour of the people. They made harangues to evince their innocence, and the great injustice that would be done them if they were banished. They solicited, in person, the interest of every citizen; all their party exerted themselves in their behalf: they procured informers to vilify the chiefs of the opposite faction. Some time before the meeting of the assembly, a wooden inclosure was raised in the forum, with ten doors, i.e. with as many as there were tribes in the republic; and when the appointed day was come, the citizens of each tribe entered at their respective door, and threw into the middle of the inclosure the small brick on which the citizen's name was written whose banishment they voted. The archons and the senate presided at this assembly, and counted the billets. He who was condemned by 6000 of his fellow citizens, was obliged to quit the city within ten days; for 6000 voices, at least, were requisite to banish an Athenian by the ostracism.

The Athenians, without doubt, foresaw the inconveniences to which this law was subject; but they chose rather, as Cornelius Nepos hath remarked, sometimes to expose the innocent to an unjust censure, than to live in continual alarms. Yet as they were sensible that the injustice of confounding virtue and vice would have been too flagrant, they softened, as much as they could, the rigour of ostracism. It was not aggravated with the circumstances which were most dishonourable and shocking in the ordinary mode of exile. They did not confiscate the goods of those who were banished by ostracism. They enjoyed the produce of their effects in the places into which they were banished; and they were banished only for a certain time. But in the common banishment, the goods of the exiles were always confiscated, and no hopes were given them of ever returning to Athens. The scholiast of Aristophanes informs us of a third difference betwixt ostracism and the common banishment. He says, that a particular place of retirement was assigned to those who were banished by ostracism, which was not appointed to the other exiles. We suspect, however, the truth of this observation; for Themistocles was certainly not limited in his banishment. That great man, as we are told by Thucydides, though his chief residence was at Argi, travelled over all the Peloponnesus.

This punishment, far from conveying the idea of infamy, became, at Athens, a proof of merit, by the objects on which it was inflicted; as Aristides the sophist justly observes, in his second declamation against the Gorgias of Plato, where he says, that ostracism was not an effect of the vindictive spirit of the people against those whom it condemned; that the law, whether good or bad, (for he enters not into an examination of the question), was only meant to prune the luxuriant growth of transcendent merit; that it condemned to an exile of ten years, only those illustrious men who were accused of being exalted far above other citizens by their conspicuous virtue; and that none of that public indignation was shewn to the exiles by ostracism, which commonly breaks out against criminals.

Such were the mitigations with which this law was introduced among the Athenians: and by them we see that they were sensible of all the inconveniences to which it was subject. They were indeed too enlightened a people, not to foresee the many instances of injustice which it might produce; that if in some respects it would be favourable to liberty, in others it would be its enemy, by condemning citizens without allowing them a previous defence, and by making a capricious and envious people arbiters of the fate of great men; that it might even become pernicious to the state, by depriving it of its best subjects, and by rendering the administration of public affairs an odious employment to men of capital talents and virtue.

However great the inconveniences of ostracism were, it would not have been impossible to avoid them; and we may add, that this law would have been of service to the state, if the people by whom it was instituted had always had discernment enough only to give it force on such occasions as endangered liberty. But its fate was like that of almost all other laws which the wisest legislators have planned for the good of communities. Defined by their institution to maintain order, to repress injustice, and to protect innocence, men have found ways to pervert their application, and have made them instruments to gratify their private passions. Thus ostracism was established to prevent the dangerous enterprises of the great, and to preserve the vigour of the democracy; but the people of Athens, naturally jealous and envious, exerted that law, to remove men of eminent merit from the state, by whose presence they were reproved and intimidated. The fear of tyranny was commonly but a specious pretext with which they veiled their malignity. The repeated victories which they had gained over the Persians, had rendered them, says Plutarch, proud and insolent. Intoxicated with their prosperity, they arrogated all its glory to themselves; they were jealous of those citizens whose political and military talents were the subjects of public eulogium. They thought the glory acquired by great men diminished their own reputation.

An Athenian no sooner distinguished himself by a splendid action, than he was marked out as a victim by public envy. His reputation was a sufficient reason for his banishment.