a mode of deciding on the guilt of citizens, similar to the Athenian Ostracism. It was introduced in Syracuse about the year before Christ 465, in order to prevent the tyranny of the richer citizens, who had often about that time aimed at the diadem. To prevent, therefore, the evils daily arising from thence, and to bring down the aspiring minds of the wealthy citizens, the Syracusans were forced to make a law not unlike that of the Athenian ostracism; for as at Athens every citizen was to write on a shell the name of the person whom they conceived to be the most likely, on account of his wealth and adherents, to aspire to the crown; so at Syracuse they were to write on a leaf the names of such as they apprehended powerful enough to usurp the sovereignty. When the leaves were counted, he who had the most suffrages against him was, without any further inquiry, banished for five years. This new contrived method of impairing the estates, and weakening the interest of the overgrown citizens, was called petalism, from the Greek word petalon, which signifies "a leaf." This law was attended with many evil consequences; for those who were most capable of governing the commonwealth were driven out, and the administration of public affairs committed to the meanest of the people; nay, many of the chief citizens, who were able to render their country great service, fearing to fall under penalties of this law, withdrew from the city, and lived private in the country, not concerning themselves with public affairs: whence all the employments being filled with men of no merit or experience, the republic was on the brink of ruin, and ready to fall into a state of anarchy and confusion. The law therefore of petalism, upon more mature deliberation, was repealed soon after it had been first enacted, and the reins of government were again put into the hands of men who knew how to manage them.