Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/176

158 HISTORY OF GREECE. secret manner, counted unequivocally for the expression of genuine and independent sentiment, and could neither be coerced nor bought. Then again, Kleisthenes did not permit the process of ostracizing to be opened against any one citizen exclusively. If opened at all, every one without exception was exposed to the sentence ; so that the friends of Themistokles could riot invoke it against Aristeides, 1 nor those of the latter against the former, without exposing their own leader to the same chance of exile. It was not likely to be invoked at all, therefore, until exasperation had proceeded so far as to render both parties insensible to this chance, the precise index of that growing internecive hostility, which the ostracism prevented from coming to a head. Nor could it even then be ratified, unless a case was shown to convince the more neutral portion of the senate and the ekklesia : moreover, after all, the ekklesia did not itself ostracize, but a future day was named, and the whole body of the citizens were solemnly invited to vote. It was in this way that security was taken not only for making the ostracism effect- ual in protecting the constitution, but to hinder it from being employed for any other purpose. And we must recollect that it exercised its tutelary influence, not merely on those occasions when it was actually employed, but by the mere knowledge that it might be employed, and by the restraining effect which that knowledge produced on the conduct of the great men. Again, the ostracism, though essentially of an exceptional nature, was yet an exception sanctified and limited by the constitution itself; so that the citizen, in giving his ostracizing vote, did not in any way depart from the constitution or lose his reverence for it. The issue placed before him " Is there any man whom you think vitally dangerous to the state ? if so, whom ? " though vague, was yet raised directly and legally. Had there been no ostracism, it might probably have been raised both indirectly and illegally, on the occasion of some special imputed crime of a snupected political leader, when accused before a court of justice, 1 The practical working of the ostracism presents it as a struggle between two contending leaders, accompanied with chance of banishment to both Perikles irpbf TOV &ovKv6idjjv flf u~-uva irepl TOV baTpuicov KaraoTuf, Kdi iiaKu>6vviiaaf, tuslvov ^h ife/lafe, Kartf.vat de 7rjv tivTi.Tt atiav (Plutarch, Perikles, c. 14 ; compare Plutarch, Nikias, c. 11).