A01=Sara Forsdyke
Aeschylus
Alcibiades
Ancient Greece
Anecdote
Archaic Greece
Areopagus
Assassination
Athenian Democracy
Author_Sara Forsdyke
Boeotia
Case study
Category=NHC
Category=NHD
Cimon
Competition
Critias
Criticism
Criticism of democracy
Cypselus
Decree
Delian League
Demagogue
Demaratus
Democracy
Ephor
Ephorus
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eq_history
eq_isMigrated=0
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Euboea
Eurystheus
Exclusion
Exile
Fifth-century Athens
Greeks
Herodotus
Hippias (tyrant)
Hoplite
Ideology
Institution
Isagoras
Isocrates
Legislation
Megacles
Megara (Wife of Hercules)
Metic
Narrative
Oligarchy
Ostracism
Peisistratos
Peloponnesian War
Periander
Pleistoanax
Poetry
Polis
Political philosophy
Political science
Political structure
Politician
Politics
Public administration
Samos
Slavery
State formation
The Oligarchs
The Other Hand
The Persians
Themistocles
Thessaly
Thirty Tyrants
Thrasybulus
Thucydides
Tyrant
War
Wealth
Xenophon
Product details
- ISBN 9780691119755
- Weight: 652g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 30 Oct 2005
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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This book explores the cultural and political significance of ostracism in democratic Athens. In contrast to previous interpretations, Sara Forsdyke argues that ostracism was primarily a symbolic institution whose meaning for the Athenians was determined both by past experiences of exile and by its role as a context for the ongoing negotiation of democratic values. The first part of the book demonstrates the strong connection between exile and political power in archaic Greece. In Athens and elsewhere, elites seized power by expelling their rivals. Violent intra-elite conflict of this sort was a highly unstable form of "politics that was only temporarily checked by various attempts at elite self-regulation. A lasting solution to the problem of exile was found only in the late sixth century during a particularly intense series of violent expulsions. At this time, the Athenian people rose up and seized simultaneously control over decisions of exile and political power. The close connection between political power and the power of expulsion explains why ostracism was a central part of the democratic reforms.
Forsdyke shows how ostracism functioned both as a symbol of democratic power and as a key term in the ideological justification of democratic rule. Crucial to the author's interpretation is the recognition that ostracism was both a remarkably mild form of exile and one that was infrequently used. By analyzing the representation of exile in Athenian imperial decrees, in the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, and in tragedy and oratory, Forsdyke shows how exile served as an important term in the debate about the best form of rule.
Sara Forsdyke is Assistant Professor of Greek and Latin in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan.
