Остракизм в Афинах

24. In the course of the study, in order make clearer some problems under investigation, there emerged a necessity to make a few excurses into the field of contiguous problems. Such excurses would hardly have been proper in the bulk of the book. Accordingly, they are placed to appendices.

Appendix I "On the oration IV of the Corpus Andocideum" deals with one of the most important for us narrative texts, and one unique in the sense that it is devoted almost wholly to ostracism. It is necessary to consider specially and in detail problems connected with the speech also because it is a rather enigmatic text: debatable are the time of its composing, the authorship (most scholars deny that Andocides is the author), genre belonging, and authenticity.

We try to show that the text in question was written in 390es B.C. and is a conscious, rather subtly made fiction, which pursued political ends. In other words, it is neither a speech in the strict sense of the word nor a late rhetorical exercise of negligible source importance, as is often thought; it is a political pamphlet. The text is early and sufficiently authentic (as its author had himself seen ostracism in operation), but it is also subjective and biased in the highest degree. All this should be taken into account when working with this source. Besides, we see no really serious grounds for doubts about Andocides' authorship. However it may have been, the question of authorship in our case is even not the most principal. Much more important is that historic and chronological context of the monument, its genre, purposes of composition, and its orientation have been defined. It allows elaborating correct approaches to the oration.

25. In Appendix II «Ostracism and ostraka outside Athens» we consider problems that virtually have not yet been a subject of research in world ancient history. Up to present, ostracism, as a rule is thought to be an Athenian phenomenon par excellence. Almost all works (and in any case all books) devoted to ostracism study only Athenian source material. However, there is information on ostracism or analogous procedures also in other Greek city-states. Narrative tradition (Arist. Pol. 1302bl8; Schol. Aristoph. Equ. 855) mentions use of ostracism in Argos, Megara, and Miletus. Of these cities, in Argos and Megara ostraka (for the time being, only solitary) have been discovered. A variety of ostracism (socalled «petalism») is known to have been used in Syracuse (Diod. XI. 86–87). In Ephesus on the verge of Archaic and Classical epochs there existed a kind of banishment similar to ostracism (Heraclit. B21 DK). Finally, now, from recent time, it is possible to speak about discovery of ostraka (and so about existence of ostracism) even in such cities, in which that procedure is not evidenced by written sources. To this class of poleis we should refer Cyrene and Chersonesus Taurica (the latter is now second in the world, second only to Athens, by the quantity of ostraka discovered. There is a serious probability that in the future the list of cities known to use ostracism will only increase.

The sum of non-Athenian evidence in our possession compels us to deny the common opinion that ostracism had come to all cities, where it existed, without exceptions only from Athens. For a few cases (Syracuse, possibly Miletus) this thesis undoubtedly remains to be true, but it cannot acquire a generalizing force. In some poleis (in Megara, Ephesus) ostracism with much more probability came into existence in Archaic, pre-Clisthenic time, and this fact contradicts the idea of an Athenian influence. Therefore, we should not reduce artificially the whole history of ostracism (although unknown to us in detail during most part of its extent) to the fifth-century B.C. democratic Athens. The history of that institution is more extensive both in chronological and territorial respects.

26. As in the bulk of the study we had several times to touch upon some problems of the Athenian democracy, that subject required a special excursus (Appendix III, «To the question of the number of citizens in the Classical Athenian polis». Two main problems are discussed: what was approximate number of adult Athenian citizens in the 5^ century B.C., that is in the period when ostracism was in use; and how much was decrease of citizen population during the years of the Peloponnesian war, after which ostracism fell into disuse.

Analysis of source data allowed us to establish the following: during most part of the 5 century B.C., up to the Peloponnesian war, the number of the Athenian citizens kept constantly on the level of not less than 30000, and in the years of the greatest flourishing, under Pericles, it by the most modest assessments exceeded 40000. It should be taken into account when answering the question about the percentage of citizens assumed by the number 6000 that is mentioned in the sources in connection with ostracism.