Acknowledgments; Chronology; Abbreviations and Conventions; INTRODUCTION: Problems, Methods, Concepts; CHAPTER ONE: Setting the Stage; CHAPTER TWO: The Politics of Exile and the Crisis of the Archaic Polis; CHAPTER THREE: From Exile to Ostracism; CHAPTER FOUR: Ostracism and Exile in Democratic Athens; CHAPTER FIVE: Exile and Empire; CHAPTER SIX: Exile in the Greek Mythical and Historical Imagination; CONCLUSION; Appendix One: The Date of the Athenian Law of Ostracism; Appendix Two: Ostracism outside Athens; Appendix Three: Exile in Spartan Myth and History; Bibliography
Summary
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
