LAW OF OSTRACISM

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patriated for a period not exceeding ten years. This peculiar statute was born of fear of tyranny, which of all political conditions the Hellenes dreaded most. The ostracism was a vote of confidence or lack of confidence, which was given or withheld by a fickle electorate. If less than 6,000 ballots were cast, the election was void, and there could be no ostracism. In other words no citizen could be banished unless at least 6,000 citizens participated in the election. The ostracism was not devised as a punishment for crime, but as a preventive remedy to destroy the political ambition of an individual leader, or public spirited citizen, whose influence it was feared might become dangerous to the State. Fear that undue popularity might enable an unscrupulous and ambitious man to usurp power and establish a tyranny on the ruins of democracy and thereby become a tyrant. The word "tyrant " used at this period among the Hellenes did not denote individual acts of cruelty or measures of oppression, or despotic conduct displayed by a particular ruler. A "tyrant" was one who presided in a government designated a tyranny or oligarchy, as distinguished from a democracy or a republican form of government under which all citizens enjoyed civil and political liberty. Banishment was supposed to furnish the remedy for this sort of political danger.

In order to ostracise a citizen, an election was held for that purpose. The voter was given a ballot consisting of a shell or tile, on which he was required to write the name of the objectionable citizen, whom he wished to send into exile. The ballots thus prepared were deposited in urns. If 6,000 ballots or more were cast, the name written on a majority of the ballots, authorized a decree of ostracism.

The ostracism was in effect a sort of political lynch law under which the career of any public man, however amiable or patriotic, might, through the machinations

of his enemies, be brought to a sudden close, and the victim forced perhaps to end his days in exile. The statute might with propriety have been entitled "An Act to permit selfish political office seekers to conspire to save themselves from outlawry by combining to exile an innocent citizen." It turned out that the ostracism was frequently invoked by a dangerous group of politicians, who feared defeat at the hands of a political rival, or one whose wealth or influence exposed them to the envy and jealousy of those less fortunate in life. It did not hinder political factions from combining against an independent leader, who refused to be governed or controlled by the designs of selfish men, seeking only their personal advancement. This was the result in the case of Aristides, a man preëminently just, and possessing the highest patriotism. Aristides was banished by his political foes, led by the great admiral and democrat Themistocles. The outlawry, however, was revoked and the exile recalled when the army of Xerxes was approaching threatening Athens. Aristides returned in time to coöperate with Themistocles, in the defeat of Xerxes at Salamis.

The unsatisfactory results of the statute was later illustrated in the case of Hyperbolus. Alcibiades and Nicias were political rivals. Both began to be feared by the people; the latter by reason of his great wealth, the former on account of his brilliant talents, unscrupulous and reckless conduct and dissipated habits. Public opinion became aroused, and it was evident that one of them would be ostracised. Both men at the critical juncture used their influence with their followers and adherents for mutual advantage, and so contrived as to work upon the prejudices of the voters, so as to involve Hyperbolus. When the ballots were counted Hyperbolus was the victim who suffered banishment and became an outlaw. This result clearly demon

TAXES AND REVENUE

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strated that the law worked more harm than good, and led to its repeal.

Under the Constitution of Clisthenes, the collection of taxes and revenues which flowed into the public exchequer was entrusted to a body of ten magistrates known as the Apodektæ. They were clothed with power not only to receive, but also to disburse the public funds. It seems that all public revenues were derived from a graduated income tax imposed in accordance with financial ability of the citizen, who were still grouped in four classes, as they had been under the Constitution of Solon, supplemented possibly by a graduated land and commodity tax. Although the Athenians were an enterprising commercial people, and subsequently masters of the sea, to such an extent as to cause the Ægean to become practically a mare clausum, and although their colonies were scattered throughout the frontiers of the commercial world, they seem to have been free traders. We have no authentic data from which to infer that the idea of a protective tariff imposed as duties upon imports or exports or a tariff for revenue only was ever conceived by the Greeks. Their political economy and commercial relations with other countries, in that age, did not seem to require any such mode of taxation, either to build up home manufactures, protect "infant industries," or secure protection from pauper labor. The pauper labor was slave labor and the Athenians owned the slaves. There were no custom houses, so far as we are informed in any Athenian port, anywhere, and the government, prior to the time of Pericles, seems to have been supported solely by revenues derived presumably by direct taxation. After the Persian Wars, the revenues of the Delian Confederacy were appropriated by the Athenians, to build up their empire, and to beautify and adorn their imperial city.

The Apodekte were therefore simply the tax gath

erers and disbursing agents of the Attic Commonwealth. In view of the fact that prior to the age of Pericles, the army was obliged to serve without pay, as were some other officers of the State, including the dikasts, the amount of revenue to support the government must have been comparatively small.

Such was the earliest democracy established in Greece, and the form of Constitutional government framed in the first instance by Solon, and enlarged and strengthened by Clisthenes, the first democratic leader of the Attic people. Among the supporters of Clisthenes and his reforms, was the youthful Aristides, who later fought with his distinguished contemporary Themistocles at Marathon and Salamis, and led the Athenians to victory at Platæa.

CHAPTER X

PERSIANS UNDER DARIUS - HIS AFFAIRS IN ASIA SCYTHIA AND THE SCYTHS

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HE Scythian expedition under Darius, though a Persian undertaking, properly belongs to the military annals of Greece. The Greek colonies along the northern shores of the Euxine had been established for more than a century before the time of Darius. These trading posts, located on the frontiers of Scythia, afforded Greek sailors and merchants abundant opportunity to become acquainted with the Scythians, and familiar with their language, and enabled them to obtain much information as to the unexplored regions of the interior and some knowledge of its resources.

This information Darius sought from his Greek subjects in Asia Minor, by whom many of these colonies. had been established, and under whom they flourished. He relied upon the Greek cities of Asia Minor to furnish the navy which was essential to the success of his expedition, and depended entirely upon the skill and scientific knowledge of his Greek subjects to construct bridges over the Bosphorus and the Danube, for use in transporting his armies.

Before discussing the details of the expedition some preliminary observations may be profitable. First as to the motives which induced Darius to undertake this, his first European campaign, which he purposed to lead in person, and which, considering the numerical strength of his armament comprising more than threequarters of a million fighting men, was the most formi