* * * A Fatal Potsherd The Times photographs of
the ostraka, or potsherds, bearing the names of Aristides and other Athenian citizens condemned to exile by ostrakismos—ostracism- are almost too good to be true, but truth notoriously lurks at the bottom of wells, and since that is where the three potsherds with these astonishingly legible inscriptions have just been discovered 6y American excavators, scepticism clearly has small warrant. We shall never know whether the Athenian who said that he con- demned Aristides because he was tired of hearing him called " the Just," was joking or not. Perhaps in the turbulent little democracy that beat off the Persians it was felt necessary to have a continual change of leaders, lest one of them, however virtuous, should try to play the tyrant. Whether modern democracy can cast a' stone—or a potsherd—at the early Athenian ostracizers is by no means certain, for it tires of its favourites just as they did, though its ballot papers will not survive for the amusement of posterity.
* * *
Previous page
