Review

Author(s): Matthew R. Christ

Review by: Matthew R. Christ
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 102, No. 3 (Feb. - Mar., 2007), pp. 305-307
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. (CAMWS)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30037992
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BOOK REVIEWS

Exile, Ostracism, and Democracy: The Politics of Expulsion in Ancient

Greece. By SARA FORSDYKE.

Princeton and Oxford: Princeton Uni-

versity Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 344. Cloth, $45.00. ISBN 0-691-11975-9.

In this stimulating study, which originated in a Princeton

doctoral dissertation, Forsdyke (F.) ambitiously undertakes not only

to explicate the seemingly bizarre institution of ostracism in its

Athenian democratic setting, but also to read this within a broader

Greek context, in which "the politics of exile" are fundamental to
understanding the emergence and development of the Greek polis. "I
hope that by exploring the historical origins and cultural and ideological meanings of ostracism, I shed new light on such central topics
as the rise of the polis, the origins of democracy, and the relation

between historical events, cultural practices, and the ways that

society represents itself to itself" (p. 1). In my view, F. is largely successful in achieving these diverse goals.
In her first chapter, F. sets the stage for her analysis of exile and
ostracism by arguing that intra-elite competition was a driving force

behind many developments within the early Greek polis. "Rather

than viewing the 8t-century changes as a consequence of pressure
from below or as a response to the middling ideology of a newly

politically aware group of non-elite citizens, I view the early polis in

part as the means by which elite social actors attempted to maximize
their own power and minimize the power of rival elites" (p. 19). F.
proposes that many features of the early polis (sanctuary building,
trade, colonization, warfare) can be viewed as the direct or indirect
result of elites competing among themselves for power and status. In
her view, political developments within the early polis, including the
rotation of public offices and the writing down of laws, may have
come about as elites sought to limit the power and behavior of their

rivals. For F., this model is appealing as it helps explain not only

features of the early polis, but also "the relative weakness of the new
civic institutions as opposed to the elites that continued to dominate
until well into the sixth century" (p. 19). Having reconstructed intraelite competition in the early polis in this manner, F. proceeds in her
second chapter to examine how "the politics of exile" functioned in
intra-elite competition in the Archaic period through case-studies of

four poleis (Mytilene, Megara, Samos and Corinth). In brief, she

posits that elites were the chief political actors in this period and that
they frequently had recourse to the exile of elite rivals to establish
and maintain their power; this was a significantly destabilizing force

within the Archaic polis, not least because exiles might persuade

foreign powers to participate in reinstating them in their cities.

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306 BOOK REVIEWS

Although I find this reconstruction of the prominent role of elites

in the early polis intriguing, F. goes too far in minimizing the role of
non-elites. While F. is careful not to write average citizens out of the
history of this period, she believes that the masses were not politically self-conscious enough to actively and independently pursue
their collective interests (pp. 51, 75). One may wonder, however, if
elite poetry of the Archaic period is likely to acknowledge the masses
as a political force, and what role assemblies may have played at this
time in articulating and advancing the interests of average citizens.

The idea that non-elites lacked political self-consciousness in this

period is also problematic; were average polis-dwellers any less

attuned to their self-interest than members of the elite, or to the

advantages of pursuing these by common action through civic

institutions?

Chapter Three turns to intra-elite competition and the politics of

exile in Athens ca. 636-508/7 BC. F. argues that, while both Solon and
Peisistratus reached out to non-elites within the city to intervene in
intra-elite conflict, elite factions continued to dominate the city's

political life and to employ exile as a political tool (though Peisistratus ultimately disavowed the traditional politics of exile in
allowing his elite rivals to remain within the city). The non-elite

masses, according to F., remained relatively disengaged in the struggles between elites until 508/7 when, in the midst of civil strife, the
Athenian people asserted their power by expelling Isagoras and his
supporters and recalling Cleisthenes and his followers. F. aptly observes that, in assuming control over decisions of exile, the masses
asserted their political power, "since power in the archaic polis was
largely a function of the ability to expel one's opponents" (p. 80). It is
in this context, according to F., that Cleisthenes included ostracism in
his ensuing democratic reforms and thus gave the Athenian people
power over the politics of exile within the city. Key to F.'s reconstruction here is her view, defended in Appendix One, that ostracism

was introduced at this time rather than 20 years later, as some

maintain. Chapter Four builds on this analysis of the origins of ostracism, arguing that, while the Athenian people appropriated a tool of
intra-elite competition in establishing the institution of ostracism,

they innovated in employing exile moderately: ostracism was, by

contemporary standards at least, a moderate instrument that was
limited in scope and regulated by law. This democratic moderation
in the use of exile not only helped stabilize the city and liberate it
from the turmoil surrounding the frequent expulsion of citizens in
Archaic states, but gave the democracy a way of demarcating democratic rule ideologically from oligarchy and tyranny. F. nicely traces

how democratic restraint in using exile crops up in popular discourse in Athens, not least in the 4th century, when democrats

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BOOK

REVIEWS

307

contrasted their restraint with the abuse of exile by enemies of the

democracy in 411 and 404. In this chapter, F. also does an admirable
job of probing the symbolic dimensions of ostracism for Athenians,
reading it as a social and political ritual. It is open to debate, however, whether Athenians themselves would have seen ostracism as a
"reminder of the origins of democratic rule" in the people's intervention in intra-elite conflict in 508/7 BC (p. 145).

In Chapter Five, F. provocatively suggests that Athenians were

restrained in employing exile as a political tool not only at home, but

even abroad in their relations with their allies/subjects under the

empire, as evidenced by the language and terms of the Erythrae
Decree and the Chalcis Decree. She argues that, while Athenians
sometimes had recourse to expulsion en masse of groups or peoples,
there is evidence that "Athenian democracy sought to regulate and
dampen the politics of exile in allied Greek poleis" (p. 206). While F.'s
vision of the Athenian empire is likely to be controversial, she offers
an intriguing view of imperial Athens exercising restraint in the use
of exile abroad, thus serving both its practical and ideological needs.

In Chapter Six, F. explores exile in "the Greek Mythical and

Historical Imagination," juxtaposing representations of exile in the

"Democratic Tradition" with those in the "Anti-Democratic Tradi-

tion." Of particular interest is her engaging reading of the representation of tyranny in Herodotus as shaped by 5th-century Athenian
democratic ideology.
This is a rich and well-written book. F. contributes not only to
the understanding of her specific topic, but to the debate about ways
of doing history.
MATTHEW R. CHRIST

Indiana University

The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues. By RUBY BLONDELL.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xi + 452. Cloth,
$76.00. ISBN: 0-521-79300-9.

In the growing body of Platonic studies seeking to articulate the

interdependence of the dialogues' philosophical content and dramatic
form, Blondell's splendid book is destined to occupy a conspicuous

place. Her central claim is that Plato's use of characterization is

fraught with philosophical and ethical significance and, therefore,

that proper attention to the ways in which his dramatis personae act
and interact with one another greatly enhances our understanding of
how Socrates and his later understudies, as it were, do philosophy.

In the first two chapters, Blondell clarifies various methodo-

logical assumptions and prescriptions. Among these, two are partic-

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