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1 The institution of ostracism was incorporated in one of the laws of Cleisthenes, and was passed in 507 B.C. but first used, according to Aristotle (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 22), twenty years later, "when the people had gained self-confidence." Professor T. Leslie Shear has kindly allowed me to see an as yet unpublished paper of his, "Ostracism and the Ostraka from the Agora," which he prepared in 1941. Whereas Carcopino for the second edition of his L'Ostracisme athénien (1935) had 62 examples of the ballots used in Athenian ostracophoria (the balloting), the collection from the Agora now totals 503, and in 1937 a well on the North Slope yielded an additional 191 pieces. There are names of persons who were never ostracized and of many persons who are otherwise unknown. The accuracy of Aristotle's statement that the institution was first used in 487 B.C. is borne out against Walker's theory (Camb. Anc. Hist. 4, p. 152) that there may well have been instances of its use before the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C.
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