[6]
Then still another fact makes it easy to see that the law is a bad one: we are the only Greeks to observe it, and no other state is prepared to imitate us.1 Yet it is recognized that the best institutions are those which have proved most suited to democracy and oligarchy alike and which are the most generally favoured.
1 The evidence on the subject of ostracism in Greece at large is too inconclusive to enable us either to accept or to reject this statement with confidence. It is known that the institution existed for a time at least at Argos （Aristot. Pol. 8.3, 1302b 18）, at Miletus （Schol. Aristoph. Kn. 855）, at Megara （ibid.）, and at Syracuse （Dio. Sic. 11.87.6）. It was introduced at Syracuse in 454 B.C. under the name of πεταλισμός, definitely in imitation of Athens.
Andocides. Minor Attic Orators in two volumes 1, Antiphon Andocides, with an English translation by K. J. Maidment, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1968.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.