Exile, Ostracism, and Democracy

Forsdyke, Sara

doi:10.1515/9781400826865

Cited by 30 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Imprisonment was also used in Athens but it was not a mandated penalty (Allen 2000). Sentences of banishment could handed down by various decision-making bodies populated by citizens including councils, juries, and assemblies (Forsdyke 2009) After the founding of democracy trials for major crimes, including tyranny, took place before the Council of the Five Hundred (constituted by citizens) in the 5 th century BCE (Forsydke 2009). The punishment varied in its severity.…”

Section: Banishment In Ancient Greece and Republic And Imperial Romementioning

confidence: 99%

Banishment and the pre-history of legitimate expulsion power

Gibney

2019

Citizenship Studies

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In the introduction of a recent work on the denationalization of terrorists across the West, the legal scholar Audrey Macklin announced that "after decades in exile, banishment is back" (Macklin 2015). Over the last decade, as new laws allowing individuals to be stripped of citizenship have sprung up in states including the UK, Canada, Australia, Finland and the Netherlands, many others have also analogised denationalization to this medieval practice (Sassen 2015;Lenard 2019; Pillai & Williams 2017). By allowing states to deport their own citizens or, if present overseas, to prevent their return, denationalization, like banishment, enables states effectively to disown their members (Macklin 2015; Gibney 2013a;Mantu 2015).Scholars have recently given a great deal of attention to the question of why citizen banishment qua denationalization has returned to our political lexicon. Citizen expulsion has important implications for ideas of equal citizenship, democracy, and norms relating to statelessness

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Section: Banishment In Ancient Greece and Republic And Imperial Romementioning

confidence: 99%

Banishment and the pre-history of legitimate expulsion power

Gibney

2019

Citizenship Studies

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“…During the fifth century BCE, ostracism was a common practice, with the decision to practice ostracism taken once per year at a fixed time in the civic calendar (Forsdyke, 2005, p. 147). While the actual political effectiveness of ostracism is debatable (Forsdyke, 2005, pp. 150–151), it is evident that it was the exercise of the political power of the demos that involved the particular management of time—the removal of the ostracized individual from the political community of the polis for a certain period of time, thus breaking up the continuum of potential political influence on the political community.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…7 7 Similar principles could be observed in the institution of ostracism practiced in Athens. During the fifth century BCE, ostracism was a common practice, with the decision to practice ostracism taken once per year at a fixed time in the civic calendar (Forsdyke, 2005, p. 147). While the actual political effectiveness of ostracism is debatable (Forsdyke, 2005, pp.…”

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confidence: 99%

Demochronos: The political time of the Athenian democracy

Gudelis

2020

Constellations

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to name a few, have contributed greatly to studies of ancient Athens and its democratic political form. Much of Ober's work is concerned with the origins and development of democracy, which he explored by focusing on various aspects of the sociopolitical and cultural contexts in ancient Athens and beyond, such as military tactics (Ober, 1985), social cohesion (Ober, 1989, 2005), the formation of knowledge (Ober, 2008), and political theory and practice (Ober, 1996, 1998). Hansen, in his research drawing on archeological data and morphological and literary analysis of ancient Greek texts, focused on the political concepts and institutions that defined Greek cities of the archaic and classical periods as political units

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“…The ἄτιμος could be killed with impunity by anyone, rendering atimia effectively a sentence of exile or death, often including the condemned's family.35 Archaic atimia policed not the internal boundary between citizen and non-citizen but the external one between local and outlaw, and the atimos was rejected not from a polity but from a society.36 Exile is a major theme in Greek tragedy.37 Before the invention of ostracism, which is a democratic institution, exile was weaponized by rival elites, thus becoming crucial to interstate politics and, arguably, to the birth of democracy. 38 In particular, atimia as 'exile or death' was in Archaic law associated with community-threatening or life-ending offences.39 Medea manifests just this kind of atimia-exile: the decree and associated threats are Creon's; Medea and her children are permanently exiled (ll. 271-273); they will be put to death if they remain in Corinth (ll.…”

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confidence: 99%

Is There a Polis in Euripides’ Medea?

Perris

2017

POLIS

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The polis is a dominant force in scholarship on Greek tragedy, including Euripides’ Medea. This paper addresses the question of whether there is, in fact, a polis (i.e. a Greek-style city-state) in the play. The polis proper does not often feature in tragedy. Euripides’ Corinth, like many urban centres in tragedy, is a generic palatial settlement ruled by a king. It is not a community of citizens. Creon is a non-constitutional absolute hereditary monarch, and it is a commonplace of tragedy that absolute sole role is antithetical to the idea of the polis. Medea is exiled, not ostracised; she is never a metic. Her relationships and actions are governed by elite xenia, not citizenship. Thus, though ‘political’ interpretations of Medea are all to the good, polis-centric interpretations become much less attractive once one observes the almost complete absence of the polis from the play.

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Exile, Ostracism, and Democracy

Cited by 30 publications

References 4 publications

Banishment and the pre-history of legitimate expulsion power

Banishment and the pre-history of legitimate expulsion power

Demochronos: The political time of the Athenian democracy

Is There a Polis in Euripides’ Medea?

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