Ostracism

Moreover, the legislator who instituted ostracism appears to me to have had the following intention.

Furthermore, if account is to be taken of our families, I on my side cannot claim any acquaintance with ostracism.

In fact, it will be a public disgrace, if you show tolerance towards a man who has achieved his success only with the help of your money, when in ostracizing Callias, son of Didymius, who won victories at all the great games by his personal prowess, you took no account whatsoever of his achievement, although it was by his own efforts that he brought glory to Athens.

In the sixth presidency, in addition to what has been said, they put to the vote the question of the holding of an ostracism, whether it seems good to hold one or not, and accusations of sycophants, both of Athenians and of metics, up to three of each, and any case where a man has promised something to the people and not performed it.

Pericles, falling short of this lavishness in his property, on the advice of Damonides of Oa (who was thought to be the prompter of most of Pericles' measures—which is also why they ostracized him later), since he was worsted in his private means, devised giving the many their own;

(he happened to have been ostracised, and though he had a residence at Argos, used to travel about to the rest of the Peloponnese,) they sent with the Lacedaemonians, who were very ready to join in the pursuit, certain men who were told to bring him wherever they might fall in with him.