4
Moreover, at a time like this those who have political associates and confederates have an advantage over the rest, because the judges are not appointed by lot as in courts of law: in the present decision every member of the community has a voice. And not only that: the law appears to me to go both too far and not far enough; for wrongs done to individuals I consider such redress as this excessive: for wrongs done to the state I regard it as an insufficient and useless penalty, when you have the right to punish by fine, imprisonment, or death.
5
Furthermore, if a man is exiled because he is a bad citizen, his leaving Athens will not cure him; wherever he lives, he will do this city harm and intrigue against her no less than hitherto—nay more so and with more justification than before his banishment. Today, too, above all days, your friends, I feel, are filled with sorrow and your enemies with joy, because they know that if you unwittingly banish your best citizen, Athens will derive no benefit from him for ten years.
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.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. 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.
