Ostracism
Ostracism (, ''ostrakismos'') was an Athenian democratic procedure in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the citizen, ostracism was often used preemptively. It was used as a way of neutralizing someone thought to be a threat to the state or a potential tyrant, though in many cases popular opinion often informed the expulsion. The word " ostracism" continues to be used for various forms of shunning. Procedure The term "ostracism" is derived from the pottery shards that were used as voting tokens, called '' ostraka'' (singular: ''ostrakon'' ) in Greek. Broken pottery, abundant and virtually free, served as a kind of scrap paper (in contrast to papyrus, which was imported from Egypt as a high-quality writing surface, and too costly to be disposable). Each year the Athenians were asked in the assembly whether they wished to hold an ostracism. The question was put in the sixt ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Xanthippus
Xanthippus (; , ; 520 – 475 BC) was a wealthy Ancient Athens, Athenian politician and general during the Greco-Persian Wars. He was the son of Ariphron and father of Pericles, both prominent Athenian statesmen. A marriage to Agariste, niece of Cleisthenes, linked Xanthippus with the Alcmaeonidae, Alcmaeonid clan, whose aristocratic interests he often represented in government.Herodotus, ''The Histories'' 6.131. He was Ostracism, ostracized in 484 BC,David Sacks, Lisa R. Brody, and Oswyn Murray, ''Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek World'' (New York City, NY: Infobase Publishing, 2009), p. 370. likely arising from his rivalry with Themistocles,Plutarch, ''Comparison of Aristides and Marcus Cato'' 2.3. but he was recalled from exile when the Achaemenid Empire, Persians invaded Greece. He commanded the Athenian fleets in the Battle of Mycale and the Greco-Persian Wars, Siege of Sestos. It is possible that he participated in the Battle of Marathon and Battle of Salamis. Early li ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pericles
Pericles (; ; –429 BC) was a Greek statesman and general during the Golden Age of Athens. He was prominent and influential in Ancient Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, and was acclaimed by Thucydides, a contemporary historian, as "the first citizen of Athens".Thucydides, s:History of the Peloponnesian War/Book 2#2:65, 2.65 Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens as Archon (ruler), roughly from 461 to 429 BC, is sometimes known as the "Age of Pericles", but the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars or as late as the following century. Pericles promoted the arts and literature, and it was principally through his efforts that Athens acquired the reputation of being the educational and cultural center of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek world. He started an ambitious ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ostracon
An ostracon (Greek language, Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeology, archaeological or epigraphy, epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer to sherds or even small pieces of stone that have writing scratched into them. Usually these are considered to have been broken off before the writing was added; ancient people used the cheap, plentiful, and durable broken pieces of pottery around them as a convenient medium to write on for a wide variety of purposes, mostly very short inscriptions, but in some cases very long. Ostracism In Classical Athens, when the decision at hand was to banish or exile a certain member of society, citizen peers would cast their vote by writing the name of the person on the shard of pottery; the vote was counted and, if unfavorable, the person was exiled for a period of ten years from the city, thus giving rise to the term ''ostracism''. Broken pottery ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cimon
Cimon or Kimon (; – 450BC) was an Athenian '' strategos'' (general and admiral) and politician. He was the son of Miltiades, also an Athenian ''strategos''. Cimon rose to prominence for his bravery fighting in the naval Battle of Salamis (480 BC), during the Second Persian invasion of Greece. Cimon was then elected as one of the ten ''strategoi'', to continue the Persian Wars against the Achaemenid Empire. He played a leading role in the formation of the Delian League against Persia in 478 BC, becoming its commander in the early Wars of the Delian League, including at the Siege of Eion (476 BC). In 466 BC, Cimon led a force to Asia Minor, where he destroyed a Persian fleet and army at the Battle of the Eurymedon river. From 465 to 463 BC he suppressed the Thasian rebellion, in which the island of Thasos attempted to leave the Delian League. This event marked the transformation of the Delian League into the Athenian Empire. Cimon took an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aristides
Aristides ( ; , ; 530–468 BC) was an ancient Athenian statesman. Nicknamed "the Just" (δίκαιος, ''díkaios''), he flourished at the beginning of Athens' Classical period and is remembered for his generalship in the Persian War. The ancient historian Herodotus cited him as "the best and most honourable man in Athens", and he received similarly reverent treatment in Plato's Socratic dialogues. Biography Aristides was a member of a family of moderate fortune; his father's name was Lysimachus. Early in life he became a follower of the statesman Cleisthenes. He probably first came to notice as '' strategos'' in command of his native tribe Antiochis at the Battle of Marathon of 490 BC. In consequence of the distinction which he then achieved he is said to have won the election as ''archon eponymos'' for the ensuing year (489488). Pursuing a conservative policy to maintain Athens as a land power, he was one of the chief opponents of the naval policy proposed by ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Persian Wars
The Greco-Persian Wars (also often called the Persian Wars) were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Greek city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus the Great conquered the Greek-inhabited region of Ionia in 547 BC. Struggling to control the independent-minded cities of Ionia, the Persians appointed tyrants to rule each of them. This would prove to be the source of much trouble for the Greeks and Persians alike. In 499 BC, the tyrant of Miletus, Aristagoras, embarked on an expedition to conquer the island of Naxos, with Persian support; however, the expedition was a debacle and, preempting his dismissal, Aristagoras incited all of Hellenic Asia Minor into rebellion against the Persians. This was the beginning of the Ionian Revolt, which would last until 493 BC, progressively drawing more regions of Asia Minor into the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Athenian Democracy
Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Ancient Greece, Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Classical Athens, Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, and focusing on supporting liberty, equality, and security. Although Athens is the most familiar of the democratic city-states in ancient Greece, it was not the only one, nor was it the first; multiple other city-states adopted similar democratic constitutions before Athens. By the late 4th century BC, as many as half of the over one thousand existing Greek cities might have been democracies. Athens practiced a political system of legislation and executive bills. Participation was open to adult, free male citizens (i.e., not a metic, woman or slave). Adult male citizens probably constituted no more than 30 percent of the total adult population. Solon (in 594 BC), Cleisthenes (in 508–07 BC), and Ephialtes (in 462 BC) contributed to the development of Athenian democrac ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Quorum
A quorum is the minimum number of members of a group necessary to constitute the group at a meeting. In a deliberative assembly (a body that uses parliamentary procedure, such as a legislature), a quorum is necessary to conduct the business of that group. In contrast, a plenum is a meeting of the full (or rarely nearly full) body. A body, or a meeting or vote of it, is quorate if a quorum is present (or casts valid votes). The term ''quorum'' is from a Middle English wording of the commission formerly issued to justices of the peace, derived from Latin ''quorum'', "of whom", genitive plural of ''qui'', " who". As a result, ''quora'' as plural of ''quorum'' is not a grammatically well-formed Latin-language construction. In modern times a quorum might be defined as the minimum number of voters needed for a valid election. Quorums are often required by traditional handbooks of parliamentary procedure such as Robert's Rules of Order. However, quorums have been criticized by s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shunning
Shunning can be the act of social rejection, or emotional distance. In a religious context, shunning is a formal decision by a denomination or a congregation to cease interaction with an individual or a group, and follows a particular set of rules. It differs from, but may be associated with, excommunication. The social rejection occurs when a person or group deliberately avoids association with, and habitually keeps away from an individual or group. This can be a formal decision by a group, or a less formal group action which will spread to all members of the group as a form of solidarity. Shunning can sometimes also be used by an individual to express discontent with an action of their family. Sometimes shunning leads to shunning in itself. An example would be a son using shunning to stop their mother from shunning someone. Shunning is a sanction against association, often associated with religious groups and other tightly knit organizations and communities. Targets of shunning ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Exile
Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suffer exile, but sometimes social entities like institutions (e.g. the Pope, papacy or a Government-in-exile, government) are forced from their homeland. In Roman law, denoted both voluntary exile and banishment as a capital punishment alternative to death. Deportation was forced exile, and entailed the lifelong loss of citizenship and property. Relegation was a milder form of deportation, which preserved the subject's citizenship and property. The term diaspora describes group exile, both voluntary and forced. "Government in exile" describes a government of a country that has relocated and argues its legitimacy from outside that country. Voluntary exile is often depicted as a form of protest by the person who claims it, to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term ''capital'' (, derived via the Latin ' from ', "head") refers to execution by Decapitation, beheading, but executions are carried out by List of methods of capital punishment, many methods, including hanging, Execution by shooting, shooting, lethal injection, stoning, Electric chair, electrocution, and Gas chamber, gassing. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |