My new piece at The Ostracon, the arts writing site Nicole Caruth and I created, offers a pre-election parsing of the site’s name while presenting some principles from ancient Athenian democracy that might merit revisiting in the era of Donald Trump: ostracism (“the ultimate in accountability,” according to John McKesson Camp, the director of excavations at the Athens Agora), dokimasia (“an examination to check the qualifications of an individual before entering office”) and euthynai (“a formal rendering of accounts at the end of a term of office).

The piece looks at voting using ostraka, or shards of pottery with the name of people selected for ostracism on them, when deciding who to send into exile for 10 years due to tyrannical leanings. FSU Classics professor Jim Sickinger explained the nuances:

Those who were ostracized, or sent into exile by ostracism, weren’t always government officials, Sickinger adds, although they often were. “What does seem to be the case is that most individuals who were ostracized were deemed to be ‘too big for their britches’ (my phrase) and to display anti-democratic (or aristocratic) traits, [but] some ostraka actually refer to the sexual practices of their candidates. Others accuse candidates of crimes (like bribery) and possibly treason. There was no precise definition of what made someone susceptible to ostracism, so it really boiled down to strong public sentiment against an individual.”

The images on this one, taken from documentation on the website of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, were designed by Ian Babineau.