A method of banishment in ancient Athens. At a stated meeting each year, the Athenian assembly voted on whether it wanted an ostracism that year. If the vote was affirmative, an ostracism was held two months later. Every citizen who so wished then wrote a name on a sherd of pottery (“ostrakon”), and provided that at least 6000 valid “ostraka” were counted, the man with the most against him had to leave Attica for ten years, though he was allowed to enjoy any income from his property there while absent. A vote to ostracize often functioned as a sort of “general election”, constituting a “vote of confidence” for the policies of the most powerful rival of the man thus named. Such trials of political strength were most notable in the ostracisms of Themistocles (c.471), Cimon (c.462), and Pericles’ rival Thucydides (443). Ostracism was not resorted to after 417 or 416.