In fact, it was not only the exile method of pottery, but also a very important public policy in the ancient Greek world. Although the irrational aspect of this exile system is magnified in history textbooks, if we carefully review the historical roots of this policy, we will find that it is far from the so-called "mob politics" of elite politicians, but a safety valve to maintain the stability of the city-state in a specific era.
1. Exile and Exile Tradition in the Greek World
The exile of King Oedipus originated from the tradition of ancient tribes in history.
In Professor Wang Yixin's book The Historical and Cultural Connotation of Heroic Stories in Ancient Greece, and in many myths of ancient Greek and Latin city-states, as well as other Indo-European tribes, there is a classic motif of abandoning children, that is, banishing or abandoning those cursed people, such as ugly people, kings and princes, who are the bane of the city-states, by means of expulsion or sacrifice, in order to alleviate the epidemic and eliminate disasters. Similar customs became the traditional basis of banishing nobles in the ancient Greek city-state system.
The great migration of nationalities at sea at the end of Mycenae civilization led to the great migration of ancient Greeks.
In the real history behind the myth, at the end of the Bronze Age, under the pressure of barbarian invasion at sea, part of Mycenae civilization retreated to Acadia in the Peloponnesian Peninsula, and the other part set sail and drifted to the west coast of Asia Minor, Cyprus, Palestine in the Middle East and even Egypt. On the basis of the inherent exile tradition, this wave of Greek diaspora is preserved in the legendary stories of Oedipus, Poitius, the son of Odysseus, theseus, Dionysus and others in an epic way, and the wandering prince and the lost home have become the eternal homesickness of the Greeks.
2. Violent political change and political exile.
A typical Greek city-state
After the dark ages, the Greek world finally came out of the dark ages in the 8th century BC. On the basis of previous settlements, religious centers and tribal settlements, polis began to appear. Accompanied by this, the political ecology of the Greek world changed from monarchy-aristocracy-tyranny.
In ancient times, with the development of economy and the evolution of military tactics, it gradually evolved from a single monarchy to an aristocratic system.
Generally speaking, the monarchy in China showed a downward trend as a whole, which was embodied in the killing of the last monarch in Corinth and the exile of members of the royal family to Sparta and khosla. After Codrus, the last monarch in Athens, was martyred in the battle against Dorian invasion, the monarchy was actually ousted and replaced by three consuls, and the royal family became one of the three consuls. With the growth of aristocratic strength, the term of office of the consul was shortened from life to 10 year, and finally to 1 year; The number of consuls has also increased from three to nine, and the royal family is just one of them.
The two kings of Sparta were demoted to parliament.
The Greek city-states rarely kept the king Sparta. In fact, the royal family also retreated to advance, and the two kings were reduced to 30 elders, thus escaping the fate of being ousted and retaining military power, religious power and judicial power. Similarly, in other Greek city-states, the title of king actually finally became the title of aristocratic consul, and the monarchy was basically replaced by nobles or oligarchs.
In addition to the intrigue between the monarch and the nobility, the relationship between other members of society is also undergoing tremendous changes. With the development of overseas colonization and the gradual improvement of the combat mode of heavy infantry, people who get rich by manual commerce are not inferior to the nobles who occupy absolute economic dominance, while the collective tactics represented by citizen heavy infantry are showing higher war efficiency than heroes fighting alone, so more and more people are dissatisfied with the monopoly of the old nobles on political power and a large amount of land.
The tyrant of ancient Greece stepped onto the political stage in the form of usurping the throne.
In this context, the third regime-tyrant system appeared in the Greek world in large numbers: a group of dictators who seized the power of the city-state by illegal means and recruited civilians against the nobility to come to power. These people often dress up as defenders of citizens' interests, generally win people's hearts with the help of military exploits and sports competitions, or take advantage of the contradiction between Victorian conquerors in the Peloponnesus and the former ancients, such as Dong Pei in Argos, peisistratus in Athens, Cleisthenes in Zion, Policrates in Samos and others. These people generally expand basic public opinion by encouraging industrial and commercial development, reducing people's debts, and rewarding cultural undertakings, and suppress aristocratic rights in various moderate or radical ways.
3. The choice of exiles: revenge and introducing foreign enemies
The whole iteration is likely to lead to civil war.
Due to the fierce iterative struggle between the three regimes and the relatively limited resources in Greece, each round of internal struggle will more or less produce a group of losers. In order to alleviate the tense atmosphere and economic situation within the polis, the polis usually takes the initiative to exile the losers or send them away with gifts. If we can explore colonies overseas with peace of mind, the threat to our motherland is actually not great, but many exiles are keen on the Greek-style infighting drama, fighting against political enemies with the persistence of fools moving mountains, and even making way for Sun's own legacy.
For example, Policrates, the ruler of Samos, once sent his opponents to form an advance team to help Persia invade Egypt. However, these armed refugees were unwilling to carry out their tasks, but went home to attack their opponents and went to Sparta for help after being defeated again. Because tyrants' families intermarry with each other or return hostages, even if tyrants and their supporters are defeated, they can get troops from their allies and counterattack their political enemies in their own country.
Continued infighting not only spread to Greece, but also the losers of infighting even went to the courts of Lydia, Egypt, Babylon and other eastern powers to lobby or serve, and obtained more sufficient political resources from these powers, thus threatening their home country. Generally speaking, after such a power game, some city-states will have a zero-sum game. After the parties to the struggle have achieved nothing, an ambitious man without background will come out to clean up the overall situation, or attract deadly foreign intervention, leading to the decline of the national movement. Generally speaking, infighting is very easy to cause fatal internal injuries for a small city-state with few people.
Persians were also lobbied by Greek exiles.
By the end of the 6th century BC, when the tyrannical era ended, most of the tyrannical regimes in Greece were intervened by Sparta who opposed the tyrannical regime and feared regime subversion, or overthrown by the enemies of their respective city-states, while the Greek city-states on the west coast of Asia Minor under Persian control were still under the tyrannical rule fostered by Persia. Moreover, Greek exiled tyrants and civil war losers also lobbied in the Persian court to incite Persia to intervene in Greece by force, such as Hippoeus in Athens and Della Tumas, the deposed king of Sparta.
Therefore, in this context, in the context of Greek culture, tyrant gradually appeared negative meaning, and people associated tyrant with potential Spartan intervention and Persian invasion. When the contradiction between Sparta and Athens eased and a series of anti-Persian diplomatic cooperation began, the Persian invasion caused by exiled politicians gradually became a major disaster in Athens. Facts have proved that in the Ionian Uprising and Persian War, there were warriors like Leonidas in the Greek world, and they also contributed various leading parties to the Persian king. They either guided the Persian fleet, opened the gates for the Persian army, provided supplies, and even fought side by side with their Greek compatriots like Thebes.
4. Tao Exile Law: Treat political exiles gently
Small city-states can't afford great internal turmoil.
Because of the hatred of exiles and making waves, all ancient Greek rulers were forced to reflect: how to avoid turning the all-out struggle into a zero-sum game is a problem worthy of facing up to; The potential threat of exiles to the country is the sword of Damocles hanging over all rulers. For the turmoil of the city-state, it is also very important to give the people the decision-making power of some important matters and invite them to participate in the final decision, so as to stabilize their ruling foundation, in addition to the aristocratic taking turns to govern and the symbolic and substantive policy of benefiting the people.
Exile pottery tablets engraved with people's names
Under the historical background and the small background of the development of the city-state, the citizens of Athens with increasing awareness of rights experienced the collapse of tyrant rule, Sparta's interference in internal affairs, Persian diplomatic blackmail and marathon victory. Around 488 BC, according to the unearthed pottery relics and Aristotle's written records, they implemented the pottery exile law for the first time: according to the principle of one person, one vote, they selected the people who were most likely to restore tyrants and threaten democracy. After collecting more than 6,000 valid votes (about 20% of the number of citizens in Athens, which is the number of citizens who must participate in important policies in Athens), the name with the highest number of votes was counted, and the person with the highest number of votes was exiled for 10 years, so as to ensure that his followers were separated from their leaders and gradually disintegrate the followers of the tyrant through the passage of time. Since ancient Greece was an oral society, once the leaders and henchmen were separated in two places, it basically meant that the power of political parties was greatly reduced; At the same time, drawing lessons from the extreme punishment of exiles in the past, in order to avoid completely forcing exiles to resist, the wealth and citizenship of exiles will be preserved, so as to maintain their sense of belonging to the city-state, recruit them to serve the country when the country needs them, avoid the exiles from holding a grudge and lead them to the enemy country completely.
As a result, Aristides, Kirstibos and Calhas in exile hardly went to the opposite side of the city-state. Moreover, in the second Persian War 7-8 years later, he also joined the ranks of bravely defending the country. Aristides once wrote his name on the exile pottery for an illiterate citizen, because ordinary citizens were tired of political rumors and the reputation of politicians, and had heard enough of Aristides's reputation as a "just man". However, on the eve of the Salamis naval battle, Aristide still responded to the call of the Athens government and returned to the headquarters of the Greek Coalition forces. He cooperated with Themistocles in exile, and with the information he brought, Themistocles and other Greek generals strengthened their determination to face the Persians on the spot, and at the last moment of the naval battle, he led the army to slay the Persian undead troops stationed on the offshore island of Salamis, ending the final victory of the war. After Themistocles was exiled and moved to the court of the Persian king, he also avoided fighting with the motherland at the last minute; Meng Ke, who was exiled, encouraged his friends to go to war, although he could not take part in the battle of nagra himself.
Summary: Advantages and disadvantages of exile policy
Some people think that the exile policy represented by the exile system in Athens led to political turmoil, but in fact, in the 1 century when the exile policy was implemented, almost only 10 people were exiled, and the basic rights and interests of the exiles were not violated, so they did not make waves overseas and hardly interfered in the political situation in Athens.
Although the exiled heroes are virtuous, the essence of this practice is contradictory to the humanistic spirit and personality of ancient Greek culture: in the cultural atmosphere of advocating competition and pursuing Excellence, citizens collectively adopt a unified and equal attitude towards citizens' achievements, and regard the citizens with the best virtue as gods, and gods are not controlled by law. Therefore, the Greeks believed that such people should be expelled from the polis, thus institutionalizing people's jealousy of their superiors. Like the lottery system, a perfect system will produce unexpected results because of human factors. If everyone is content with mediocrity and afraid of Excellence, how can the whole city-state prosper? If everyone envies and persecutes such outstanding figures as Aristide and Perikles, who else will give advice to the polis at a critical moment?
Just like the lottery system and direct election, if we pay too much attention to the correct procedure and ignore the rational spirit behind the procedure, then a system will actually become an empty shell. Let's not talk about the farce eventually caused by the exile system: the small politicians who were originally insignificant were among the two oligarchs.