POL200Y1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7-9: Ostracon, Cephalus, Ostracism
15 Mar 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
An ostrakon or pottery shard, on which a citizen of the athenian democracy wrote the name of the leader (here kimon the son of miltiades ) whom he was voting to banish from the city for ten years. Ostracism was a practice intended to prevent any one leader from becoming too powerful. Study questions for the lecture of march 14: in books eight and nine we move from the city in speech to a consideration of the different regime types that actually existed in the hellenic world at that time. In its deprecation of all other human activities (including politics) in favor of philosophy, the republic is a radical work. But is its approach to practical politics a radical one: consider socrates" depiction in book eight of democracy as a regime or way of life. Officially, democracy figures as the fourth (and second worst) of the sequence of five regimes, than which only tyranny is worse.
