practice of ostracism. The way in which it was conducted was as follows. Each man took an oyster-shell, wrote upon it the name of the citizen whom he wished to be banished, and then carried it to a place in the market-place which was fenced off with palings. The archons now first of all counted the whole number of shells; for if the whole number of voters were less than six thousand, the ostracism was null and void. After this, they counted the number of times each name occurred, and that man against whom most votes were recorded they sent into exile for ten years, allowing him the use of his
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