Note 281 — Chapter XXXI · GRECIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE PEISISTRATIDS. — REVOLUTION OF KLEISTHENES AND ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY AT ATHENS.
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Aristotle (Polit. iii, 8, 6) seems to recognize the political necessity of the ostracism, as applied even to obvious superiority of wealth, connection, etc. (which he distinguishes pointedly from superiority of merit and character), and upon principles of symmetry only, even apart from dangerous designs on the part of the superior mind. No painter, he observes, will permit a foot, in his picture of a man, to be of disproportionate size with the entire body, though separately taken it may be finely painted; nor will the chorus-master allow any one voice, however beautiful, to predominate beyond a certain proportion over the rest.
His final conclusion is, however, that the legislator ought, if possible, so to construct his constitution, as to have no need of such exceptional remedy; but, if this cannot be done, then the second-best step is to apply the ostracism. Compare also v, 2, 5.
The last century of the free Athenian democracy realized the first of these alternatives.