Poneroi vs. Chrestoi : The Ostracism of Hyperbolos and the Struggle for Hegemony in Athens after the Death of Perikles, Part II

The ostracism of Hyperbolos, a ponêros and sykophant, realized a comic plot, bordered on Pharmakos ritual, and inaugurated a period of increasingly violent stasis between chrêstoi and ponêroi that included the affairs of the Hermai and the Mysteries and the oligarchic takeovers of 411 and 404. The stasis ends with the labels ponêros and chrêstos negotiable. Over the next two generations, citizens of Hyperbolos' profile attained hegemony in Athenian society and the dikasterion evolved as the authoritative venue for the allocation of the labels. This marks the moment when ostracism is an institutional relic. This is the second and final part of a paper whose first part appeared in TAPA 134.1 (2004).