By these reforms the constitution became much more democratic than that
of Solon. The laws of Solon had been obliterated by disuse during the
period of the tyranny, while Cleisthenes substituted new ones with the
object of securing the goodwill of the masses. Among these was the law
concerning ostracism. Four years after the establishment of this system,
in the archonship of Hermocreon, they first imposed upon the Council of
Five Hundred the oath which they take to the present day. Next they
began to elect the generals by tribes, one from each tribe, while the
Polemarch was the commander of the whole army. Then, eleven years
later, in the archonship of Phaenippus they won the battle of Marathon;
and two years after this victory, when the people had now gained
self-confidence, they for the first time made use of the law of
ostracism. This had originally been passed as a precaution against men
in high office, because Pisistratus took advantage of his position as a
popular leader and general to make himself tyrant; and the first person
ostracized was one of his relatives, Hipparchus son of Charmus, of the
deme of Collytus, the very person on whose account especially
Cleisthenes had enacted the law, as he wished to get rid of him.
Hitherto, however, he had escaped; for the Athenians, with the usual
leniency of the democracy, allowed all the partisans of the tyrants,
who had not joined in their evil deeds in the time of the troubles to
remain in the city; and the chief and leader of these was Hipparchus.
Then in the very next year, in the archonship of Telesinus, they for
the first time since the tyranny elected, tribe by tribe, the nine
Archons by lot out of the five hundred candidates selected by the
demes, all the earlier ones having been elected by vote; and in the
same year Megacles son of Hippocrates, of the deme of Alopece, was
ostracized. Thus for three years they continued to ostracize the
friends of the tyrants, on whose account the law had been passed; but
in the following year they began to remove others as well, including
any one who seemed to be more powerful than was expedient. The first
person unconnected with the tyrants who was ostracized was Xanthippus
son of Ariphron. Two years later, in the archonship of Nicodemus, the
mines of Maroneia were discovered, and the state made a profit of a
hundred talents from the working of them. Some persons advised the
people to make a distribution of the money among themselves, but this
was prevented by Themistocles. He refused to say on what he proposed to
spend the money, but he bade them lend it to the hundred richest men in
Athens, one talent to each, and then, if the manner in which it was
employed pleased the people, the expenditure should be charged to the
state, but otherwise the state should receive the sum back from those
to whom it was lent. On these terms he received the money and with it
he had a hundred triremes built, each of the hundred individuals
building one; and it was with these ships that they fought the battle
of Salamis against the barbarians. About this time Aristides the son of
Lysimachus was ostracized. Three years later, however, in the
archonship of Hypsichides, all the ostracized persons were recalled, on
account of the advance of the army of Xerxes; and it was laid down for
the future that persons under sentence of ostracism must live between
Geraestus and Scyllaeum, on pain of losing their civic rights
irrevocably.