Banished!

I was reading an article recently about a criminal being ostracised by his community. The word is used loosely nowadays when somebody is shunned. But back in ancient Athens it had a more specific meaning.

It arose from a process by which the citizens gathered and wrote the names of men they deemed dangerous to the State on pieces of broken earthenware. If a man's name turned up often enough, he was banished for 10 years.

These shards of pottery were gathered from the streets, and many resembled fragments of shell. So ostracism ultimately derives from the Greek ostrakon for 'oyster'.

The reason this particular banishment was only for a fixed period, and not indefinitely, was to prevent groups of citizens from ganging up on one person so that they could take his property after his exile. After ostracism, a man could return to his property with all his rights intact.

Incidentally I did wonder if ostrich also came from the same root but that actually comes from the Greek for a large sparrow.