Lifted from a friends book, The title of which escapes me… bummer:
The Athenians revised a means to suppress any person whose activities endangered the populace, even though he could not be classified as incompetent or treacherous.
At specific times the assembly could to hold an ostracism every citizen could then write on a ballot the name of anyone he thought dangerous to the state. any man who received more than six thousand votes was sent into exile for 1o years. but he was not dishonoured, nor did he lose his property. ON many occasions in its history the Athenian democracy thus rid itself of men who had become so powerful that they represented a threat to the independence of the state.