The more frequently I read over this Oration, the more do I feel persuaded that it is a spurious composition of one or two generations after the time to which it professes to refer. My reasons for this opinion have been already stated in previous notes, nor do I think that Dr. Thirlwall’s Appendix is successful in removing the objections against the genuineness of the speech. See my preceding vol. vi, ch. xlvii, p. 6, note. [157] Aristophan. Pac. 680. [158] Thucyd. viii, 73. ~Ὑπέρβολόν τέ τινα τῶν~ Ἀθηναίων, μοχθηρὸν ἄνθρωπον, ὠστρακισμένον οὐ διὰ δυνάμεως καὶ ἀξιώματος φόβον, ἀλλὰ διὰ πονηρίαν καὶ αἰσχύνην τῆς πόλεως. According to Androtion (Fragm. 48, ed. Didot.)—ὠστρακισμένον διὰ φαυλότητα. Compare about Hyperbolus, Plutarch, Nikias, c. 11; Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 13; Ælian. V. H. xii, 43; Theopompus, Fragm. 102, 103, ed. Didot. At the time when the resolution was adopted at Athens, to take a vote of ostracism suggested by the political dissension between Nikias and Alkibiadês, about twenty-four years had elapsed since a similar vote had been resorted to; the last example having been that of Periklês and Thucydidês son of Melêsius, the latter of whom was ostracized about 442 B.C. The democratical constitution had become sufficiently confirmed to lessen materially the necessity for ostracism as a safeguard against individual usurpers: moreover, there was now full confidence in the numerous dikasteries as competent to deal with the greatest of such criminals, thus abating the necessity as conceived in men’s minds, not less than the real necessity, for such precautionary intervention. Under such a state of things, altered reality as well as altered feeling, we are not surprised to find that the vote of ostracism now invoked, though we do not know the circumstances which immediately preceded it, ended in an abuse, or rather in a sort of parody, of the ancient preventive. At a moment of extreme heat of party dispute, the friends of Alkibiadês probably accepted the challenge of Nikias and concurred in supporting a vote of ostracism; each hoping to get rid of the opponent. The vote was accordingly decreed, but before it actually took place, the partisans of both changed their views, and preferred to let the political dissension proceed without closing it by separating the combatants. But the ostracizing vote, having been formally pronounced, could not now be prevented from taking place: it was always, however, perfectly general in its form, admitting of any citizen being selected for temporary banishment. Accordingly, the two opposing parties, each doubtless including various clubs, or hetæries, and according to some accounts the friends of Phæax also, united to turn the vote against some one else: and they fixed upon a man whom all of them jointly disliked, Hyperbolus.[159] By thus concurring, they obtained a sufficient number of votes against him to pass the sentence, and he was sent into temporary banishment.