Against Alcibiades: For Deserting the Ranks

So, if anyone among you feels pity for those who lost their lives in the sea-fight, or is ashamed for those who were enslaved by the enemy, or resents the destruction of the walls, or hates the Lacedaemonians, or feels anger against the Thirty, he should hold this man’s father responsible for all these things, and reflect that it was Alcibiades, his great-grand-father, and Megacles, his father’s grandfather on the mother’s side, whom your ancestors ostracized,[*](The famous Alcibiades was the son of Cleinias (son of Alcibiades, opponent of the Peisistratids, 510 b.c.), and Deinomache (daughter of Megacles, supporter of the Peisistratid party, 486 b.c.). The people once a year could vote for the expulsion of one citizen from the city, by writing his name on a potsherd (ὄστρακον).) both of them twice, and that the older among you have condemned his father to death.