11.5
For the time being this delighted and amused the people, but afterwards they were vexed to think that the ordinance of ostracism had been degraded by its application to so unworthy a man. They thought that even chastisement had its dignity, or rather, they regarded the ostracism as a chastisement in the cases of Thucydides and Aristides and such men, but in the case of Hyperbolus as an honor, and as good ground for boasting on his part, since for his baseness he had met with the same fate as the best men. And so Plato the comic poet somewhere said of him:—
11.6
Indeed he suffered worthy fate for men of old Albeit a fate too good for him and for his brands. For such as him the ostrakon was ne’er devised. And in the end no one was ever ostracised after Hyperbolus, but he was the last, as Hipparchus of Cholargus, a kinsman of the famous tyrant Peisistratus, was the first to be so banished.488-487 B.C.
11.7
Verily fortune is an uncertain thing, and incalculable. Had Nicias run the risk with Alcibiades of being ostracised, he had either carried the day, expelled his rival, and then dwelt safely in the city; or, defeated, he had himself gone forth from the city before his last misfortunes, and had preserved the reputation of being a most excellent general.
11.7
I am well aware that Theophrastus says that Hyperbolus was ostracised when Phaeax, and not Nicias, was striving against Alcibiades, but most writers state the case as I have done.
