The Greater or City Dionysia, the annual Athenian state festival in honor of Dionysus, had added comedies to its program in 487 BCE; Aeschylus wins his first victory at in 484 BCE.

Xanthippus is a typical member of the first Athenian generation able to use the new weapon of the popular vote against the old power of family politics.

Almost certainly a member of an old family, Xanthippus had begun his political career by a dynastic marriage into the controversial family of the Alcmaeonids.

He soon left their political camp, probably on the question of relations with Persia, and has taken the new path of legal prosecution as a political weapon.

Perhaps outbid in his search for popular support, Xanthippus is ostracized in 484 BCE.

This novel custom, which made its first historical appearance in 487, is a way of getting rid of a man for ten years without depriving him of his property.

First, a vote is taken as to whether an ostracism should be held in principle; if the voters want one, a second vote is taken, and, if the total number of votes now cast exceeds six thousand, the “candidate” whose name appears on the largest number of potsherds, or ostraca, goes into this special sort of exile.