Greeks Drawing Lots

Unity and Diversity in a Panhellenic Mindset and Practice

Abstract

The drawing of lots in ancient Greece was an institution that expressed the egalitarian values, practices, and mindset apparent for three centuries before the emergence of the Athenian democracy. Constituted by a large-scale mixture lottery, classical Athenian democracy with its choice of magistrates by lot, would never have seen the light of day without the broad spectrum of drawing of lots that preceded it. The first part of this article, by Irad Malkin, presents drawing lots’ distributive (e.g., land, booty, catch, inheritance, colonial plots), selective (e.g., magistrates), procedural (e.g., taking turns), and mixture functions. The concept of ‘equal portions’ moves from the concrete equal sharing of portions (isomoiria) to the abstract sharing of equal portions of the law, isonomia. A mindset with strong egalitarian features is revealed with a tendency to make equality and equity as close as possible: Equal chances before the lot and, when possible, equal outcomes. The role of the gods is mostly not to determine results, but to grant validity and legitimacy to a procedure under their auspices. The following section, by Josine Blok, examines why drawing lots for office created difficulties not encountered in the other, common uses of lots, how nonetheless this practice spread across the Greek world and due to the variety of political systems of the poleis came to highlight the diversity in ancient Greece.