Drawing Lots: From Egalitarianism to Democracy in Ancient Greece

Author: Irad Malkin; Josine Blok
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780197753477
Published In: August 2024
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Description
Contents

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For the first time, this volume by two leading historians offers a comprehensive study of drawing lots as a central institution of ancient Greek society. Drawing lots expressed an egalitarian mindset that guided selection, procedure, and distribution by lot and was eventually introduced for polis governance, a Greek innovation that appears to be of increasing relevance today.

The authors explore the egalitarian, "horizonal," mindset expressed in using the lot instead of a top-down vision of authority and sovereignty. Drawing lots presupposed equality among participants deserving equal "portions" and was used for distributing land, inheritance, booty, sacrificial meat, selecting individuals, setting turns, mixing and reorganizing groups, and divining the will of the gods. Lot-oracles were used for divination; otherwise, the gods guarded the justice of the procedure but only rarely determined the outcome. It was a self-evident method broadly and ubiquitously applied. Drawing lots would crystallize community boundaries and emphasize its sovereignty. The book further investigates the transposition of the drawing of lots to the governance of the polis. The implied egalitarianism of the lot often conflicted with top-down perceptions of society and the values of inequality, status, and merit. Drawing lots was introduced into oligarchies and democracies at an uneven pace and scale. Its wide use in the democracy of classical Athens was an exceptional case, eye-catching both in antiquity and today.

The book concludes with a discussion about the meaning of the Greek examples for drawing lots today and the increasing interest in using random selection in politics as a possibility for modern democracies around the world. The appendix surveys the Greek vocabulary of lottery practices.

List of abbreviations

Preface

Introduction Greeks drawing lots: the practice and the mindset of egalitarianism

Part I. The lottery mindset: religion and society

1. Lotteries divine and human: the world of the Homeric epics

2. When does the lot reflect the will of the gods? Lots, oracles, divination, and the notion of moira

3. Sacrifice and feast: social values and the distribution of meat by lot

Part II. Equal and fair: inheritance, colonization, and mixture

4. Partible Inheritance by lot

5. Drawing lots on the Athenian stage

6. Founding cities and sharing in the polis: equality, allotment, and civic mixture

Part III. Drawing lots in polis governance