Greeks Drawing Lots: Unity and Diversity in a Panhellenic Mindset and Practice - C&M Supplementum 1 - 2024 - 199-220

Aug 25, 2026

The text explains how drawing lots in ancient Greece functioned as an egalitarian institution for centuries before Athenian democracy. It shows distributive, selective, procedural, and mixed uses of lots, linking “equal portions” from concrete isomoiria to abstract isonomia. Gods typically do not determine outcomes but legitimize procedures. It also analyzes why lot-based office created distinct challenges, and how varied polis systems shaped unity and diversity across the Greek world.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages22

Reading Time55 min

AccessFree to download

Unity and Diversity in a Panhellenic Mindset and Practice

Values, practices, and mindset before Athenian democracy

Equal portions and the shift from isomoiria to isonomia

Procedure legitimacy and the role of the gods

Horizontal community and membership by lot

Ubiquity of lotteries across private and public life

GREEKS DRAWING LOTS: UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN A PANHELLENIC MINDSET AND PRACTICE 1 By Irad Malkin & Josine Blok Summary: 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 ofthe 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. 1 The following texts by Irad Malkin and Josine Blok sum up several points relevant to the issues of unity and diversity from our forthcoming study Drawing Lots: from Egalitarianism to Democracy in Ancient Greece, now in press with Oxford University Press. For this reason, the article contains only a limited number of footnotes.– A note on terminology: There are various available terms in English, such as ‘drawing lots’,‘lotteries’, ‘casting lots’, and‘sortition’. Each term evokes a different mental image (e.g., ‘casting’conveys throwing, whereas‘drawing’conveys pulling or lifting) . Since our emphasis is not on the precise protocols of using lots but on the institution, we opted, somewhat arbitrarily, for‘drawing lots’and‘lotteries’ interchangeably. Irad Malkin & Josine Blok: ‘Greeks Drawing Lots: Unity and Diversity in a Panhellenic Mindset and Practice’C&M Supplementum 1 (2024) 199-220. 200 IRAD MALKIN & JOSINE BLOK Irad Malkin I . 1 Drawing lots in the archaic and classical Greek world: A common ali ty of practice s and values To ask about the drawing of lots in ancient Greece is to ask about the values, practices, and mindset apparent for three centuries before the emergence of the Athenian democracy. Classical Athenian democracy would never have seen the light of day, were it not for the very broad spectrum of applications of the drawing of lots that preceded it. Some would recommend applying the ancient device to modern politics, but there is no sense in contemporary suggestions to reintroduce the lot into modern politics without an understanding of the Greek world of values, frame of reference, and state of mind that have been associated withdrawing lots in ancient Greece. A history of the lot is a history of how people distribute things, how they select individuals, how they take turns, how they inherit, and how they mix to form a more cohesive community. It is also a history of the ideas of equality and fairness, or rather fairness as equality. It is also a history ofthe idea ofa horizontal community: A community that recognizes itself as such, making decisions about and for itself, without recourse to external authority. For example, access to a drawing of lots to distribute booty, defines, exclusively, the contours ofthe group of‘sharers’: Who belongs and who is excluded from the circle. A drawing of lots implies ‘members only’: The ‘group’may be tiny; for example, two brothers

FAQs

What does drawing lots represent in ancient Greece before the Athenian democracy?

It expresses values, practices, and a mindset of equality and fairness that existed for three centuries prior to democracy.

How do “equal portions” and isonomia relate to drawing lots?

The concept moves from concrete equal sharing of portions (isomoiria) to the abstract sharing of equal portions of the law (isonomia), aiming for equal chances and, when possible, equal outcomes.

What role do the gods play in drawing lots?

The gods usually grant validity and legitimacy to the procedure rather than directly determining specific results.

Aug 25, 2026

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