Equality by lot

Irad Malkin is a prominent Israeli classicist. He has already been mentioned twice on Equality by Lot, when in 2013 and 2014 he penned op-ed pieces advocating for the use of sortition as a tool of democracy. It seems that lottery and its role in Ancient Greek society has become Malkin’s main focus of research over the last few years. The product of this research is a forthcoming book called “Greeks Drawing Lots: from Egalitarianism to Democracy”.

A first taste of Malkin’s research is already available in the form of a chapter in a book published last year edited by Sofia Greaves and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill and titled “Rome and the Colonial City: Rethinking the Grid”. The chapter written by Malkin is called “Reflections on egalitarianism and the foundation of Greek poleis“. It opens as follows:

When Greeks founded new settlements, they were facing the question of how to distribute plots of land to individual settlers. The main reason individuals joined a new foundation was to get such a plot of land (klêros), regardless of other reasons for colonisation. Back home, two brothers would need to share a klêros through partible inheritance by lot. However, if one brother stayed and another left for a new settlement abroad, both would have ended up, each, with a viable klêros. In and of itself, a klêros provides a basis for livelihood and a mutually recognised share of political and military power within the community. Practices of Greek colonisation are parallel to the Greek practice of ‘partible inheritance by lot’, since the same general principles and structures apply to both when it comes to land distribution: equality before the chance of the lottery, and, when possible, equality (sometimes equitability) of the size of the klêros.

From this we learn, if I understand correctly, that (like the English word “lot”?!) the word “klêros”, as in the randomizing machine “klêroterion”, meant in the first place a piece of fertile land, and the use of this word for randomization is derived from the custom of using the lottery for the distribution of such lands.

Malkin’s main thesis appears to be that the lottery was an embodiment of an egalitarian ideology. This ideology was especially influential in newly established colonies was in competition with oligarchization trends in more established settlements. It is this ideology that eventually, over the course of hundreds of years, developed into the Greek democracy.

There is no doubt that ‘elites’ were prominent in the archaic period. However, we need to recognise that those elites were not ‘blood aristocracies’, and thus were more porous and flexible. I see the movement of founding new colonies conveying, beside the ‘elite vector’, a competing, egalitarian one, expressed in the institution of drawing lots for selection and distribution. The aim of such lotteries is for all participants to be interchangeable, implying that all are considered equal. In my opinion, whereas elite vectors tended to dominate political communities, archaic Greek societies kept experimenting with ‘re-starts’, which followed an egalitarian vector.

The attested, comprehensive community-distributions in the archaic period point to a strong sense of membership in a community on equal footing. All members deserve individual portions; when possible, they simply get them. If not, the lot is used so that each portion is equal (isos) or at least ‘like’ the next portion (homoios).

Comprehensive distributions imply a well-defined ‘community’. Outsiders do not merit shares. The size may vary from the tiny group of brothers sharing an inheritance, a cult community sharing by lot equal portions of sacrificial meat Homeric army sharing booty by lot or a group of colonists sharing equal portions of land, distributed by lot.

Filed under: Academia, Books, Distribution by lot, History, Press, Sortition |