Equality by lot

Excerpts from an article on the CBC website.

Athens: Birth of Democracy, a documentary from The Nature of Things, follows host Anthony Morgan as he investigates the origins of democracy in ancient Athens, how it functioned and what this political experiment may have to teach us today.

Standing at the Leokoreion — a recently excavated open-air temple built in the centre of ancient Athens — archaeologist John Camp shows Morgan the exact spot where the spark of the Western world’s first democratic government is believed to have ignited.

Camp, former director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, points to an inscription that reveals it was here, in 514 BC, where one of Athens’s two ruling tyrants, Hipparchus, was assassinated.

The death of Hipparchus triggered a political revolution that would eventually transfer power from Athens’s elites to ordinary citizens, Camp tells Morgan in the documentary.

[A radical aspect of the Athenian democracy] was the fact that most officials […] weren’t elected — they were chosen at random by lottery.

A machine designed to ensure fairness

At the Museum of the Ancient Agora, Morgan is met by archaeologist Liliane López-Rabatel, who shows him the remnants of an ancient machine known as a kleroterion that was designed to quickly select citizens at random for public service.

“Every citizen had a tablet — a pinakion — on which were engraved his name, his patrimony and the name of his deme [district or village],” says López-Rabatel.

“When most people think about a democracy, they think about choosing the best person for the job,” says Morgan. “Why would you want to pick people by lottery instead of using elections?”

“Democracy is not election,” Camp says, reflecting on the concept of allotment. “The ancients would laugh at us if we said that’s [what makes] a democratic society. What makes it democratic is the level of participation by everybody.”

After nearly two centuries, democracy in Athens collapsed after endless wars and internal strife drained resources and divided citizens. As public trust eroded and corruption took over, Athens was too fragmented to defend itself, first from Macedonian conquests and eventually Roman rule.

Today, democracies continue to grapple with declining trust and institutional corruption. Athens: Birth of Democracy examines both the remarkable innovations and hidden dark side of Athenian dēmokratia, revealing lessons we may be able to take from the ancient experiment that started it all.

Watch Athens: Birth of Democracy on CBC Gem and the Nature of Things YouTube channel.

Filed under: Academia, Athens, Elections, History, Press, Sortition, video |