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Drawing Lots - Irad Malkin, Josine Blok

Drawing Lots

From Egalitarianism to Democracy in Ancient Greece
Buch | Hardcover
536 Seiten
2024
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-775347-7 (ISBN)
CHF 169,30 inkl. MwSt
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.

Irad Malkin is Emeritus Professor of History at Tel Aviv University, a Foreign Member of the Athens National Academy, a member of the European Network for the Study of Ancient Greek History, and the author of numerous books, including A Small Greek World. Josine Blok is Professor Emeritus of Ancient History and Classical Civilization at Utrecht University, a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, and co-founder and chair of the European Network for the Study of Ancient Greek History. Her previous books include Citizenship in Classical Athens.

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
7. Setting the stage
8. Drawing lots for polis office
9. Drawing lots for governance: a political innovation

Part IV Conclusions
10. Conclusions and implications
11. Drawing lots today: fair distribution and a stronger democracy

Appendix A Lexicographical survey: lottery practices in the archaic and classical periods

Bibliography
Index
Index locorum

Erscheinungsdatum
Zusatzinfo 14 line drawings, 9 photographs, 3 maps
Verlagsort New York
Sprache englisch
Maße 145 x 226 mm
Gewicht 907 g
Themenwelt Geschichte Allgemeine Geschichte Vor- und Frühgeschichte
Geschichte Allgemeine Geschichte Altertum / Antike
Geisteswissenschaften Religion / Theologie Weitere Religionen
Recht / Steuern Allgemeines / Lexika
Recht / Steuern Rechtsgeschichte
ISBN-10 0-19-775347-7 / 0197753477
ISBN-13 978-0-19-775347-7 / 9780197753477
Zustand Neuware
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