User:Lemurcat111/Kleroterion

Kleroterion

A kleroterion (Ancient Greek: κληρωτήριον) was a randomization device used by the Athenian polis during the period of democracy to select citizens to the Athenian council (boule), to most state offices, as well as to the Athenian legislative body (nomothetai), and to court juries.

The kleroterion was a slab of stone incised with rows of slots and with an attached tube. The kleroterion added variance into the Athenian legal system much like modern day juror selection processes. The kleroterion was put into place as a preventative measure to keep the Athenian democracy free from corruption. Aristotle wrote in Constitution of the Athenians that the person whose duty it is to draw the lots is themselves "chosen by lot, lest, if the Token-hanger were always the same person, he might tamper with the results".^[1]

History

Prior to 403 BCE, the courts published a schedule and the number of dikastes required for the day. Those citizens who wanted to be dikastes queued at the entrance of the court at the beginning of the court day. Originally, the procedure was based on a "first come, first serve" basis. Beginning in 403 BCE, Athenian allotment underwent a series of reforms, and from 340 BCE onwards, they employed the kleroterion^[2].

Procedure

In his Constitution of the Athenians, Aristotle gives an account of the selection of jurors to the dikastra. Each deme divided their dikastes into ten sections, which split the use of two kleroteria. Candidate citizens placed their identification token (pinaka) in the section's chest. Once each citizen who wished to become judge for the day placed their pinaka in the chest, the presiding archon shook the chest and drew out tokens. The citizen whose token was first drawn became the token inserter (empektes). The token inserter then pulled out tokens and inserted them into their corresponding sections. The kleroterion was divided into five columns, one column per tribe section (between two machines). Each row was known as a kanomides. Once the token inserter filled the kleroterion, the archon then placed a mix of black and white dice (kyboi) into the side of the kleroterion. The kyboi could be released individually by a mechanism that has not survived to posterity (but is speculated to be by two nails; one used to block the open end and another to separate the next die to fall from the rest of the dice above it, like an airlock.^[2]) The number of white dice was proportional to the number of jurors needed. The archon allowed the dice to fall through a tube on the side of the kleroterion and drew them one by one. If the die was white, the top row was selected as jurors. If the die was black, the archon moved on to the next row down from the top and repeated the process until all juror positions were filled for the day.^[3]

Scholarship

The first significant examination of Athenian allotment procedures was James Wycliffe Headlam's Election by Lot, first published in 1891. Aristotle's Constitution of the Athenians, the text of which was first discovered in 1879 and first published as Aristotle's in 1890, became an important resource for scholars. Throughout the text, Aristotle makes references to a lottery system which was used to appoint government officials.

Archaeologists first discovered kleroteria in the 1930s in the Athenian Agora, dating them to the second century BC. In Aristotle, the Kleroteria, and the Courts (1939), Sterling Dow gave an overview and analysis of the discovered machines. Contrary to previous scholars, who translated kleroterion as "allotment room," Dow reasoned that kleroterion cannot be translated to mean "room," as Aristotle writes: "There are five kanomides in each of the kleroteria. Whenever he puts in the kyboi, the archon draws lots for the tribe the kleroterion."^[4]^[1] Dow concluded that Aristotle's fourth-century description of the kleroterion applied to the second-century kleroterion. Dow then correctly translated kleroterion as "allotment machine".^[5]

In 1937, Dow published a catalog of his archaeological discoveries in the Athenian agora.^[6] He describes eleven kleroteria'c fragments:

Sterling Dow's Kleroterion Fragments^[6]
Fragment	Description
I	Most complete fragment, contains only one column of slots. Intact groove and inverted cone to place dice into
II	2 columns of slots, 7 intact in one column and 8 in the other. Significant overhang above
III	Traces indicate 4 columns, much larger cone
IV	Small fragment
V	Small fragment but significant because the grooves for slots were unusually long and angled.
VI	Multiple small fragments, presumed to be parts of much larger machine
VII	Small fragment
VIII	Small fragment, but can infer that it was part of a large kleroterion with nearly 300 slots
IX	Uneven holes and poor workmanship
X	Large and well preserved fragment, inferred to be about half of the original
XI	Largest section of the kleroteria, possibly with nearly 1000 slots

References

Dibbell, Julian (September 1998). "Info Tech of Ancient Democracy". Alamut.com.
Demont, Paul (December 2010). "Allotment and Democracy in Ancient Greece". Books and Ideas.
Orlandini, Alessandro (April 2018) https://www.academia.edu/36510282/KLEROTERION._simulation_of_the_allotment_of_dikastai. simulation of the allotment.

^ ^a ^b Aristotle. The Athenian Constitution. 63-64. Translated by Kenyon, Frederic.
^ Boegehold, Alan L.; Camp, John McK; The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, eds. (1995). The lawcourts at Athens: sites, buildings, equipment, procedure, and testimonia. The Athenian agora. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. ISBN 978-0-87661-228-6.
^ Crochetière, Erin (December 2013). "Democracy and the Lot: The Lottery of Public Offices in Classical Athens". McGill University Masters Theses.
^ Dow, Sterling (1939). "Aristotle, the Kleroteria, and the Courts". Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. 50: 1–34. doi:10.2307/310590. JSTOR 310590.
^ Boegehold, Alan L.; Camp, John McK; The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, eds. (1995). The lawcourts at Athens: sites, buildings, equipment, procedure, and testimonia. The Athenian agora. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. ISBN 978-0-87661-228-6.
^ ^a ^b Sterling, Dow (1937). "Prytaneis: A Study of The Inscriptions Honoring The Athenian Councillors". The American Excavations in the Athenian Agora Hesperia: Supplement 1. 1: 198–215.

External links

Patrice Masini, Le tirage au sort démocratique, CNRS Images (2017) (a short video by French scholars)
Alessandro Orlandini, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gt9H7nbZjAw, (2018) (video of the procedure simulation)
The Machine that Selected the Citizens of Athens

[:13-1] Aristotle. The Athenian Constitution. 63-64. Translated by Kenyon, Frederic.

[:2-2] Boegehold, Alan L.; Camp, John McK; The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, eds. (1995). The lawcourts at Athens: sites, buildings, equipment, procedure, and testimonia. The Athenian agora. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. ISBN 978-0-87661-228-6.

[3] Crochetière, Erin (December 2013). "Democracy and the Lot: The Lottery of Public Offices in Classical Athens". McGill University Masters Theses.

[:0-4] Dow, Sterling (1939). "Aristotle, the Kleroteria, and the Courts". Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. 50: 1–34. doi:10.2307/310590. JSTOR 310590.

[5] Boegehold, Alan L.; Camp, John McK; The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, eds. (1995). The lawcourts at Athens: sites, buildings, equipment, procedure, and testimonia. The Athenian agora. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. ISBN 978-0-87661-228-6.

[:1-6] Sterling, Dow (1937). "Prytaneis: A Study of The Inscriptions Honoring The Athenian Councillors". The American Excavations in the Athenian Agora Hesperia: Supplement 1. 1: 198–215.

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