EPIGRAPHIC MUSEUM
INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM DAY 2020
Our regime is called democracy.
Political equality and equality before the law in ancient Athens
Modern democratic regimes are representative. Power in them is exercised by the elected representatives of the citizens. In contrast, the Athenian democracy of Classical period was a direct democracy. Its main characteristics were the sovereignty of the citizens and the political equality. All Athenian citizens were entitled and obliged to participate with equal rights in the assembly of all the Athenian citizens (males born to free Athenian father and Athenian mother and after the completing their military training as ephebes). At the assembly’s meetings, they decided by vote on all public affairs, and their decisions, the decrees, had the force of law.
Modern democratic regimes are representative. Power in them is exercised by the elected representatives of the citizens. In contrast, the Athenian democracy of Classical period was a direct democracy. Its main characteristics were the sovereignty of the citizens and the political equality. All Athenian citizens were entitled and obliged to participate with equal rights in the assembly of all the Athenian citizens (males born to free Athenian father and Athenian mother and after the completing their military training as ephebes). At the assembly’s meetings, they decided by vote on all public affairs, and their decisions, the decrees, had the force of law.
A second measure was the use of lot for the election of offcials and jurors. Allotment provided equal opportunities to all citizens to serve as magistrates or jurors and was one of the procedures by which the Athenians safeguarded democracy and prevented corruption.
Το κληρωτήριο ΕΜ 13255
Aristotle gives us information about the procedure of allotment in his work The Athenian Constitution. According to him, only the military officials, the military treasurer, the treasurer of the theorika, the curator of springhouses, and officials who were responsible for the military training of the youth (epheboi) such as the sophronistes, the kosmetes and the didaskaloi were not elected by lot but by a show of hands (cheirotonia) in the assebly.
From the middle of the 5th c. BC. the selection by lot was made by using black and white beans as lots. The procedure was as follows: two boxes were set up. White and black beans were put in one of them. White beans were equal to the number of the officials under election and the rest were black. In the second box the names of the candidates were placed. A name was drawn from one box and a bean from the other. Beans of white colour, meant selection, while beans of black colour meant rejection of the candidates.
From the middle of the 5th century BC onwards, the 6000 citizens who participated as jurors in the court of Heliaia were also appointed by lot every year. These jurors were distributed by additional allotments in the smaller panels of Heliaia. During the 4th c. BC, these additional allotments were applied not at the beginning of the year but every morning before sunrise, so that a juror could not be bribed.
During the 4th cent. B.C. the process of the lot became more systematic and included the use of allotment machines (kleroterion). These had slots for receiving bronze identification tickets (pinakia) with the names of the candidates or with other elements of the lot. The number of slots of a kleroterion depended on the purpose of the lot.
Kleroteria used for allocating judges and appointment of officials had many columns of slots, into which bronze tokens (pinakia) bearing the names of the candidates were placed.
On the face of the kleroterion ΕΜ 13255 (before 162/1 BC) two vertical columns of slots are carved. The first column preserves seven slots while the second eight, for the insertion of bronze tokens (identification tickets - pinakia) which bore the names of the candidates or other details of the allotment procedure. On the left side of the kleroterion, a groove is visible which originally accommodated a bronze tube ending at the top in a funnel for receiving the ballots. Judging from the size of the monument, it is estimated that originally there were 12 slots in each column, a number that suggests an allotment procedure for the election of a body of 12 officials, one from each of the 12 (at the time) Athenian tribes. The double columns of slots, each one of which is presumed to have been carved at a different date, indicates that the kleroterion was modified to be used in double allotment procedures (synkleroseis). It is possible that the second column was used for purpose of either determining the particular office, or the order of succession of the officials, or the courtrooms, if the lot involved judges.
On the kleroterion EM 8984 (162/1 BC) twelve slots of slightly varying size have been carved in a vertical arrangement. The number of the slots indicates that the kleroterion was most likely used to determine the order in which the tribes – twelve at that time – would hold the Prytany during the year. Along the left side of the kleroterion, a rounded groove accommodated a bronze tube which had a funnel at its upper end and a crank or movable cover at its lower. The magistrate responsible for the lottery would place balls bearing the names of the twelve tribes into the funnel, causing the balls to line up in random order inside the metal tube. The ball of the tribe that came out first represented the tribe that would preside, and a token with the tribe’s name was placed in the appropriate slot. It is also possible that the kleroterion was used to determine a body of twelve officials within each tribe. In this case, the balls would represent the names of the candidates from each tribe and the lottery would have been repeated until all twelve representatives were elected from all the tribes.
Text: Eleni Zavvou
Allotment machine (kleroterion) ΕΜ 8984