Until last year, no comprehensive monograph on the drawing of lots in ancient Greece existed. This lacuna is the more remarkable given that the practice of drawing lots was ubiquitous in ancient Greek society, applied in multiple forms and to many domains of life. Lots were drawn for the distribution of goods, for selection for a special task, for setting an order, for consulting the gods, for distribution of offices and other purposes. So far, studies of the topic consisted, by and large, of two extensive encyclopaedic articles on the phenomenon in general, one in French (1907) and one in German (1927). Some publications focused on specific aspects or applications, notably James Headlam's groundbreaking analysis (1891) of the use of lots in the Athenian democracy, Bořivoj Borecký's analysis of the Greek vocabulary of lots (1965), E. Staveley's Greek and Roman voting (1972), Mogens Hansen's examining the introduction of allotment for political office (1990), and Claire Taylor's comparison of the results of election versus sortition in Athens (2007). But there was no systematic study of the practice, until in 2024 two monographs appeared, Drawing lots in ancient Greece, from egalitarianism to democracy in ancient Greece by Irad Malkin and myself, and Aaron Gebler's book based on his dissertation (Leipzig, December 2022) here under review.

The core of Gebler's study charts how the drawing of lots was applied in five domains of life: first the military world, next religion, the distribution of land, athletic and other competitions, and finally the political domain. An introduction on the main questions, earlier scholarship, the terminology of sortition, sources, and some methodological considerations precedes these five chapters, and at the end Gebler offers the results of his inquiry and a final conclusion.

The aim of the study is to analyse the application and meaning of drawing lots in the Greek world from the 7th to the 5th century in Athens (13). For the archaic period sources are relatively few and difficult to interpret: in Homeric epic and other poetic genres facts and fiction are deeply intertwined, and prose texts of later date (Aristotle's Politics, the Athenaion Politeia) look back to a time on which they were not always well informed. For the 5th century, many more literary sources are available, and in addition Gebler uses a selection of inscriptions. For his paragraph on lottery machines (kleroteria) as used in Athens and later also elsewhere, archaeological remains and modern reconstructions serve to show how such machines worked.

In the five chapters that form the core of the book, Gebler discusses a useful selection of cases, episodes, and examples of the use of lots. Throughout, his arguments are careful and precise, and although he is reluctant to give the benefit of the doubt to any ambiguity in the evidence, he is not afraid of challenging some assumptions of previous generations of scholars. Gebler recognizes that, in the vocabulary of sortition, the noun kleros is not a certain indication of lot practice, whereas the verb lanchano usually is (24-33, 142). Drawing lots is not inherently tied to democracy, as scholars often supposed, and hence in the archaic period the absence of democracy does not ipso facto preclude polis offices or other valuables to be distributed by lot. An essential distinction between sacred and profane applications of the lot does not work for ancient Greece, so even if a religious foundation of drawing lots cannot be established, as Fustel de Coulanges had proposed in the 19th century, many cases reveal belief in some influence of the divine (59-60). Overall, as Gebler explains in his conclusion, the application of drawing lots in politics can only be understood when we take into account that the practice had been common in other domains of life for several centuries. It is a means of decision making for which all participants in the process need to agree on the use and implementation of the method and its results.

The five chapters on the historical applications offer a solid exposition of the material, informative and well presented. Considering that this is a dissertation, so a first academic aptitude test, Gebler's work is impressive for its scope and clarity. Some of his main findings (above) are in agreement with ours in Drawing lots, and where he and I disagree, for instance on Solon's political system, the sources are anything but unequivocal; of course, disagreement is a starting point for debate, not a problem. But a few features of his book are in my view less satisfactory, which are largely due to Gebler's set up of his research, namely an analysis of cases per domain, an overly cautious reading of the material, and an apparent reluctance to address the topic from a wider, conceptual perspective.

Drawing lots as a means of decision making raises the overall question: why this method? What does this method do what other methods do not? Do the various forms of application of drawing lots have some factor(s) in common and if so, which? Is it really only 'Kontingenzbewältigung' (13) and if so, what exactly has drawing lots to do with ruling out contingency? What did the extensive drawing of lots mean to Greek culture and society in its entirety, and why was Greece so different from its surrounding cultures in this respect? Such overarching questions are not really addressed. Possible reasons for drawing lots (avoiding conflict, asking divine counsel, creating coherence, and, last but not least, creating equality) are scattered and repeated across the book, but appearing in isolation they do not add up to overarching, conceptual results. Instead, they lead occasionally to contradictions: for instance, for the Tamiai (treasurers) of Athena Gebler argues in one place (182, 186) that they were elected, and in another (205) that they were drawn by lot.

Second, in his overall discussion of sortition in various domains of life and his justified conclusion that its use for assigning political office rested on its tradition in other domains, Gebler gives priority to the military field as the 'prime mover' of the practice (167-171; 183) and, fittingly, makes it the first topic of the book. He supports this choice by assumptions of Josiah Ober (The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, 2015; German 2016) on possible equality among early Iron Age warrior groups, which would have been the beginning of citizenship in Greece. Gebler argues that distribution of war booty by lot in such groups is attested in Homeric epic, while he doubts whether the distribution of equal plots of land by lot in colonies is as solidly attested (145). However, the latter practice is as firmly attested in Homer as that of booty, and for colonies it is not only mentioned in inscriptions but also confirmed by archaeological evidence that Gebler does not use. Furthermore, warfare alone cannot account for the origins of citizenship in Greece (pace Ober with a long line of respectable historians). Land holding, association by religion, networking through trade and social exchange, to name but a few factors, were at least as important, but Gebler does not take other, more recent approaches to citizenship (for instance Defining citizenship in archaic Greece, A. Duplouy and R. Brock, eds (Oxford, 2018)) into account. Briefly, the priority Gebler gives to the military field impresses me as the result of a preconceived choice, partly induced by the set-up of the work in domains and partly by outdated views on Greek citizenship (e.g. 110 notions now abandoned on aristocracy and phratries). Drawing lots appears historically in the Greek world in several domains simultaneously, and the sources do not suggest unambiguously one application driving the others. I think that the distribution of partible inheritance by lot is more likely to have preceded the other applications, which all reproduce the equality of the participants, although I cannot prove this option more strongly than Gebler his. But inheritance rights are fundamental to a society in a way military organization is not, and in this respect Greece was different from the surrounding civilizations.

Finally, Gebler works primarily with literary sources; inscriptions figure rarely, and archaeological evidence only for the kleroteria. I understand that for a dissertation expecting a full coverage is asking too much, but here the emphasis on one type of source and an apparent lack of expertise in others influences the result. Analysis of land distribution cannot do without archaeological information, as we just saw. Historical accounts must be compared with epigraphical evidence, an issue Gebler clearly struggles with. For an assessment of Draco's laws, he cannot let go of the information on lots in Ath.Pol. 4.3, even if he knows that this section belongs to the 4th century, and he relegates the re-inscription of Draco's laws to a footnote in the outdated edition IG I2 115 instead of IG I3 104, or even better OR 183 with up-to-date commentary.

Despite these reservations, however, Gebler is to be congratulated on a pioneering book. Exploring such untrodden ground was a daunting task which he has brought to a commendable end.

Josine Blok