This is a book about how the Romans used sortitio (the casting of lots) to distribute provinces among their magistrates. The scope is from 227 bce down to the death of Augustus. It is divided into two parts: the first five chapters cover sortitio within the context of the magistracies and how the Romans ran their republican empire. Chapters 6–9 deal with sortitio as a technical practice, and cover everything about how Roman allotment actually was carried out: the procedure, the machines and even what was written on the lots. The book only occasionally touches on non-Roman and non-governmental allotment, and so is not a useful source (except comparatively) for those interested in the lot as a form of divination.
The book emerged from a 2019 Ph.D. thesis undertaken at Paris-Nanterre, and it displays both the pros and cons of this origin. B. is careful and exhaustive in discussing evidence, and usually in full control of it (especially with Livy). She asks the right questions, and she takes pains to delimit them before attempting an answer. This ensures rigour of thought; even where one disagrees with the answers, they are properly thought through and comprehensively argued. The downside of this is that the book is long. In what is clearly a book for specialists B. could have left out (for example) repeated accounts of the Sicilian envoys’ dismay in 210 bce at Marcellus receiving command on the island.
Chapters 1–3 present the period down to C. Gracchus’ Lex Sempronia de provinciis consularibus of c. 123 bce. B. puts sortitio into context, as one step in the larger process of choosing magistrates and assigning tasks to them. The former was the role of the People; defining the provinces was the role of the Senate. Eventually there was an equal number of magistrates and provinces, so that, when the sortitio took place, every magistrate received a province. Therefore, ‘La méthode aléatoire n’était donc employée qu'une fois que des choix fondés sur la raison et la délibération avaient été effectués’ (p. 32). This focus on the defined, limited role which the Romans gave to random choice is a recurrent feature of the book.
A great deal of space is devoted to exceptions and alternatives: whether and how a magistrate could decline a province (a practice B. calls excusatio), under which circumstances alternative methods of allocating provinces were called upon (such as agreement between magistrates or direct assignment by the Senate) and how the Senate could later change or redefine provinces in the light of events. The overall picture is one of flexibility; the downside of this was the great (and increasing) influence that consuls could bring to bear on the process, and the delays and problems that this caused in the business of the state.
Chapter 4 looks at the period from the Lex Sempronia down to 52 bce. B. is surely right to argue that the Lex Sempronia removed the consuls’ influence over which provinces they would receive, but she mistakenly believes that they therefore turned to the People. The potential for this certainly existed, but it is untrue to say that the People now regularly intervened in distributing the consular provinces. We have only three examples before Caesar in 59 (Marius in 107 and 88 and Glabrio in 67); slim pickings for a period of more than six decades. Still, B. otherwise makes good use of this logic, noting that it increased the number of consular excusationes. Her point here counters W. Blösel's argument for a demilitarisation of the Roman aristocracy (‘Die Demilitarisierung der römischen Nobilität von Sulla bis Caesar’, in: W. Blösel and K.-J. Hölkeskamp [edd.], Von der militia equestris zur militia urbana: Prominenzrollen und Karrierefelder im antiken Rom [2011], pp. 55–80).
B.'s second major insight in this chapter concerns the inscribed law on the Tabula Heracleensis or rather the provision in it (ll. 24–8) that instructs aediles to divide their tasks between themselves either within five days of becoming designatei (sic) or five days of entering into office. She sees this as a model for allocating urban provinciae among incoming praetors, which seems very probably true and is supported by other evidence she offers for the praetors of 69 and 57 bce receiving their urban provinciae soon after their election. In this context B. seems unaware of J.T. Ramsey's demolition of the idea that post-Sullan elections were routinely held in July (‘The Date of the Consular Elections in 63 and the Inception of Catiline's Conspiracy’, HSCP [2019], 213–69). Finally, I am unconvinced by B.'s argument that the double praetorian sortitio was a Sullan invention.
Chapter 5 traces the use of sortitio from the Lex Pompeia de provinciis of 52 bce to the death of Augustus. The key insight here is that the Pompeian law ended the People's role in directly choosing province-holders. Instead, it made the Senate supreme; rather than regulating aristocratic competition, sortitio now rotated provincial government among those close to the ruler.
In a fascinating discussion Chapter 6 explains the technical means of sortitio. We learn that the sitella was replaced by the mechanical urna uersatalis at some point in the early first century bce. The urna consisted of a wooden frame holding a rotating horizontal axle, on which was mounted a ceramic or bronze urn which contained the lots and which spat them out in some controlled fashion. This change in machine seems to have been accompanied by a change in the lot itself, which was initially a small wooden (possibly wax-covered) tablet but later a ball. In each case the lot was inscribed, probably with a number (at least in the republican period). Chapter 7 explores location and personnel. Sortitio had to take place within an augural templum; in Rome it seems temple tribunals were the normal location.
Chapter 8 explores the extent to which rigging took place. There is, of course, little evidence for a practice which would have been secret at the time. B.'s sensible approach is to look for unusual patterns in the prosopographical evidence. Her tentative conclusion is that there was little rigging in the period for which we have Livy, and not much more in the Ciceronian period.
The final chapter asks why the Romans resorted to sortitio and begins with a (not very satisfactory) discussion of the religious meaning of sortitio. It is fine to say that the act of allotment was under the gods’ protection, but sortitio was a method for choosing, for making decisions. The central question is surely whether or not the Romans believed that a god made that decision, and no clear answer is given. But B.'s discussion of sortitio's social function is excellent. She states, rightly I think, that sortitio gave a quick and legitimate result that respected the equality between different candidates and did not judge the worth of any of them; that is, it avoided inuidia and so removed grounds for complaint. This explains the very wide range of uses the Romans made of allotment: not only matching magistrates to provinces, but allocating land, choosing jurors and choosing military units to stand guard duty in camp. But in provincial allocation sortitio only performed its social function as long as the aristocracy was perceived as broadly competent by the People at large, and by the time of Marius that perception had been shattered. After that, sortitio was seen as a recipe for incompetence and corruption, which left direct choice as the best way to find competent leadership. But direct choice by whom? That was the question.
