This volume is the result of an international conference in 2022 organised by Julie Bothorel and Frédéric Hurlet. It examines, on a broad spatial and chronological scale, the uses and functions of sortition in the Greek and Roman worlds. It is divided into four main parts: the first is entitled ‘Sorting by Lot: A Common Procedure in the Ancient World’, the second focuses on ‘The Institutional and Political Uses of Sorting by Lot in Rome’, the third examines ‘Sorting by Lot in Law and Administrative Procedures in Rome and the Roman Empire’ and the fourth explores the links between sortition, religion and divination in the Roman world. As an introduction, two overview chapters consider the links between chance and power in the Roman world and the uses of lotteries in games of chance, likewise within the Roman context. The Roman chrono-cultural era is thus given considerable prominence. Finally, the volume concludes with a discussion that draws on ancient thought regarding lotteries to offer a fresh perspective on the political implications of a practice that remains, perhaps increasingly so, relevant today.

The work as a whole offers a rich yet comprehensive overview of a practice that encompasses several areas of public and private action. Political and religious activities within political communities are, of course, the subjects that occupy the vast majority of chapters. We will not review each of the nineteen contributions individually, but rather focus on those which, in our view, offer the most innovative insights, allowing for a renewed appreciation of this ancient political practice.

A common thread emerges from several contributions: the definitive rejection of several preconceived notions and stereotypes of sortition. This is particularly true of the first chapter, by J. Blok and I. Malkin, focusing on sortition practices in the Greek world; this immediately puts into perspective, within the political sphere, the links that are systematically drawn between sortition and democracy. Athenian democracy, the ancient political institution most readily associated with sortition in the modern collective imagination, is considered not as the embodiment of the emergence of sortition in civic life, but rather as the end result of the widespread use of this practice over a very long period. Behind the concept of sortition, the authors remind us that the emergence of the whole idea of a horizontal community needs to be reconstructed. Sortition presupposes, in effect, the identification of a group of people with equal opportunities, from which others are excluded. There is nothing fundamentally democratic in such egalitarianism. Athenian democracy is a political ideology grafted onto the mindset of sortition.

The following chapter on Roman uses of sortition by C. Lundgreen again challenges the systematic link made between sortition and democracy, particularly in the Athenian case, where everything depended on the composition of the group within which the drawing of lots would take place. The other major misconception, more frequently invoked in the Roman case, is the role of divine intervention. Lundgreen reminds us how easy it was in practice to deviate from any choice imposed by the drawing of lots, and thus underscores how limited belief was in any divine responsibility expressed through the act of sortition. The first major benefit of this volume is therefore that it makes it possible for us to free ourselves from two major misconceptions: the link between drawing lots and the establishment of democracy, and the link between drawing lots and the expression of divine will.

A second, very rich theme in this collection unites numerous contributions that analyse the full range of political, social, and economic uses of sortition. On the political side, the study of sortition’s application both in defining the first magistracies of the Roman Republic (M. Humm and T. Lanfranchi) and in allocating offices during the Augustan period (J. Bothorel and F. Hurlet) reveals the extent to which this practice served as a link between the beginning of the Republic and the establishment of the Principate, and how it combined with other tools of political selection, such as co-option and election. For the latter period, the strong presence of sortition is also evident in its recurring mention in the literary context of Augustan poets (P. Le Doze). The frequent references to sortition in their works, particularly in Virgil, question the role of chance and highlight the shortcomings of human judgment by raising the issue of the limits of purely human choices. In this final contribution, the links between sortition and impartiality are emphasised more fully. Regarding the social and economic uses of drawing lots, various studies cover both the field of games and that of land distribution. In the latter case, a link is established between the Roman and Greek worlds thanks to A.-V. Pont’s chapter on ‘Drawing lots in the public life of the cities of Roman Asia Minor’ where one of the festive practices of the civic elites was the distribution of lots of money to the bouleutai or members of the gerousia.

A final point concerns the close relationship between lotteries and religious rituals. While the idea of a divine will expressed through lotteries is challenged (see in particular M. Lesgourgues on ‘Lotteries in Greek Divinatory Practices’), lotteries are nonetheless linked to several means for consulting the gods. This is particularly evident in the chapter on the connections between lotteries and the auspicium in Rome, in which Y. Berthelet, drawing on Livy 41.18.5–8, compares three modern interpretations of the auspicium in relation to the drawing of lots, carried out by the two consuls, to determine from which direction each would attack the enemy. The conclusion is that there is a distinction between sortitio (drawing lots) and auspicium, the former being a consequence of the latter. Auspicium (observation and interpretation of bird flights) is a prerequisite for sortitio, the latter being a public act performed by a magistrate requiring prior auspices and taking place in a templum ritually inaugurated by the augurs. Finally, J. Cornillon’s contribution (‘Why did the first Christian generations abandon the practice of drawing lots?’) reminds us that, primarily in Christian communities, the practice of drawing lots was gradually abandoned due to the growing importance of arguments from competence. From then on, only a pre-selection process allowed for the continuation of drawing lots.