Practice question · Multiple choice
Why did Aristotle call the lottery democratic and election aristocratic?
Hints
- Ask who wins a popularity contest, and who wins a coin flip.
- It is the exact inversion of the modern intuition, and it was deliberate.
Show the answer
D. Election selects the famous and rich; the lot treats all as fit
Why
An election is a filter for fame, wealth, and connections; a lottery is no filter at all. Athens filled some 700 posts by lot and elected only the jobs where incompetence kills, the generals and the water commissioner.
Practise Classical Greece and the Polis
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Classical Greece and the Polis
- Athenian democracy paid citizens to attend the assembly and to serve on juries. What problem was the payment…
- Complete the description of ostracism.
- Order the construction (and stress-testing) of the Athenian experiment.
- Sort each feature: filled by lottery or by election in classical Athens?
- An ostracism only counted if enough citizens showed up to scratch a name on a potsherd. Set the quorum.
- Most Athenian public offices were filled by lottery rather than election.