How lotteries were used to help democracy throughout history
Millions upon millions of people in the modern world scramble every week to guess the correct lottery numbers for lottery competitions such as Euromilions, Daily Millions and the Postcode Lottery, but throughout history lotteries have been used for various different reasons.
In fact, throughout history lotteries have been used repeatedly in order to aid with democracy, and without it the Ancient Greeks may never have developed this world standard way of governing. Using a lottery to decide on a government even has its own name – sortition.
We touched on this briefly in our article exploring the history of competitions [a history of competitions], however now it is time to take a deeper look into this fascinating area of history.
Lotteries in the Old Testament
In many ways the modern concept of a lottery goes against many of Christianity’s most integral principles, however there are various instances of people casting lots mentioned in the bible, with many of them coming in the Old Testament. These early lottery style competitions were used in a selection of ways, but most of them involved trying to determine God’s will in different situations.
One of the most iconic situations where lottery was used in the Old Testament is in the case of Jonah, who pulled the short straw as it were, and was made to jump off the ship he was on.
The use of lotteries in the Ancient World
In was in 6th BC Ancient Athens that democracy first flowered, something that was documented extensively by popular thinkers of the time such as Aristotle. Democracy meant the rule of the people in Ancient Greece, and using a lottery was used in order to choose the citizens assembly.
As Herodotus, often called the founding father of the philosophy of democracy, said himself, "the rule of the people has the fairest name of all, equality, and does none of the things that a monarch does. The lot determines offices, power is held accountable, and deliberation is conducted in public."
The lottery system of governance from the 12th to 18th centuries
Most of what you tend to hear about the medieval period involves kings and queens, however a lottery style of democracy was also used widely across Central Europe during this time. In Venice, for instance, a group of men were decided by lottery, and then they in turn elected members of the council from a pool of suitors.
A lottery was also used in Florence in the 14th and 15th centuries in order to choose magistrates and members of the council, with the argument that this would help stamp out corruption on a state level. You see, we’re full of interesting facts at Winzum, and we bet you never thought about lotteries being used in democracy, did you?