If we are seeking an ancient precedent to this aspect of modern democracy, we shouldn’t turn to the assemblies of Athens, Syracuse or Corinth, but instead – paradoxically – to aristocratic contests of ‘heroic ages’, such as those described in the Iliad with its endless agons: races, duels, games, gifts and sacrifices. As we noted in Chapter Nine, the political philosophers of later Greek cities did not actually consider elections a democratic way of selecting candidates for public office at all. The democratic method was sortition, or lottery, much like modern jury duty.
