Ancient Elections

The run-up to the presidential elections has gotten me thinking about elections in ancient times. Thinking about how democracy, governance, and elections were handled thousands of years ago is a good reminder that how we do things today is not how they were always done, nor do they have to remain the status quo. There are other models; America is not the first society to care about common voices being heard, fairness, and the responsible governance of our resources. May we not be the last.

I’ll start with the obvious ancient society of Athens around 500 BCE. Other Greek city-states set up democracies, but none were as powerful or as stable (or as well-documented) as that of Athens. In the experiment of the Athenian model, the people did not elect representatives to vote on their behalf but they voted on legislation and executive bills in their own right. Participation was by no means open, but the selected participants were constituted with no reference to economic class and they participated on a scale that was truly phenomenal.

When the Ancient Greeks had need of appointing officials—especially decision makers—they used a form of lottery called “sortition” (also known as “allotment”) drawing colored pebbles from a bag.

No candidates. No attack ads. No swift-boaters. At the basis of the Athenian system was the belief that governance was a civil duty, and no man was better or worse for the job than anyone else. (And yes, it was “men” who could vote and hold office. The Ancient Greeks were egalitarian in ways that may even have been beyond us, but not so great in others.) They even had special machines, Kleroterions, to ensure fair drawing of the lots. Hanging chads may have been unique to Florida elections, but corruption goes way back.

In Athens, "Democracy" (literally meaning rule by the people) was in opposition to oligarchy (rule by a few), which was the most common form of governance of the time. And so Athenian Democracy is characterized by being run by the "many" (the ordinary people) who were allotted—by lottery—to the committees which ran government.

The Ancient Greeks practiced another type of election very different from what we do today. It was called “ostracism,” a procedure in which a prominent citizen could be expelled from Athens for ten years. Imagine the rules of TV’s “Survivor” being applied to government. While this practice sometimes expressed popular anger at the victim, ostracism was often used to defuse major confrontations between rival politicians (by removing one of them from the scene), neutralizing someone thought to be a threat to the state, or exiling a potential tyrant. There was no charge or defense, and exile was not in fact a penalty; it was simply a command from the Athenian people that one of their number be gone for ten years.

Each year the Athenians were asked in the assembly whether they wished to hold an ostracism. If they voted "yes", then an ostracism would be held two months later. In a roped-off area of the agora, citizens scratched the name of a citizen they wished to expel on “ostraka” or potshards (“ostraka” which is where the term is derived from) and deposited them in urns. If a minimum of six thousand votes were reached, then the ostracism took place: the officials sorted the names into separate piles, and the person receiving the highest number of votes was exiled for ten years.

The person nominated had ten days to leave the city—if he attempted to return, the penalty was death. The property of the man banished was not confiscated and there was no loss of status. After the ten years he was allowed to return without stigma. It was also possible for the assembly to recall an ostracized person ahead of time, especially during a crisis.

Even public heroes could be ostracized. One of the most dramatic ostracisms to take place was when Themosticles was voted into exile. Themosticles saved Athens from destruction by the Persians, devising the naval strategy that won the war against what was then the world’s greatest super power. His big problem happened after the war when he strengthened Athenian walls and the Spartans feared the growing dominance of Athens in Grecian affairs. It is likely that Spartan factions in Athens led to his ostracism. On the other hand, his sense of self-importance may have led non-Spartans to fear that Themosticles had the makings of a dictator. So he was voted off the city and he never returned.

What if instead of voting for a president we instead voted someone “off” the country? It might sound like a silly idea at first, but knowing that at any moment you could be voted out so dramatically, you would have to make sure that you were taking care of the common good, that your actions were transparent, that you sought neither fame, power, nor financial gain. It would be to the people you were most accountable. It might not be such a bad thing.

The Ancient Greeks were not the first to practice ideals of egalitarianism and wise governance for the common good. One of my favorite stories is of the ancient Mesopotamian city Uruk. Uruk was situated east of the Euphrates and its heyday lasted 800 years between 3200 and 4000 BCE. It is perhaps best known as the capital city where much of the action of the epic poem “Gilgamesh” took place. What I love about Uruk’s governmental structure is that the people of Uruk believed that being a leader was a “civil service.” No name of any leader of Uruk was ever recorded. Displays of wealth were even forbidden. Thus none of the leaders of what was at that time the largest city in the world are remembered for posterity. Their governance has remained anonymous.

Would that our society had such an ideal. If no one is going to remember your name throughout history, does that not change how you will relate to your job of governance? Knowing that your work will remain anonymous, will you not invest your energy into doing good work for your people as their “civil servant” instead of starting wars and removing heads of other states so that you could be remembered by abstract posterity as some kind of hero?

Lotteries, exile, faceless governance. Might it not be time to bring back some of the ancient ways of elections and governing? I’ll admit that sortition and ostracism may not be in the mix anytime soon, but I sure would like to see the ideals behind Uruk’s governance enter our vernacular. Athenian Democracy was a short-lived experiment that ended with terrible tyrannies after the death of Pericles, while Uruk lasted much longer. In the last 8 years with “W” as president and atrocities such as government sanctioned wire-tapping and the death of Habeas Corpus (just to name a couple), the great American experiment has been flirting with tyranny. I pray that we turn a new road, and use as our model the idea that governance is a civil duty dedicated to nothing more than the common good.