According to the famous philosopher, Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE), an ancient Greek city called Heraea had an elected government system that became so corrupt that the elections were always won by candidates who bought the most voters with bribes or other forms of solicitation. Fed up with this unscrupulous government, a faction in Heraea was able to change the constitution of the government in order to combat the bribery problem. The fix that the reformers came up with, however, was an odd solution that would bring about unpredictable results. On this, Aristotle wrote, “At Heraea they changed from holding elections to drawing lots, simply because they found that the successful candidates were those who solicited votes” (Aristotle, Politics, Bekker number 1303a). Therefore, to stop politicians from perpetually winning elections by buying and trading votes, the people of Heraea decided to just leave appointments up to chance and the luck of the draw. Unfortunately, Aristotle did not elaborate on what happened in the political scene of Heraea after the city made this constitutional gamble.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Terracotta skyphos (deep drinking cup) attributed to Polion ca. 420 BCE, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the MET).
Sources:
- The Politics by Aristotle, translated by T. A. Sinclair and revised by T. J. Saunders. London: Penguin Classics, 1962, 1992.
