ABSTRACT
It is best to start by acknowledging, as classicist Fergus Millar said, “how little we know.” 1 Little is known about voting practices, even less about nominating practices, in antiquity. But enough scraps of information have emerged to form at least a tentative view about salient procedures. 2 In some respects, Athens and Rome were procedurally unalike. There was a heavy reliance on lottery, or sortition, in the Athenian democracy to fill offices (less so in Rome, where winning votes was the path to power). Nominating was an important stage in Athens (but not so in Rome). Political organizations in Athens tended to break up interests as a means to stability, while Rome empowered interests and maintained stability via managed endemic conflict. In other procedural matters, however, the two republics were alike. Both employed complexity. Both were careful about how demographic changes could destabilize political arrangements; this worry preoccupied Romans more than Athenians as a result of Rome's numerous annexations, but it was not neglected by Athenians. In both places, the pursuit of the common good as the supreme goal of government led these republics to make procedural choices, which the modern state would never make. Trying to understand what these ancient political practitioners were thinking when they made their choices is the most interesting challenge we have.
