Athenian Democracy required the participation of all citizens, and assigned many/most roles by use of a lottery machine.

This is discussed it this bit of historical reconstruction/revisionism at http://deadmedia.org/ See specifically this set of articles * 38.6 [Information Technology of Ancient Athens, Part One](http://deadmedia.org/notes/38/386.html) * 38.7 [Information Technology of Ancient Athens, Part Two](http://deadmedia.org/notes/38/387.html) * 38.8 [Information Technology of Ancient Athens, Part Three](http://deadmedia.org/notes/38/388.html) * 38.9 [Information Technology of Ancient Athens, Part Four](http://deadmedia.org/notes/38/389.html) * 39.0 [Information Technology of Ancient Athens, Part Five](http://deadmedia.org/notes/39/390.html) --- Snippet > Part Two: The Technology of Allotment > > The flow of bodies through the Athenian political system was essentially a circuit == officeholders, jurors, litigants, etc. were drawn up from the reservoir of citizenry, slotted into their temporary places, delivered of their votes and opinions, then returned to their private lives, where they would live by the rules and verdicts they had helped to shape, and whence they would again be inserted into the system at some future date and, like as not, in some other role. > > In a sense, then, there was no beginning and no end to this process, but there are two good reasons for us to start our examination of Athenian political technology at the phase in which citizens were selected for office: one, because it's more or less logical to start there, and two, because I cannot wait to tell you about the gadget the Athenians invented to facilitate that phase. > > Simply put, the "kleroterion," or allotment machine, is the crown jewel of the Agora Museum's collection. What survives for display is just a fragment of one of the original devices == a roughly two-by-three-foot slab of rock with a curious grid of deep, thin slots gouged into it == but once you grasp the design of the whole, even this poor remnant becomes suffused with a kind of Flintstonian majesty.