Contrary to what is often thought today, the political use of lot was
not peculiar to the Athenian democracy. Prior to the invention of
representative government, most political systems where power
was exercised by citizens, rather than by an hereditary monarch,
had used lot in varying degrees and in a variety of forms. Lot
played a part (albeit a limited one) in the assemblies (comitia) of the
Roman people. The Italian republics of the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance often chose their magistrates by lot.