This thesis examines the institutional design and the procedures regulating the decree-making in the poleis of the Classical and Hellenistic periods. The main contention of this thesis is that Greek decree-making is to be conceived as the result of a multi-layered system of interaction and delegation of deliberative authority among different institutions: councils, officials, assemblies and lawcourts. My thesis argues, therefore, that decree-making procedures were specifically designed to implement the concept of 'divided power', a value shared by both democracies and non-democratic regimes, and to shape the collective behaviour of the citizens when acting as decision-makers within the institutions. By adopting models from the political sciences, my thesis bridges the gap between institutional approaches to political decision-making and more recent approaches that have stressed the role of values and ideology as key factors to understand ancient Greek politics. Chapter 1 lays out the methodology of the thesis informed by the New Historical Institutionalism. Chapter 2 analyses the practice of delegation of power from the Athenian Assembly to the Athenian Council in order to enact additional measures. The careful study of the delegation-clauses sheds light on the administrative power of the Council by demonstrating that the Council played a proper policy-making role through the enactment of a decree, which was the product of Council's expertise in defined matters, such as religious affairs, foreign policy and the navy. Chapter 3 builds on the findings of the previous chapter, and shows the workings and development of delegation-clauses to the Council in two examples from outside Athens, Mytilene and Megalopolis over the longue durée. Chapter 4 deals with the deliberative procedures of Hellenistic Sparta. The Spartan 'divided power' envisaged that the Gerousia shared the probouleutic power with the ephors who could independently submit the bill to the Assembly. The Gerousia, however, held the power of nomophylakia and could veto the final decree. This chapter shows that divided power and the need of legal stability were addressed by Spartan institutions, but with different results because of the wider powers of officials in the decree-making. This chapter introduces the important issue of the balance between people's deliberation and stability of the legal order, which form an important focus of chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 5 discusses the role played by legal procedure of the adeia in fifth-century deliberative decision-making in the Assembly. This chapter provides a new comprehensive account of this legal institution. Adeia instituted a pre-nomothetic procedure, according to which the Assembly could change an entrenched piece of legislation or decree without clashing with the nomothetic ideology. Chapter 6 examines the relationship between deliberation and judicial review in the Greek poleis. The first section discusses the Athenian graphe paranomon, the public charge against an illegal decree. A thorough analysis of the legal procedure and of the institutional design shows that deliberative decisions were made within the framework of the rule of law and the graphe paranomon enforced this principle. This did not imply an institutional prominence of the lawcourts in the Athenian decision-making. The lawcourts performed an important role in the deliberative process through providing a safeguard of legal consistency by adding the legal expertise of the judges to the general rationale of the decree-making. The second part of the chapter is dedicated to the discussion of evidence of judicial review from outside Athens and the multifaceted role of the Hellenistic practice of appointing foreign judges in adjudicating public lawsuits, and especially in the judicial review of decrees.

Le tirage au sort, attesté dès les temps homériques, devint à l'époque classique une pratique emblématique de la démocratie athénienne. Les sources attestent l'utilisation de ces machines à tirer au sort du IVe au Ier siècle avant J.-C. dans différentes régions du monde grec. La fréquence des tirages au sort entraîna une technicisation des outils dont les klèrôtèria sont la forme la plus aboutie. Il s'agit de stèles à encadrement architectural dont le champ est percé de colonnes de rainures dans lesquelles on insérait les pinakia (petites plaquettes de bronze) marqués au nom des candidats. La documentation permet-elle de restituer le fonctionnement des klèrôtèria ? La forme des machines et de leurs accessoires varia-t-elle au fil du temps et en fonction des charges tirées au sort ? Des lieux spécifiques étaient-ils dévolus à l'usage des klèrôtèria ? L'étude conjointe des vestiges archéologiques (klèrôtèria et pinakia) et des sources textuelles autorise une restitution vraisemblable du fonctionnement des machines. En dépit du nombre considérable de charges tirées au sort au cours de l'année, la variété des machines utilisées semble moins importante qu'on ne le supposerait a priori : elle dépend davantage du corps au sein duquel s'opérait le tirage au sort que de la fonction elle-même. Parmi les klèrôtèria conservés, datés du IIe siècle avant J.-C., certains indiquent une utilisation superflue de ces machines auxquelles il semble que l'on ait attribué une fonction plus symbolique qu'utilitaire. Les vestiges archéologiques ne livrent pas d'informations sur les lieux dans lesquels on pratiquait le tirage au sort. On recourut probablement à des aménagements mobiles et provisoires dont la localisation sur l'agora peut être déduite de la nature et de la fréquence de chaque type de tirage au sort. Les klèrôtèria, que ne semble avoir abrités aucun édifice spécifique, apparaissent comme des machines politiques, monuments de la démocratie. / Allotment, as testified from Homeric times became, during the classical era, an emblematic practice of the Athenian democracy. The sources prove that allotment machines were in use from the 4th to the 1st century BC in various regions of the Greek world. The frequency of allotment led to continuous technical upgrading of which the klèrôtèria constitute its most completed form. These are steles with architectural frame, carved with vertical rows of slots, into which the pinakia, small bronze tokens carved with the names of the candidates, were inserted.Does the documentation give clues as to the functioning of the kleroteria ? Did the shape of the machines and its accessories vary in time and according to the various public functions that were subject to allotment? Were there specific places dedicated to the use of klèrôtèria?The study of both archeological vestiges (klerôteria et pinakia) and written sources allow for a plausible restitution of the functioning of the machines. In spite of the considerable number of public functions that were subject to allotment every year, the variety of machines that were used seems less wide that one would a priori suppose: it depends more on the body within which the allotment was conducted, than on the function itself. Among the preserved klèrôtèria, dated from the IInd century BC, some indicate a superfluous utilization of these machines to which a more symbolic than utilitary function was attributed. The archeological vestiges do not give information about the places in which allotment was carried out. Mobile and temporary set ups were probably used at locations in the Agora which can be deduced from the nature and the frequency of each type of allotment. The kleroteria, which seem not to have been sheltered in any specific sort of building, appear as political pools, as monuments of democracy.