Two stories are combined here as they are in the (slightly abridged) quotation describing the courage of Ajax:
Sophocles,
Ajax 1285-87 (web address 1). Late sources (
Apollodorus 2.8.4;
Pausanias 4.3.3) tell of how Cresphontes (
kappa 2377), Temenus and the sons of
Aristodemus cast lots to divide the Peloponnese among themselves. The first of the three lots to pop out of the hydria would assign Argos [
Myth,
Place↗], the second Laconia, the last
Messenia↗. Cresphontes wanted
Messenia↗, so he placed a lot of moist earth in the pot, knowing it would never jump out of the hydria (either because it dissolved in water in the pot or because it was simply limp and soggy). Teucer, in
Sophocles' play, is talking of the lots that the Greek heroes cast in a helmet at
Homer,
Iliad 7.175ff. (web address 2), to choose one to fight the duel with Hector. Teucer reports the allegation that Agamemnon threw in a "runaway lot" (or perhaps the lot "of a runaway"), and points out that Ajax, the winner, did not cast such a lot but the sort of lot that would lightly leap first.
Scholars have been worried that the division of the Peloponnese is chronologically later than the Trojan War, but W.B. Stanford in his edition ad loc. points out that the "runaway lot" was probably a traditional, proverbial trick.
1Cratinus wrote a comedy of this name (frs. 53-68 PCG vol.4, p.147ff.), probably about the women of Sybaris. The present addendum is cited from alpha 1499 and/or alpha 3468.