Politics   

under the provisions of a treaty. Nay, resident aliens in many places
do not possess even such rights completely, for they are obliged to
have a patron, so that they do but imperfectly participate in
citizenship, and we call them citizens only in a qualified sense, as
we might apply the term to children who are too young to be on the
register, or to old men who have been relieved from state duties. Of
these we do not say quite simply that they are citizens, but add in
the one case that they are not of age, and in the other, that they are
past the age, or something of that sort; the precise expression is
immaterial, for our meaning is clear. Similar difficulties to those
which I have mentioned may be raised and answered about deprived
citizens and about exiles. But the citizen whom we are seeking to
define is a citizen in the strictest sense, against whom no such
exception can be taken, and his special characteristic is that he
shares in the administration of justice, and in offices. Now of
offices some are discontinuous, and the same persons are not allowed
to hold them twice, or can only hold them after a fixed interval;
others have no limit of time- for example, the office of a dicast or
ecclesiast. It may, indeed, be argued that these are not magistrates
at all, and that their functions give them no share in the government.
But surely it is ridiculous to say that those who have the power do
not govern. Let us not dwell further upon this, which is a purely
verbal question; what we want is a common term including both dicast
and ecclesiast. Let us, for the sake of distinction, call it
'indefinite office,' and we will assume that those who share in such
office are citizens. This is the most comprehensive definition of a
citizen, and best suits all those who are generally so called.
But we must not forget that things of which the underlying principles
differ in kind, one of them being first, another second, another
third, have, when regarded in this relation, nothing, or hardly
anything, worth mentioning in common. Now we see that governments
differ in kind, and that some of them are prior and that others are
posterior; those which are faulty or perverted are necessarily
posterior to those which are perfect. (What we mean by perversion will
be hereafter explained.) The citizen then of necessity differs under
each form of government; and our definition is best adapted to the
citizen of a democracy; but not necessarily to other states. For in
some states the people are not acknowledged, nor have they any regular
assembly, but only extraordinary ones; and suits are distributed by
sections among the magistrates. At Lacedaemon, for instance, the
Ephors determine suits about contracts, which they distribute among
themselves, while the elders are judges of homicide, and other causes
are decided by other magistrates. A similar principle prevails at
Carthage; there certain magistrates decide all causes. We may, indeed,
modify our definition of the citizen so as to include these states. In
them it is the holder of a definite, not of an indefinite office, who
legislates and judges, and to some or all such holders of definite
offices is reserved the right of deliberating or judging about some
things or about all things. The conception of the citizen now begins
to clear up.
He who has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial
administration of any state is said by us to be a citizens of that
state; and, speaking generally, a state is a body of citizens
sufficing for the purposes of life.
Part II
But in practice a citizen is defined to be one of whom both the
parents are citizens; others insist on going further back; say to two
or three or more ancestors. This is a short and practical definition
but there are some who raise the further question: How this third or
fourth ancestor came to be a citizen? Gorgias of Leontini, partly
because he was in a difficulty, partly in irony, said- 'Mortars are
what is made by the mortar-makers, and the citizens of Larissa are
those who are made by the magistrates; for it is their trade to make
Larissaeans.' Yet the question is really simple, for, if according to