Politics   

the definition just given they shared in the government, they were
citizens. This is a better definition than the other. For the words,
'born of a father or mother who is a citizen,' cannot possibly apply
to the first inhabitants or founders of a state.
There is a greater difficulty in the case of those who have been made
citizens after a revolution, as by Cleisthenes at Athens after the
expulsion of the tyrants, for he enrolled in tribes many metics, both
strangers and slaves. The doubt in these cases is, not who is, but
whether he who is ought to be a citizen; and there will still be a
furthering the state, whether a certain act is or is not an act of the
state; for what ought not to be is what is false. Now, there are some
who hold office, and yet ought not to hold office, whom we describe as
ruling, but ruling unjustly. And the citizen was defined by the fact
of his holding some kind of rule or office- he who holds a judicial or
legislative office fulfills our definition of a citizen. It is
evident, therefore, that the citizens about whom the doubt has arisen
must be called citizens.
Part III
Whether they ought to be so or not is a question which is bound up
with the previous inquiry. For a parallel question is raised
respecting the state, whether a certain act is or is not an act of the
state; for example, in the transition from an oligarchy or a tyranny
to a democracy. In such cases persons refuse to fulfill their
contracts or any other obligations, on the ground that the tyrant, and
not the state, contracted them; they argue that some constitutions are
established by force, and not for the sake of the common good. But
this would apply equally to democracies, for they too may be founded
on violence, and then the acts of the democracy will be neither more
nor less acts of the state in question than those of an oligarchy or
of a tyranny. This question runs up into another: on what principle
shall we ever say that the state is the same, or different? It would
be a very superficial view which considered only the place and the
inhabitants (for the soil and the population may be separated, and
some of the inhabitants may live in one place and some in another).
This, however, is not a very serious difficulty; we need only remark
that the word 'state' is ambiguous.
It is further asked: When are men, living in the same place, to be
regarded as a single city- what is the limit? Certainly not the wall
of the city, for you might surround all Peloponnesus with a wall. Like
this, we may say, is Babylon, and every city that has the compass of a
nation rather than a city; Babylon, they say, had been taken for three
days before some part of the inhabitants became aware of the fact.
This difficulty may, however, with advantage be deferred to another
occasion; the statesman has to consider the size of the state, and
whether it should consist of more than one nation or not.
Again, shall we say that while the race of inhabitants, as well as
their place of abode, remain the same, the city is also the same,
although the citizens are always dying and being born, as we call
rivers and fountains the same, although the water is always flowing
away and coming again Or shall we say that the generations of men,
like the rivers, are the same, but that the state changes? For, since
the state is a partnership, and is a partnership of citizens in a
constitution, when the form of government changes, and becomes
different, then it may be supposed that the state is no longer the
same, just as a tragic differs from a comic chorus, although the
members of both may be identical. And in this manner we speak of every
union or composition of elements as different when the form of their
composition alters; for example, a scale containing the same sounds is
said to be different, accordingly as the Dorian or the Phrygian mode
is employed. And if this is true it is evident that the sameness of
the state consists chiefly in the sameness of the constitution, and it
may be called or not called by the same name, whether the inhabitants
are the same or entirely different. It is quite another question,
whether a state ought or ought not to fulfill engagements when the