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In th'e third book of the Politics, Aristotle commences his inquiry into the nature of states with the question, " What constitutes a citizen ? " (tto-ait??.s). He defines a citizen to be one who is a partner in the legislative and judicial power (juero-xqs fcpiVews1 /ecu apx^)- No definition will equally apply to all the different states of Greece, or to any single state at different times ; the above seems to comprehend more or less properly all those whom the common use of language entitled to the name.
A state in the heroic ages was the government of a prince ; the citizens were his subjects, and derived all their .privileges, civil as well as religious, from their nobles and princes. Nothing could have been further from the notions of those times, than the ideas respecting the natural equality of freemen which were considered self-evident axioms in the democracies of an after-period. In the early governments there were no formal stipulations ; the kings were amenable to the gods alone. The shadows of. a council and assembly were already in existence, but their business was to obey. Community of language, of religion, and of legal rights, as far as they then existed, was the bond of union ; and their privileges, such as they were, were readily granted to naturalised strangers. Upon the whole, as Wachsmuth has well observed, the notion of citizenship in the heroic age only existed so far as the condition of aliens or of domestic slaves was its negative.
The rise of a dominant class gradually overthrew the monarchies of ancient Greece. Of such a class, the chief characteristics were good birth and the hereditary transmission of privileges, the possession of land, and the performance of military service. To these characters the names 7<x;uopoi, nnreTs, etnrarpiSai, &c., severally correspond. Strictly speaking, these were the only citizens ; yet the lower class was quite distinct from bondmen or slaves. It commonly happened that the nobility occupied the fortified towns, while the 5%ios lived in the country and followed agricultural pursuits: whenever the latter were gathered within the walls and became seamen or handicraftsmen, the difference of rank was soon lost, and wealth made the only standard. The quarrels of the nobility among themselves, and the admixture of population arising from immigrations, all tended to raise the lower orders from their political subjection. It must be remembered, too, that the possession of domestic slaves, if it placed them in no new relation to the governing body, at any rate gave them leisure to attend to the higher duties of a citizen, and thus served to increase their political efficiency.
During the convulsions which followed the heroic ages, naturalisation was readily granted to all who desired it ; as the value of citizenship increased, it was, of course, more sparingly bestowed. .The ties of hospitality descended from the prince to the state, and the friendly relations of the Homeric heroes were exchanged for ihe-irpo^eyiai of a later period. In political intercourse, the importance of these last soon began to be felt, and the 7r,oo£ej/os at Athens, in after times, obtained rights only inferior to actual citizenship. [HosntiUM.] The isopolite relation existed, however, on a much more extended scale. Sometimes particular privi-. leges were granted: as Qiriyaula, the right of inter-
marriage; tfy/mjcris, the right of acquiring landed property; are'Aeja, immunity from taxation, espe -cially ar€\€ta, juerot/ctot;, from the tax imposed on. resident aliens. All these privileges were included under the general term IcroreAeia, or icroTroAtreta, and the class who obtained them were called i(roreAe?s. They bore the same burthens with the citizens, and could plead in the courts or transact business with the people, without the intervention of a Trpoo-rdr-ns. (Bockh, Public JEcon. of Athens, p. 540,2nd ed.; Niebuhr,//^. Rom. ii. p. 53 ; Herman, Lelirbucli d. Griecli. Staatsaltli. § 116.) If the right of citizenship was conferred for services done to the state, the rank termed Trpozdpia or euepyeoics might be added. Naturalised citizens even of the highest grade were not precisely in the same condition with the citizen by birth, although it is not agreed in what the difference consisted. Some think that they were excluded from the assembly (Niebnhr, 1. c.), others that they were only in-eligible to offices, or at any rate to the archonship.
The candidate on whom the citizenship was to be conferred was proposed in two successive assemblies, at the second of which at least six thousand citizens voted for him by ballot: even if he succeeded, his admission, like every other decree, was liable during a whole year to a ypatyfy Trapavopwv. He was registered in a phyle and deme, but not enrolled in the phratria and genos ; and hence it has been argued that he was ineligible to the office of archon or priest, because unable to participate in the sacred rites of 'A-TroAAwz/ UarpMos or Zeus cEp/ce?os.
The object of the phratriae (which were retained in the constitution of Cleisthenes, when their number no longer corresponded to that of the tribes) was to preserve purity and legitimacy of descent among the citizens. Aristotle says (Pol. iii. 2) that for practical purposes it was sufficient to define a citizen as the son or grandson of a citizen, and the register of the phratriae was kept chiefly as a record of the citizenship of the parents. If any one's claim was- disputed, this register was at hand, and gave an answer to all doubts about the rights of his parents or his own identity. Every newly married woman, herself a citizen, was enrolled in the phratriae of her husband, and every infant registered in the phratriae and genos of its father. All who were thus registered must have been bom in lawful wedlock, of parents who were themselves citizens; indeed, so far was this carried, that the omission of any of the requisite formalities in the marriage of the parents, if it did not wholly take away the rights of citizenship, might place the offspring under serious disabilities. This, however, was only carried out in its utmost rigour at the time when Athenian citizenship was most valuable. In Solon's time, it is not certain that the offspring of a citizen and of a foreign woman incurred any civil disadvantage; and even the law of Pericles _. (Plut. Peric. 37), which exacted citizenship on the mother's side, appears to have become obsolete very'soon afterwards, as we find it re-enacted by Aristophon in the archonship of Eucleides, b. c. 403. (Athen. xiii.
It is evident then, from the very object of the phratriae, why the newly-admitted citizen was not enrolled in them. As the same reason did not apply to the children, these, if born of women who were citizens, .were enrolled in the phratria of theb