CĪVĬTAS

citizenship. (1) Greek ( πολιτεία ). Aristotle defines a citizen ( πολίτης ) to be one who is a partner in the legislative and judicial power ( μέτοχος κρίσεως καὶ ἀρχῆς ). 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 le 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. The shadows of a council and a embly were already in existence, but their busine was to obey. Upon the whole the notion of citizenship in the heroic ages only existed so far as the condition of aliens or of domestic slaves was its negative. The rise of a dominant cla gradually overthrew the monarchies of ancient Greece. Of such a cla , the chief characteristics were good birth and the hereditary transmi ion of privileges, the po e ion of land, and the performance of military service. To these characters the names gamori ( γάμοροι ), knights ( ἱππεῖς ), eupatridae ( εὐπατρίδαι ), . severally correspond. Strictly speaking, these were the only citizens; yet the lower cla were quite distinct from bondmen or slaves. It commonly happened that the nobility occupied the fortified towns, while the dem us ( δῆμος ) lived in the country and followed agricultural pursuits: whenever the latter were gathered within the walls, and became seamen or handicraftsmen, the difference of ranks 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 po e ion 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 the προξενίαι of a later period. In political intercourse, the importance of these last soon began to be felt, and the Proxenus at Athens, in after times, obtained rights only inferior to actual citizenship. [ Hospitium . ] The i so polite relation existed, however, on a much more extended scale. Sometimes particular privileges were granted: as ἐπιγαμία , the right of intermarriage; ἔγκτησις , the right of acquiring landed property; ἀτέλεια , immunity from taxation, especially ἀτέλεια μετοικίου , from the tax imposed on resident aliens. All these privileges were included under the general term ἰσοτέλεια , or ἰσοπολίτεια , and the cla who obtained them were called ἰσοτελεῖς . They bore the same burthens with the citizens, and could plead in the courts or transact busine with the people, without the intervention of a προστάτης , or patron. Respecting the division of the A then i an citizens into tribes, phratriae and demes, see the articles Tribus and Demus .—If we would picture to ourselves the true notion which the Greeks embodied in the word polis ( πόλις ), we must lay aside all modern ideas respecting the nature and object of a state. With us practically, if not in theory, the e ential object of a state hardly embraces more than the protection of life and property. The Greeks, on the other hand, had the most vivid conception of the state as a whole, every part of which was to co-operate to some great end to which all other duties were considered as subordinate. Thus the aim of democracy was said to be liberty; wealth, of oligarchy; and education, of aristocracy. In all governments the endeavour was to draw the social union as close as po ible, and it seems to have been with this view that Aristotle laid down a principle which answered well enough to the accidental circumstances of the Grecian states, that a polis must be of a certain size. This unity of purpose was nowhere so fully carried out as in the government of Sparta. The design of Spartan institutions was evidently to unite the governing body among themselves against the superior numbers of the subject population. The division of lands, the sy itia, the education of their youth, all tended to this great object. [ Helotes ; Perioeci .] In legal rights all Spartans were equal: but there were yet several gradations, which, when once formed, retained their hold on the aristocratic feelings of the people. First, there was the dignity of the Heraclide families; and, connected with this, a certain pre-eminence of the Hyllean tribe. Another distinction was that between the Homoioi ( ὅμοιοι ) and Hypo me i ones ( ὑπομείονες ), which, in later times, appears to have been considerable. The latter term probably comprehended those citizens who, from degeneracy of manners or other causes, had undergone some kind of civil degradation. To these the Homoioi were opposed, although it is not certain in what the precise difference consisted. All the Spartan citizens were included in the three tribes, Hylleans, Dymanes or Dymanatae, and Pamphilians, each of which was divided into ten obes or phratries. The citizens of Sparta, as of most oligarchical states, were landowners, although this does not seem to have been looked upon as an e ential of citizenship.—(2) Roman. Civitas means the whole body of cives , or members, of any given state, and the word is frequently used by the Roman writers to expre the rights of a Roman citizen, as distinguished from those of other persons not Roman citizens, as in the phrases, dare civitatem , donare civitate , usurp are civitatem . Some members of a political community ( cives ) may have more political rights than others; and this was the case at Rome under the republic, in which we find a distinction made between two great cla es of Roman citizens, one that had, and another that had not, a share in the sovereign power ( optimo jure , non optimo jure cives ). That which peculiarly distinguished the higher cla , or the optimo jure cives , was the right to vote in a tribe ( jus suffragiorum ), and the capacity of enjoying magistracy ( jus honorum ). The inferior cla , or the non optimo jure cives , did not po e the above rights, which the Romans called jus publicum , but they only had the jus privatum , which comprehended the jus connubii and jus commercii , and those who had not these had no citizenship.—Under the empire we find the free persons who were within the political limits of the Roman state divided into three great cla es. The same division probably existed in an early period of the Roman state, and certainly existed in the time of Cicero. These cla es were, Cives , Latini , and Peregrin i . Civis is he who po e es the complete rights of a Roman citizen. Peregrin us was incapable of exercising the rights of commercium and connubium , which were the characteristic rights of a Roman citizen; but he had a capacity for making all kinds of contracts which were allowable by the jus gentium. The Latin us was in an intermediate state; he had not the connubium , and consequently he had not the patria potestas nor rights of agnatio; but he had the commercium or the right of acquiring quiritarian ownership, and he had also a capacity for all acts incident to quiritarian ownership, as the power of making a will in Roman form, and of becoming heres under a will. The rights of a Roman citizen were acquired in several ways, but most commonly by a person being born of parents who were Roman citizens. A slave might obtain the civitas by manumi ion ( vindicta ), by the census, and by a test amentum, if there was no legal impediment; but it depended on circumstances whether he became a civis Roman us , a Latin us , or in the number of the peregrin i dediticii . [ Manumi io . ] The civitas could be conferred on a foreigner by a lex, as in the case of Archias, who was a civis of Heraclea, a civitas which had a foedus with Rome, and who claimed the civitas Romana under the provisions of a lex of Silvan us and Carbo, B.C. 89. By the provisions of this lex, the person who chose to take the benefit of it was required, within sixty days after the pa ing of the lex, to signify to the praetor his wish and consent to accept the civitas ( profiter i ). This lex was intended to give the civitas, under certain limitations, to foreigners who were citizens of foederate states ( foe derat is civitatibus adscript i ). [ Foederatae Civitates . ] Thus the great ma of the Italians obtained the civitas, and the privileges of the former civitates foederatae were extended to the provinces, first to part of Gaul, and then to Sicily, under the name of Jus Latii or Latin it as. This Latin it as gave a man the right of acquiring the Roman citizenship by having exercised a magi stratus in his own civitas; a privilege which belonged to the foederatae civitates of Italy before they obtained the Roman civitas.