In common use they define a citizen to be one who is sprung from
citizens on both sides, not on the father's or the mother's only. Others
carry the matter still further, and inquire how many of his ancestors
have been citizens, as his grandfather, great-grandfather, etc., but
some persons have questioned how the first of the family could prove
themselves citizens, according to this popular and careless definition.
Gorgias of Leontium, partly entertaining the same doubt, and partly in
jest, says, that as a mortar is made by a mortar-maker, so a citizen is
made by a citizen-maker, and a Larisssean by a Larisssean-maker. This
is indeed a very simple account of the matter; for if citizens are so,
according to this definition, it will be impossible to apply it to the
first founders or first inhabitants of states, who cannot possibly claim
in right either of their father or mother. It is probably a matter of
still more difficulty to determine their rights as citizens who are
admitted to their freedom after any revolution in the state. As, for
instance, at Athens, after the expulsion of the tyrants, when Clisthenes
enrolled many foreigners and city-slaves amongst the tribes; and the
doubt with respect to them was, not whether they were citizens or no,
but whether they were legally so or not. Though indeed some persons may
have this further [1276a] doubt, whether a citizen can be a citizen
when he is illegally made; as if an illegal citizen, and one who is
no citizen at all, were in the same predicament: but since we see some
persons govern unjustly, whom yet we admit to govern, though not justly,
and the definition of a citizen is one who exercises certain offices,
for such a one we have defined a citizen to be, it is evident, that a
citizen illegally created yet continues to be a citizen, but whether
justly or unjustly so belongs to the former inquiry.