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 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. The shadows
of a council and assembly were already in existence, but their
business 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
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
_gamori_ (γάμοροι), _knights_ (ἱππεῖς), _eupatridae_ (εὐπατρίδαι),
&c. severally correspond. Strictly speaking, these were the only
citizens; yet the lower class were quite distinct from bondmen or
slaves. It commonly happened that the nobility occupied the fortified
towns, while the _demus_ (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
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 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 isopolite 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 class who obtained them were
called ἰσοτελεῖς. 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 προστάτης, or patron. Respecting
the division of the Athenian 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 _essential_ 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 possible, 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 syssitia, 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 _Hypomeiones_ (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 essential 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 express the rights of a Roman citizen, as
distinguished from those of other persons not Roman citizens, as
in the phrases, _dare civitatem_, _donare civitate_, _usurpare
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 classes 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
class, 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 class, or the _non optimo jure cives_, did
not possess 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 classes. The same division probably existed in an early period
of the Roman state, and certainly existed in the time of Cicero.
These classes were, _Cives_, _Latini_, and _Peregrini_. _Civis_ is he
who possesses the complete rights of a Roman citizen. _Peregrinus_
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 _Latinus_ 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 manumission (_vindicta_), by the
census, and by a testamentum, if there was no legal impediment; but
it depended on circumstances whether he became a _civis Romanus_,
a _Latinus_, or in the number of the _peregrini dediticii_.
[MANUMISSIO.] 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 Silvanus 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 passing of the lex, to
signify to the praetor his wish and consent to accept the civitas
(_profiteri_). This lex was intended to give the civitas, under
certain limitations, to foreigners who were citizens of foederate
states (_foederatis civitatibus adscripti_). [FOEDERATAE CIVITATES.]
Thus the great mass 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 Latinitas. This Latinitas gave a man the right of
acquiring the Roman citizenship by having exercised a magistratus
in his own civitas; a privilege which belonged to the foederatae
civitates of Italy before they obtained the Roman civitas.