ryman and a member of the assembly. For the sake of
distinction, suppose we call it an indeterminate office: but I lay it
down as a maxim, that those are citizens who could exercise it. Such
then is the description of a citizen who comes nearest to what all those
who are called citizens are. Every one also should know, that of the
component parts of those things which differ from each other in species,
after the first or second remove, those which follow have either nothing
at all or very little common to each.

Now we see that governments differ from each other in their form,
and that some of them are defective, others [1275b] as excellent as
possible: for it is evident, that those which have many deficiencies
and degeneracies in them must be far inferior to those which are without
such faults. What I mean by degeneracies will be hereafter explained.
Hence it is clear that the office of a citizen must differ as
governments do from each other: for which reason he who is called
a citizen has, in a democracy, every privilege which that station
supposes. In other forms of government he may enjoy them; but not
necessarily: for in some states the people have no power; nor have they
any general assembly, but a few select men.

The trial also of different causes is allotted to different persons; as
at Lacedaemon all disputes concerning contracts are brought before some
of the ephori: the senate are the judges in cases of murder, and so on;
some being to be heard by one magistrate, others by another: and thus
at Carthage certain magistrates determine all causes. But our former
description of a citizen will admit of correction; for in some
governments the office of a juryman and a member of the general assembly
is not an indeterminate one; but there are particular persons appointed
for these purposes, some or all of the citizens being appointed jurymen
or members of the general assembly, and this either for all causes and
all public business whatsoever, or else for some particular one: and
this may be sufficient to show what a citizen is; for he who has a right
to a share in the judicial and executive part of government in any
city, him we call a citizen of that place; and a city, in one word, is
a collective body of such persons sufficient in themselves to all the
purposes of life.

CHAPTER II

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'