The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

and the same persons are not
allowed to hold them twice, or can only hold them after a fixed
interval; others have no limit of time—for example, the office of a
dicast or ecclesiast. It may, indeed, be argued that these are not
magistrates at all, and that their functions give them no share in
the government. But surely it is ridiculous to say that those who
have the power do not govern. Let us not dwell further upon this,
which is a purely verbal question; what we want is a common term
including both dicast and ecclesiast. Let us, for the sake of
distinction, call it ‘indefinite office,’ and we will assume that
those who share in such office are citizens. This is the most
comprehensive definition of a citizen, and best suits all those who
are generally so called.
    But we must not forget that things of which the underlying
principles differ in kind, one of them being first, another second,
another third, have, when regarded in this relation, nothing, or
hardly anything, worth mentioning in common. Now we see that
governments differ in kind, and that some of them are prior and
that others are posterior; those which are faulty or perverted are
necessarily posterior to those which are perfect. (What we mean by
perversion will be hereafter explained.) The citizen then of
necessity differs under each form of government; and our definition
is best adapted to the citizen of a democracy; but not necessarily
to other states. For in some states the people are not
acknowledged, nor have they any regular assembly, but only
extraordinary ones; and suits are distributed by sections among the
magistrates. At Lacedaemon, for instance, the Ephors determine
suits about contracts, which they distribute among themselves,
while the elders are judges of homicide, and other causes are
decided by other magistrates. A similar principle prevails at
Carthage; there certain magistrates decide all causes. We may,
indeed, modify our definition of the citizen so as to include these
states. In them it is the holder of a definite, not of an
indefinite office, who legislates and judges, and to some or all
such holders of definite offices is reserved the right of
deliberating or judging about some things or about all things. The
conception of the citizen now begins to clear up.
    He who has the power to take part in the deliberative or
judicial administration of any state is said by us to be a citizens
of that state; and, speaking generally, a state is a body of
citizens sufficing for the purposes of life.
II
    But in practice a citizen is defined to be one of whom both the
parents are citizens; others insist on going further back; say to
two or three or more ancestors. This is a short and practical
definition but there are some who raise the further question: How
this third or fourth ancestor came to be a citizen? Gorgias of
Leontini, partly because he was in a difficulty, partly in irony,
said—‘Mortars are what is made by the mortar-makers, and the
citizens of Larissa are those who are made by the magistrates; for
it is their trade to make Larissaeans.’ Yet the question is really
simple, for, if according to the definition just given they shared
in the government, they were citizens. This is a better definition
than the other. For the words, ‘born of a father or mother who is a
citizen,’ cannot possibly apply to the first inhabitants or
founders of a state.
    There is a greater difficulty in the case of those who have been
made citizens after a revolution, as by Cleisthenes at Athens after
the expulsion of the tyrants, for he enrolled in tribes many
metics, both strangers and slaves. The doubt in these cases is, not
who is, but whether he who is ought to be a citizen; and there will
still be a furthering the state, whether a certain act is or is not
an act of the state; for what ought not to be is what is false.
Now, there are some who hold office, and yet ought not to hold
office, whom we describe as ruling, but ruling unjustly. And the
citizen was defined by the fact of his holding some kind of rule or
office—he who holds a judicial or legislative office fulfills our
definition of a citizen. It is evident, therefore, that the
citizens about whom the doubt has arisen must be called
citizens.
III
    Whether they ought to be so or not is a question which is bound
up with the previous inquiry. For a parallel question is raised
respecting the state, whether a certain act is or is not an act of
the state; for example, in the transition from