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.
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