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CIVITAS,

becoming a candidate for the magistracies, he was possessed of lands and slaves, and was thus exempt from all care about the necessaries of life ; secondly, on the field of battle he always served amongst the hoplites; thirdly, he participated in the Spartan education, arid in all other Dorian institutions, both civil and religious. The re­luctance which Sparta showed to admit foreigners was proportioned to the value of these privileges: indeed Herodotus (ix. 35) says that Sparta had only conferred the full franchise in two instances. 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. (Miiller, Dorians, iii. 5. § 7.) First, as we should naturally expect, 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 Ojuojoi and u7ro;ueto^es, 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 ojjloioi were opposed, although it is not certain in what the precise difference consisted. It reed hardly be added, that at Sparta, as elsewhere, the union of wealth with birth always gave a sort of adventitious rank to its possessor.

All the Spartan citizens were included in the three tribes, Hylleans, Dymanes or Dymanatae, and Pamphilians, each of which were divided into ten obes or phratries. Under these obes there must undoubtedly have been contained some lesser sub­division, which Muller, with great probability, supposes to have been termed rpiaitds. 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.

It would exceed the limits of this work to give an account of the Grecian constitutions, except so far as may illustrate the rights of citizenship. What perversions in the form of government, ac­cording to Greek ideas, were sufficient to destroy the essential notion of a citizen, is a question which, following Aristotle's example (Pol. iii. 5), we may be content to leave undecided. He who, being personally free, enjoyed the fullest political privileges, participated in the assembly and courts of judicature, was eligible to the highest offices, and received all this by inheritance from his an­cestors, most entirely satisfied the ^ idea which the Greeks expressed in the word TroXirrjs. [B. J.]

2. roman. Civitas means the whole body of cives, or members, of any given state. Civitates are defined by Cicero (Somn. Scip. c. 3) to be " con­cilium coetusque hominumj/Mre sociati.1" A civitas is, therefore, properly a political community, so­vereign and independent. The word civitas is frequently used by the Roman writers to express the condition of a Roman citizen, as distinguished from that of other persons not Roman citizens, as in the phrases dare civitatem., donare civitate, usurpare civitatem.

If we attempt to distinguish the members of any given civitas from all other people in the world, we can only do it by enumerating all the rights and duties of a member of this civitas, which are not rights and duties of a person who is not a member of this civites. If any rights and duties which belong to a member of this civitas, and do

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not belong to any person not a member of this civitas, are omitted in the enumeration, it is art incomplete enumeration ; for the rights and duties not expressly included must be assumed as common to the members of this civitas and to all the world, or, to use a Roman expression, they exist jure gentium. Having enumerated all the character­istics of the members of any given civitas, we have then to show how a man acquires them, and how he loses them, and the notion of a member of such civitas is then complete.

Some members of a political community (cives) may have more political rights than others ; a principle by the aid of which Savigny (Gescliichte des Rom. Recliis im Mittelalter, c. ii. p. 22) has expressed briefly and clearly the distinction be­tween the two great classes of Roman citizens under the republic: —" In the free republic there were two classes of Roman citizens, one that had, and another that had not, a share in the sovereign power (optimo jure, non optima jure cives). That which peculiarly distinguished the higher class was the right to vote in a tribe, and the capacity of enjoying magistracies (suftrac/ium et honores)." According to this view, the jus civi-tatis comprehended part of that which the Romans called jus publicum, and also, and most particularly, that which they called jus privatum. The jus privatum comprehended the jus connubii and jus commercii, and those who had not these had no citizenship. Those who had the jus suifragiorum and jus honorum had the complete citizenship, or, in other words, they were optimo jure cives. Those who had the privatum, but not the publicum jus$ were citizens, though citizens of an inferior class. The jus privatum seems to be equivalent to the jus Quiritium, and the civitas Romana to the jus publicum. Accordingly, we sometimes find the jus Quiritium contrasted with the Romana civitas. (Plin. Ep. x. 4. 22 ; Ulp. Frag. tit. 3. § 2i) Livy (xxxviii. 36) says that until b. c. 188, the Formiani, Fundani, and Arpinates, had the civitas without the suffragium ; and, at an earlier time, the people of Anagnia received the " Civitas sine suffragii la-tione." (Liv. ix. 43.)

Ulpian (Frag. tit. 5. § 4 ; 19. § 4 ; 20. § 8 ; 11. § 6) has stated a distinction, as existing in his time among the free persons who were within the political limits of the Roman state, which it is of great importance to apprehend clearly. There were three classes of free persons, Cives, Latini, and Peregrini. Gains (i. 12) points to the same divi­sion, where he says that a slave, when made free, might become a Civis Romanus, or a Latinus, or might be in the number of the peregrini dediticii, according to circumstances. Civis, according to Ulpian, is he who possesses the complete rights of a Roman citizen. The Peregrimts had not com-mercium and connubium, which were the charac­teristic rights of a Roman citizen, not viewed in his political capacity ; but the Peregrinus 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 qniritarian ownership, as vindicatio, in jure cessio, mancipatio, and testamenti factio, which last comprises the power of making a will in Roman

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