The abhorrence in which the introduction of alien blood was held is illustrated by the Athenian law concerning marriage with aliens, quoted by Demosthenes in his speech against Neaera.
Law: “If an alien shall live as husband with an Athenian woman by any device or contrivance whatever, it shall be lawful for any of the Athenians who are possessed of such right, to indict him before the judges. And if he is convicted, he shall be sold for a slave and his property confiscated, and the third part shall belong [pg 072] to the person who has convicted him. And the like proceedings shall be taken if an alien woman live as wife with an Athenian citizen, and the citizen who lives as husband with an alien woman so convicted shall incur the penalty of 1,000 drachmæ.”
Citizenship only conferred as the highest honour.
Citizenship was considered the highest of privileges, and was conferred only on persons worthy of great honour. Any citizen could bring an action against the newly-admitted stranger to test his real merits, and even after formal acceptance by the people of Athens, if he failed to justify his claims at such a trial, his new honours were stripped from him and he remained an alien. This being so, it cannot be expected in the comparison that he should rank with the ordinary resident in Cymru in the Welsh Laws, but rather as the chieftain whom the people wished to honour by admission to their tribe.
It is stated in the Welsh Laws that the son of a stranger chief, to whom honour was to be given, entered the whole privilege of the tribe.
Qualification dependent on ancestry and status of family.
According to Aristotle,[166] candidates for archonship at Athens were asked their father's name and his deme, their grandfather's name and his deme, their mother's and her father's name and his deme;[167] whether the candidate had an Apollo Patroïos and Zeus Herkeios, and where these shrines were: also if he treated his parents well and paid his taxes.
In order to be perfectly sure that the candidate was of full and pure blood, they investigated the condition of both his grandparents, and, as further proof, [pg 073] assured themselves that he had a house and property of his own, and that too inherited from his ancestors. Furthermore, he must be guilty of no impiety towards his parents or the State.
If it were the case at Athens that the fourth generation from a stranger was considered as having attained to the rights of a citizen, it mattered little what a man's greatgrandfather was. He might have been an alien, yet if the intermediate ancestors were “in order,” the candidate would have acquired the full blood.[168]
Fourth generation acquired new privilege or status.