In the "Byzantine Decree,"[14] it is inter alia provided:
"It is resolved by the people of the Byzantium and Perin thus to grant unto the Athenians the right of inter-marriage, citizenship, purchase of land and houses, the first seat at the games, first admission to the Council and People after the Sacrifices, and exemption from all public services to such as wish to reside in the City," and this because "they succoured us . . . and rescued us from grievous perils and preserved our hereditary constitution, our laws, and sepulchres,'"
"Isopolity," according to Niebuhr,[15] was a relation entered into by treaty between two perfectly equal and independent cities, mutually securing all those privileges to their citizens which a resident alien could not exercise at all, or only through the medium of a guardian; the rights of intermarriage, of purchasing landed property, of making contracts of every kind, of suing and being sued in person, of being exempted from taxes where citizens were so; and also partaking in sacrifices and festivals,
The Cosmos[16] is allowed to enter the senate {186} house of the allied city that he may be able to propound the business of his state there; and as a mark of honour he has a seat in the popular assembly by the side of the magistracy, but without a vote.
The persons who enjoyed "Isopolity" were called "Isopolites."
This idea of Isopolity existed in some essential features among the Romans, for "between the Romans and Latins, and between the Romans and Caerites there existed this arrangement: that any citizen of the one state who wished to settle in the other, might, forthwith, be able to exercise there the rights of a citizen."[17]
The other relation, known as "Sympolity," subsisted between Rome and its municipia: it was the connection of one place with another on a footing of inequality; the citizens of the subordinate state had not the same rights as those of the chief state, their advantage consisting in the close alliance with a powerful head, for protection, but they had no share in the election of magistrates (civitas sine suffragio), and the relation was altogether one-sided. Isopolite states, on the other hand, generally stood to each other in a relation of perfect equality, and were quite independent in their transactions with foreign countries.[18]
The Greeks learned the lesson too late in their national experience of the evils of political isolation {187} where nature intended there should be no isolation. The one idea in which that wonderful people were deficient was political unity. Each city was a separate entity and proud of being such. The dividing causes were many and strong. Isopolity and the like were indications of an underlying sense of a better principle.
The great Pericles caused a law to be passed restricting the citizenship to those only whose parents were both Athenian—a law which afterwards he sought to have repealed so far as to exempt a son of his own.[19]
When foreigners became frequent in Athens, a public vote of the people was necessary, in each instance, to bestow citizenship. If that could not be obtained, some form of evasion of the law was resorted to.[20]