A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

by William Smith

CĬTHĂRA. [[Lyra].]

CĪVIS. [[Civitas].]

CĪVĬTAS, citizenship. (1) Greek (πολιτεία). Aristotle defines a citizen (πολίτης) to be one who is a partner in the legislative and judicial power (μέτοχος κρίσεως καὶ ἀρχῆς). No definition will equally apply to all the different states of Greece, or to any single state at different times; the above seems to comprehend more or less properly all those whom the common use of language entitled to the name. A state in the heroic ages was the government of a prince; the citizens were his subjects, and derived all their privileges, civil as well as religious, from their nobles and princes. The shadows of a council and assembly were already in existence, but their business was to obey. Upon the whole the notion of citizenship in the heroic ages only existed so far as the condition of aliens or of domestic slaves was its negative. The rise of a dominant class gradually overthrew the monarchies of ancient Greece. Of such a class, the chief characteristics were good birth and the hereditary transmission of privileges, the possession of land, and the performance of military service. To these characters the names gamori (γάμοροι), knights (ἱππεῖς), eupatridae (εὐπατρίδαι), &c. severally correspond. Strictly speaking, these were the only citizens; yet the lower class were quite distinct from bondmen or slaves. It commonly happened that the nobility occupied the fortified towns, while the demus (δῆμος) lived in the country and followed agricultural pursuits: whenever the latter were gathered within the walls, and became seamen or handicraftsmen, the difference of ranks was soon lost, and wealth made the only standard. The quarrels of the nobility among themselves, and the admixture of population arising from immigrations, all tended to raise the lower orders from their political subjection. It must be remembered, too, that the possession of domestic slaves, if it placed them in no new relation to the governing body, at any rate gave them leisure to attend to the higher duties of a citizen, and thus served to increase their political efficiency. During the convulsions which followed the heroic ages, naturalisation was readily granted to all who desired it; as the value of citizenship increased, it was, of course, more sparingly bestowed. The ties of hospitality descended from the prince to the state, and the friendly relations of the Homeric heroes were exchanged for the προξενίαι of a later period. In political intercourse, the importance of these last soon began to be felt, and the Proxenus at Athens, in after times, obtained rights only inferior to actual citizenship. [[Hospitium].] The isopolite relation existed, however, on a much more extended scale. Sometimes particular privileges were granted: as ἐπιγαμία, the right of intermarriage; ἔγκτησις, the right of acquiring landed property; ἀτέλεια, immunity from taxation, especially ἀτέλεια μετοικίου, from the tax imposed on resident aliens. All these privileges were included under the general term ἰσοτέλεια, or ἰσοπολίτεια, and the class who obtained them were called ἰσοτελεῖς. They bore the same burthens with the citizens, and could plead in the courts or transact business with the people, without the intervention of a προστάτης, or patron. Respecting the division of the Athenian citizens into tribes, phratriae and demes, see the articles [Tribus] and [Demus].—If we would picture to ourselves the true notion which the Greeks embodied in the word polis (πόλις), we must lay aside all modern ideas respecting the nature and object of a state. With us practically, if not in theory, the essential object of a state hardly embraces more than the protection of life and property. The Greeks, on the other hand, had the most vivid conception of the state as a whole, every part of which was to co-operate to some great end to which all other duties were considered as subordinate. Thus the aim of democracy was said to be liberty; wealth, of oligarchy; and education, of aristocracy. In all governments the endeavour was to draw the social union as close as possible, and it seems to have been with this view that Aristotle laid down a principle which answered well enough to the accidental circumstances of the Grecian states, that a polis must be of a certain size. This unity of purpose was nowhere so fully carried out as in the government of Sparta. The design of Spartan institutions was evidently to unite the governing body among themselves against the superior numbers of the subject population. The division of lands, the syssitia, the education of their youth, all tended to this great object. [[Helotes]; [Perioeci].] 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. First, 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 Homoioi (ὅμοιοι) and Hypomeiones (ὑπομείονες), 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 Homoioi were opposed, although it is not certain in what the precise difference consisted. All the Spartan citizens were included in the three tribes, Hylleans, Dymanes or Dymanatae, and Pamphilians, each of which was divided into ten obes or phratries. 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.—(2) Roman. Civitas means the whole body of cives, or members, of any given state, and the word is frequently used by the Roman writers to express the rights of a Roman citizen, as distinguished from those of other persons not Roman citizens, as in the phrases, dare civitatem, donare civitate, usurpare civitatem. Some members of a political community (cives) may have more political rights than others; and this was the case at Rome under the republic, in which we find a distinction made between two great classes of Roman citizens, one that had, and another that had not, a share in the sovereign power (optimo jure, non optimo jure cives). That which peculiarly distinguished the higher class, or the optimo jure cives, was the right to vote in a tribe (jus suffragiorum), and the capacity of enjoying magistracy (jus honorum). The inferior class, or the non optimo jure cives, did not possess the above rights, which the Romans called jus publicum, but they only had the jus privatum, which comprehended the jus connubii and jus commercii, and those who had not these had no citizenship.—Under the empire we find the free persons who were within the political limits of the Roman state divided into three great classes. The same division probably existed in an early period of the Roman state, and certainly existed in the time of Cicero. These classes were, Cives, Latini, and Peregrini. Civis is he who possesses the complete rights of a Roman citizen. Peregrinus was incapable of exercising the rights of commercium and connubium, which were the characteristic rights of a Roman citizen; but he 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 quiritarian ownership, as the power of making a will in Roman form, and of becoming heres under a will. The rights of a Roman citizen were acquired in several ways, but most commonly by a person being born of parents who were Roman citizens. A slave might obtain the civitas by manumission (vindicta), by the census, and by a testamentum, if there was no legal impediment; but it depended on circumstances whether he became a civis Romanus, a Latinus, or in the number of the peregrini dediticii. [[Manumissio].] The civitas could be conferred on a foreigner by a lex, as in the case of Archias, who was a civis of Heraclea, a civitas which had a foedus with Rome, and who claimed the civitas Romana under the provisions of a lex of Silvanus and Carbo, B.C. 89. By the provisions of this lex, the person who chose to take the benefit of it was required, within sixty days after the passing of the lex, to signify to the praetor his wish and consent to accept the civitas (profiteri). This lex was intended to give the civitas, under certain limitations, to foreigners who were citizens of foederate states (foederatis civitatibus adscripti). [[Foederatae Civitates].] Thus the great mass of the Italians obtained the civitas, and the privileges of the former civitates foederatae were extended to the provinces, first to part of Gaul, and then to Sicily, under the name of Jus Latii or Latinitas. This Latinitas gave a man the right of acquiring the Roman citizenship by having exercised a magistratus in his own civitas; a privilege which belonged to the foederatae civitates of Italy before they obtained the Roman civitas.

CLĀRĬGĀTĬO. [[Fetiales].]

CLASSĬCUM. [[Cornu].]

CLĀVUS ANNĀLIS. In the early ages of Rome, when letters were yet scarcely in use, the Romans kept a reckoning of their years by driving a nail (clavus), on the ides of each September, into the side walls of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, which ceremony was performed by the consul or a dictator.

CLĀVUS GŬBERNĀCŬLI. [[Navis].]

CLĀVUS LĀTUS, CLĀVUS ANGUSTUS. The clavus, as an article of dress, seems to have been a purple band worn upon the tunic and toga, and was of two fashions, one broad and the other narrow, denominated respectively clavus latus and clavus angustus. The former was a single broad band of purple, extending perpendicularly from the neck down the centre of the tunic; the latter probably consisted of two narrow purple slips, running parallel to each from the top to the bottom of the tunic, one from each shoulder. The latus clavus was a distinctive badge of the senatorian order; and hence it is used to signify the senatorial dignity, and laticlavius, the person who enjoys it. The angustus clavus was the decoration of the equestrian order; but the right of wearing the latus clavus was also given to the children of equestrians, at least in the time of Augustus, as a prelude to entering the senate-house. This, however, was a matter of personal indulgence, and was granted only to persons of very ancient family and corresponding wealth, and then by special favour of the emperor. In such cases the latus clavus was assumed with the toga virilis, and worn until the age arrived at which the young equestrian was admissible into the senate, when it was relinquished and the angustus clavis resumed, if a disinclination on his part, or any other circumstances, prevented him from entering the senate, as was the case with Ovid. But it seems that the latus clavus could be again resumed if the same individual subsequently wished to become a senator, and hence a fickle character is designated as one who is always changing his clavus. The latus clavus is said to have been introduced at Rome by Tullus Hostilius, and to have been adopted by him after his conquest of the Etruscans; nor does it appear to have been confined to any particular class during the earlier periods, but to have been worn by all ranks promiscuously. It was laid aside in public mourning.

CLEPSȲDRA. [[Horologium].]

CLĒRŪCHI (κληροῦχοι), the name of Athenian citizens who occupied conquered lands; their possession was called cleruchia (κληρουχία). The Athenian Cleruchi differed from the ἄποικοι or ordinary colonists. The only object of the earlier colonies was to relieve surplus population, or to provide a home for those whom internal quarrels had exiled from their country. Most usually they originated in private enterprise, and became independent of, and lost their interest in, the parent state. On the other hand, it was essential to the very notion of a cleruchia that it should be a public enterprise, and should always retain a connection more or less intimate with Athens herself. The connection with the parent state subsisted in all degrees. Sometimes, as in the case of Lesbos, the holders of land did not reside upon their estates, but let them to the original inhabitants, while themselves remained at Athens. The condition of these cleruchi did not differ from that of Athenian citizens who had estates in Attica. All their political rights they not only retained, but exercised as Athenians. Another case was where the cleruchi resided on their estates, and either with or without the old inhabitants, formed a new community. These still retained the rights of Athenian citizens, which distance only precluded them from exercising: they used the Athenian courts; and if they or their children wished to return to Athens, naturally and of course they regained the exercise of their former privileges. Sometimes, however, the connection might gradually dissolve, and the cleruchi sink into the condition of mere allies, or separate wholly from the mother country. It was to Pericles that Athens was chiefly indebted for the extension and permanence of her colonial settlements. His principal object was to provide for the redundancies of population, and raise the poorer citizens to a fortune becoming the dignity of Athenian citizens. It was of this class of persons that the settlers were chiefly composed; the state provided them with arms, and defrayed the expenses of their journey. The Cleruchiae were lost by the battle of Aegospotami, but partially restored on the revival of Athenian power.