Book III, 1274b–1278a

1274b32For someone investigating constitutions—what each is and what sort it is—the first inquiry is almost certainly to consider the city: what, precisely, is a city? As things stand, people dispute this, some saying35 that the city performed an action, others that it was not the city but the oligarchy or the tyrant. We see that the entire concern of the statesman and the lawgiver is with the city, and the constitution is a certain ordering of those who inhabit the city. Since the city is a composite thing, like any other whole40 made up of many parts, it is clear that we must first inquire into the citizen; for a city is a certain multitude of citizens.

1275a1We must therefore examine whom we should call a citizen and what a citizen is. For the citizen, too, is often disputed: not everyone agrees that the same person is a citizen. Someone who is a citizen in a democracy is often5 not a citizen in an oligarchy. Let us leave aside those who happen to receive this designation in some other way, such as citizens made so by decree. A citizen is not a citizen by residing somewhere, for resident foreigners and slaves also share in residence. Nor are those citizens who share in legal rights to the extent of being liable to suit and bringing suit10 (for this belongs also to those who participate under treaties: they too have these rights. Indeed, in many places resident foreigners do not even share fully in these, but must be assigned a patron, so that their participation in this kind of association is incomplete). Rather, just as children who have not yet, because of their age,15 been enrolled, and old men who have been exempted, must be said to be citizens in a sense, but not altogether without qualification, we must add that the former are incomplete citizens and the latter past their prime, or some other expression of the kind. It makes no difference, for the meaning is clear. We are seeking the citizen without qualification, with no such20 defect requiring correction; for similar difficulties can also be raised and resolved about the disfranchised and exiles. The citizen without qualification is defined by nothing else so much as by sharing in judgment and office. Some offices are limited in time, so that in some, a second term25 is never permitted for the same person, or may be held only after certain fixed intervals; others are unlimited, such as those of the juror and the assembly member. Perhaps someone might say that such people are not even officeholders, and do not on this account share in office. Yet it is absurd to deprive those with the greatest authority of office. But let this make no difference: a name30 is what the argument concerns, for there is no name for what the juror and the assembly member have in common, by which we should call them both. For purposes of definition, then, let it be an unlimited office. We accordingly count as citizens those who share in office in this way.

The citizen who would best fit all those called citizens is, roughly speaking, of this kind. But we must1275a35 not overlook that, where the underlying things differ in kind and one is first, another second, and another next in order, they either have nothing in common at all, insofar as they are such, or only very little. We see that constitutions differ from one another in kind, and that some are later and others1275b1 earlier;

for defective and deviant constitutions must be later than those without defects. What we mean by deviant constitutions will become clear afterward. Consequently the citizen, too, must differ according to each constitution.1275b5 For this reason the citizen we have described is above all a citizen in a democracy; in other constitutions he may be, but need not be. For in some there is no people, and they do not customarily hold assemblies, but specially summoned meetings; and they divide the judging of lawsuits among different offices. In Lacedaemon, for example, contract cases are judged by10 different ephors, the elders judge homicide cases, and perhaps some other office judges other cases. Matters at Carthage are not arranged in the same way: certain offices judge all the lawsuits. But the definition of the citizen admits of correction. In the other constitutions it is not the unlimited officeholder who is assembly member15 and juror, but the one whose office is defined. For to all or some of these has been assigned the task of deliberating and judging, either on all matters or on certain ones. Who the citizen is, then, is clear from this. Whoever has the right to share in deliberative or judicial office we now call a citizen of this20 city; and a city, to speak without qualification, is a multitude of such people sufficient for a self-sufficient life.

For practical purposes people define a citizen as one born of two citizens, not of one alone, whether father or mother. Some extend this requirement further, to two or three or more generations of ancestors.1275b25 When the definition is given in this political and hasty fashion, some ask how that ancestor in the third or fourth generation will be a citizen. Gorgias of Leontini, perhaps partly at a loss and partly being ironic, said that, just as mortars are those things made by mortar-makers, so Larissaeans are those made by their civic officials;30 for there are some who are Larissaean-makers. But the matter is simple. If they shared in the constitution according to the definition we gave, they were citizens. Indeed, the requirement of being born of a male or female citizen cannot even be applied to the first inhabitants or founders.

But perhaps there is greater difficulty about those who1275b35 were admitted to citizenship after a change of constitution, as Cleisthenes did at Athens after the expulsion of the tyrants: he enrolled in the tribes many foreigners and slaves who were resident foreigners. The dispute about these concerns not who is a citizen, but whether he is one unjustly or justly. Yet someone might raise this further difficulty:

1276a1if someone is not justly a citizen, is he not a citizen at all, on the assumption that what is unjust and what is false have the same force? But since we see that some hold office unjustly, and we will say that they hold office, though not justly, and the citizen is defined by a certain office—for one who shares in5 an office of this kind is a citizen, as we said—it is clear that we must call these people citizens too;

but whether they are so justly or unjustly connects with the dispute mentioned earlier. For some are at a loss as to when the city has acted and when it has not: for example, when an oligarchy or tyranny changes into1276a10 a democracy. At such a time some refuse to discharge contracts, on the ground that it was not the city but the tyrant who received the loan, and likewise refuse many other obligations of this kind, on the ground that some constitutions rest on force and not on the common advantage. If, then, some democracies also govern in this fashion, we must equally15 call the actions of this constitution actions of this city, just as we must those arising from oligarchy and tyranny. This argument seems related to the difficulty of how we should say that a city is the same, or not the same but another. At its most superficial, this difficulty20 is investigated with regard to the place and the people: for the place and the people can be divided, and some inhabit one place and others another.

We should therefore regard this difficulty as a milder one, for since the city is spoken of in many senses, there is a certain ease about an inquiry of this kind. Similarly,1276a25 when people inhabit the same place, when should we consider their city one? Surely not by its walls: one wall could be built around the Peloponnese. Perhaps Babylon is such a city, and every city whose circumference is more that of a nation than of a city. They say that when Babylon was captured, for three30 days some part of the city did not know it.

But consideration of this difficulty will be useful on another occasion. For the statesman must not overlook the question of a city's size—how large it should be, and whether one nation or several is advantageous. But when the same people inhabit the same place,1276a35 should we say that the city is the same as long as the inhabitants remain of the same stock, although some are always dying and others being born, just as we customarily speak of the same rivers and the same springs, although water is always coming in and flowing out? Or should we say that the people40 are the same for this reason, but that the1276b1 city is different?

For if indeed the city is a certain association, and an association of citizens in a constitution, then when the constitution becomes different in kind and changes, it would seem necessary that the city, too, should no longer be the same. So also we say that a chorus1276b5 is different when it is comic and when it is tragic, although it is often made up of the same people. Likewise every other association and composition is different if the form of its composition is different. For example, we say that a harmony of the same notes is different when it is Dorian and when it is Phrygian. If, then,10 this is how matters stand, it is clear that in calling a city the same we must look chiefly to its constitution. It may be called by a different name or the same one, whether its inhabitants are the same or entirely different people. But whether it is just to discharge or not discharge obligations when there is a change to another constitution15 in the city is a different question.

Following what has now been said, we must consider whether we should regard the virtue of a good man and that of a worthy citizen as the same or not the same. Yet if this is to receive investigation, we must first grasp the virtue of the citizen in some outline.1276b20 Just as a sailor is one member of an association, so, we say, is a citizen. Although sailors differ in their functions—one is a rower, another a helmsman, another a lookout, and another bears some other designation of this kind—it is clear that the most precise account of each one's25 virtue will be peculiar to him; yet some common account will also fit them all. For the safety of the voyage is the work of them all: this is what every sailor seeks. Likewise, then, for citizens, however different they are, the preservation of their association is their work, and their association is the constitution.30 The virtue of the citizen must therefore be relative to the constitution. If, then, there are several kinds of constitution, it is clear that the worthy citizen cannot have one single, complete virtue. But we call a man good in virtue of one single virtue, the complete one.

That someone may be a worthy citizen without1276b35 possessing the virtue by which a man is worthy is therefore clear. Yet we can also approach the same argument in another way, by examining difficulties concerning the best constitution. For if it is impossible for a city to consist entirely of worthy people, still each must perform his own work well, and this comes from virtue.40 Since it is impossible for all the citizens to be alike,

there would not1277a1 be one virtue of a citizen and of a good man. For all must possess the virtue of the worthy citizen—this is necessary if the city is to be best—but they cannot all possess the virtue of the good man, unless everyone must be good in5 the worthy city as a citizen. Again, since the city consists of unlike elements—just as an animal consists immediately of soul and body, and a soul of reason and desire, and a household of husband and wife, and property of master and slave—in the same way a city consists of all these, and in addition of other unlike10 kinds. The virtue of all citizens must therefore not be one, just as it is not one for the leader of a chorus and the person standing beside him.

Why, then, they are not the same without qualification is clear from this. But will there be someone for whom the virtue of a worthy citizen and a worthy man is the same? We say that the ruler1277a15 who is worthy is good and possesses practical wisdom, but the citizen need not possess practical wisdom. Some say, indeed, that the education of a ruler is different from the outset: we see that the sons of kings are trained in horsemanship and warfare, and Euripides says, “Not clever refinements for me … but what the city needs,” (Eur. Fr. 16)20 as though there were a particular education for a ruler. If the virtue of a good ruler and of a good man is the same, but the ruled person too is a citizen, then the virtue of citizen and man would not be the same without qualification, though it would be for a certain citizen. For the virtue of ruler and citizen is not the same, and perhaps this is why Jason said he went hungry when he was not a tyrant, as though25 he did not know how to be a private person.

Yet the ability to rule and to be ruled is praised, and the virtue of the citizen seems to be the ability both to rule well and to be ruled well. If, then, we regard the virtue of the good man as that of ruling, and that of the citizen as both, the two would not be equally praiseworthy. Since, then,1277a30 both views are sometimes held—that ruler and ruled need not learn the same things, but that the citizen should know both and share in both—we may gain insight from the following. There is rule of a master, and by this we mean rule concerned with necessary tasks. The ruler need not know how to perform these,35 but rather how to make use of them. The other capacity is indeed slavish. By the other I mean the ability actually to perform the tasks of service. We speak of several kinds of slave, for there are several kinds of work. One part of these is occupied by manual laborers. These, as their name itself indicates, are those who live by1277b1 their hands,

among whom is the mechanical craftsman. For this reason, in some places craftsmen in earlier times did not share in offices, before the most extreme democracy arose. Thus the tasks of those ruled in this fashion are not for the good man, the statesman, or the1277b5 good citizen to learn, except perhaps for his own personal needs; for then it no longer follows that one is master and another slave.

But there is a kind of rule under which one rules those who are alike in stock and free. This is what we call political rule, which the ruler, through being ruled, must1277b10 learn, as he learns to command cavalry by serving under a cavalry commander, and to be a general by serving under a general and commanding a regiment and a company. Hence this, too, is well said: no one can rule well without having been ruled. Their virtues are different, but the good citizen must know how and be able both to be ruled and to15 rule; and this is the virtue of a citizen, to understand the rule of free people from both sides. Both belong also to the good man, even if the moderation and justice of ruling differ in kind. For when a good man is ruled but free, it is clear that his virtue, justice for example, would not be one, but would have forms20 according to which he will rule and be ruled, just as moderation and courage differ in a man and a woman. A man would seem cowardly if he were only as courageous as a courageous woman, and a woman talkative if she were only as restrained as a good man; since household management, too, differs for man and woman. The man's25 work is to acquire, the woman's to preserve. Practical wisdom alone is a virtue peculiar to a ruler. The others, it seems, must be common to both ruled and rulers, but practical wisdom is not a virtue of the ruled person; rather, true opinion is. For the ruled person is like a flute-maker, and the ruler30 like the flute-player who uses the flute. Whether the virtue of a good man and a worthy citizen is the same or different, and how it is the same and how different, is therefore clear from this.

One of the difficulties about the citizen still remains. Is a citizen truly someone permitted to share in1277b35 office, or should we also count mechanical workers as citizens? If we must count those too who have no share in offices, not every citizen can possess the virtue we have described, for such a person is a citizen. But if none of these is a citizen, in what class should each be placed? He is neither a resident foreigner nor a foreigner. Or shall we say that this argument1278a1 produces nothing absurd?

For neither are slaves or freedmen any of the categories mentioned. This is true: we should not count as citizens all those without whom a city could not exist, since even children are not citizens in the same way as men. Rather,1278a5 the latter are citizens without qualification, the former on a condition: they are citizens, but incomplete ones. In ancient times in some places the mechanical laboring class consisted of slaves or foreigners; for this reason most of them are of this kind even now. The best city will not make a mechanical worker a citizen. But if he too is a citizen, the virtue of a citizen that we described10 must be said to belong not to everyone, nor merely to everyone free, but to those released from necessary tasks. Of those who perform necessary tasks, those who serve one person in such matters are slaves, while those who serve the public are mechanical workers and hired laborers. How matters stand with them will be clear from a little consideration of this; for when the point just stated comes to light, it makes this15 clear. Since there are several constitutions, there must also be several kinds of citizen, especially of the citizen who is ruled. Hence in one constitution the mechanical worker and the hired laborer must be citizens, while in some it is impossible: for example, if there is a constitution of the kind they call aristocratic, where according to virtue20 and worth honors are bestowed. For it is impossible to pursue the activities of virtue while living the life of a mechanical worker or a hired laborer. In oligarchies a hired laborer cannot be a citizen, for participation in offices depends on high property qualifications; but a mechanical worker can, for many25 craftsmen are wealthy. At Thebes there was a law that someone who had not abstained from trade for ten years could not share in office. In many constitutions the law also draws in some foreigners: in certain democracies a person born of a female citizen is a citizen, and in many places the same holds for the illegitimate. Yet,30 since they make such people citizens because of a shortage of legitimate citizens—for it is because their population is small that they apply the laws in this way—when they have an abundance of the masses, they gradually remove first those born of a male or female slave, then those descended through women, and finally make citizens only of those born of two citizens.

1274b32For someone studying constitutions—what each is and what it's like—the first question is almost always about the city: what exactly is a city? People now disagree about this. Some say35 the city carried out an action. Others say it wasn't the city but the oligarchy or the tyrant. We see that all the work of the statesman and the lawgiver concerns the city. A constitution is a certain arrangement of the people living in a city. The city is a composite thing, like any other whole40 made up of many parts. So clearly we must first examine the citizen. A city is a collection of citizens.

1275a1We must therefore consider whom we should call a citizen, and what a citizen is. People often disagree about the citizen too. They don't all agree that the same person is a citizen. Someone who is a citizen in a democracy is often5 not a citizen in an oligarchy. We can set aside people who receive this title in some other way, such as people made citizens by a special grant. A citizen isn't a citizen just because he lives somewhere. Resident foreigners and slaves also share a place to live. Nor do legal rights make someone a citizen, even rights to be sued and to bring a suit.10 People covered by agreements between cities have these rights too. In many places resident foreigners don't even have a full share in these rights. They must appoint a patron, so their share in this kind of community is incomplete. Likewise, children who are still too young15 to be enrolled, and old people who have been released from service, must be called citizens in a sense, but not without qualification. We must add that the first are not fully qualified and the second are past their prime, or use some other similar description. The wording doesn't matter; the meaning is clear. We're looking for the citizen without qualification, whose status has no20 such objection that needs correcting. The same sorts of difficulties can be raised and settled about people deprived of civic rights and exiles. A citizen without qualification is best defined by taking part in judgment and office. Some offices have fixed terms, so that in some offices, a second term25 cannot be held by the same person at all. In others, he can do so only after a set interval. Other offices have no fixed term, such as those of the juror and the assembly member. Someone might say that these people aren't even officeholders, and so don't take part in office. Yet it's absurd to deny office to those with the most authority. But this needn't matter. A name30 is what the question is about. There is no common name for a juror and an assembly member, no term for what we should call both. So, to define it, let's call it an office without a fixed term. We count those who take part in this way as citizens.

This, then, is roughly the definition of a citizen that would fit best all those called citizens. But we must1275a35 remember this: when the things concerned differ in kind, with one first, another second, and another following, they have nothing in common as such, or very little. We see that constitutions differ from one another in kind, and that some come later and others1275b1 earlier.

Faulty constitutions that depart from the right ones must come later than those without faults. What we mean by constitutions that depart from the right ones will become clear later. So the citizen must also differ with each constitution.1275b5 That's why the citizen just described is a citizen above all in a democracy. He may be one in other constitutions, but he needn't be. Some have no people acting as a body and no regular assembly, only specially called meetings. Different offices judge different lawsuits. In Lacedaemon, for example, contract cases are judged by10 different supervising officials called ephors. The elders judge homicide cases, and perhaps some other office judges other cases. Things aren't the same at Carthage either. There certain offices judge all lawsuits. But the definition of the citizen can be corrected. In other constitutions, it isn't the official without a fixed term who acts as assembly member15 and juror. Instead, it is the official whose office is defined. All or some of these officeholders are assigned the work of deliberating and judging, either on every issue or on certain issues. This makes clear what a citizen is. We call someone who has the right to share in office involving public debate or court judgments a citizen of that20 city. In simple terms, a city is a collection of such people large enough for a self-sufficient life.

For practical purposes, people define a citizen as someone whose parents are both citizens, not just one, such as the father or the mother. Some take this requirement further, going back two, three, or more generations.1275b25 When people define citizenship this way, for political purposes and without much thought, some ask how that ancestor in the third or fourth generation can have been a citizen. Gorgias of Leontini, perhaps partly puzzled and partly joking, said that just as mortars are things made by mortar-makers, Larissaeans are people made by their civic officials.30 There are, he said, Larissaean-makers. But the answer is simple. If they took part in the constitution according to the definition given, they were citizens. Besides, the requirement of having a citizen father or mother can't possibly apply to the first settlers or founders.

But perhaps a greater difficulty concerns those who1275b35 became citizens after a change of constitution. Cleisthenes did this at Athens after the tyrants were expelled. He enrolled in the tribes many foreigners and slaves who were resident foreigners. The dispute about these people isn't over who is a citizen, but whether they are citizens justly or unjustly. Yet someone might raise this further question:

1276a1if someone isn't justly a citizen, is he not a citizen at all, as though being unjust and being false meant the same thing? But we see people holding office unjustly, and we say that they hold office, though not justly. A citizen is defined by a certain kind of office. Someone who shares in5 this kind of office is a citizen, as we said. So clearly we must say that these people too are citizens.

Whether they are citizens justly or unjustly connects with the dispute mentioned earlier. Some people ask when an action is the city's and when it isn't. For example, when an oligarchy or tyranny becomes1276a10 a democracy, some people refuse to settle debts. They say it wasn't the city that borrowed, but the tyrant. They also refuse many other such obligations, on the grounds that some constitutions rest on force rather than the common advantage. If some democracies are governed in this way too, then the actions15 of this constitution must be called the city's actions just as much as those of the oligarchy and tyranny. This argument seems connected with the problem of when we should say a city is the same city, and when it is not the same but a different one. At its most superficial, this problem20 is examined in terms of the place and the people. The place and the people can be divided, with some living in one place and others in another.

We should treat this as an easier problem. Since “city” has several meanings, a question of this sort is fairly easy to deal with. Similarly,1276a25 when people live in the same place, when should we consider them one city? Certainly not because of their walls. One wall could be built around the Peloponnese. Perhaps Babylon is like this, and any place whose boundaries enclose more of a nation than a city. They say that after Babylon was captured, it was the third30 day before part of the city learned of it.

But it will be useful to examine this problem on another occasion. A statesman must understand a city's size—how large it should be, and whether one nation or several is better. But when the same people live in the same place,1276a35 should we call it the same city as long as its inhabitants remain of the same stock, even though some are always dying and others being born? We habitually call rivers and springs the same, although fresh water is always coming in and old water flowing out. Or should we say that the people40 are the same for this reason, but the1276b1 city is different?

If a city is a community, and a community of citizens under a constitution, then when the constitution becomes different in kind, the city too would seem necessarily no longer the same. We say that a chorus1276b5 is different when it performs comedy and when it performs tragedy, even though it often consists of the same people. Likewise, any other community or combination is different if the form of the combination differs. For example, the same notes make a different harmony when arranged in the Dorian way and in the Phrygian way. If this10 is so, clearly we should look above all to the constitution in deciding whether a city is the same. It can be given a different name or the same name whether its inhabitants are the same people or completely different people. Whether it is just to settle obligations or not when there is a change to another constitution15 in the city is a separate question.

The next question after what we've said is whether we should count the virtue of a good man and that of a good citizen as the same or not. If we are to investigate this, we must first get a rough idea of a citizen's virtue.1276b20 A sailor is one member of a community, and we say the same of a citizen. Sailors differ in their abilities: one is a rower, another a helmsman, another a lookout at the bow, and another has some other such title. Clearly, the most exact description of each one's25 virtue will be specific to him. But a common description will also fit them all. Keeping the voyage safe is the task of all of them. Each sailor aims at this. Similarly, citizens differ, but keeping the community safe is their task. Their community is the constitution.30 So a citizen's virtue must relate to the constitution. If there are several kinds of constitution, clearly there can't be one virtue, the complete virtue, of a good citizen. But we say that a man is good because of one virtue, the complete virtue.

Clearly, then, someone can be a good citizen without1276b35 having the virtue that makes a good man. But we can also approach the same argument another way, by raising questions about the best constitution. If a city can't be made up entirely of good people, each must still do his own task well, and that requires virtue.40 Since all the citizens can't be alike,

there cannot1277a1 be one and the same virtue of a citizen and a good man. Everyone must have the virtue of a good citizen. That is necessary for the city to be the best. But they can't all have the good man's virtue, unless everyone must be good in5 a good city as a citizen. Further, a city is made up of unlike parts. An animal, for a start, consists of soul and body, the soul of reason and desire, a household of man and woman, and property of master and slave. In the same way, a city consists of all these, and also other unlike10 kinds of people. So all its citizens can't have the same virtue, just as a chorus leader and the person standing beside him don't have the same virtue.

This makes clear why the two virtues aren't simply the same. But will someone have the same virtue as a good citizen and a good man? We say that a ruler1277a15 who rules well is good and has good judgment in practical matters. A citizen needn't have practical judgment. Some say that a ruler's education is different from the start. We do see kings' sons educated in riding and warfare. And Euripides says, “Not clever things for me … but what the city needs,” (Eur. Fr. 16)20 as though there were a special education for a ruler. If the virtue of a good ruler and a good man is the same, but someone who is ruled is also a citizen, the virtue of a citizen and a man won't simply be the same. It will, however, be the same for a certain citizen. A ruler's virtue and a citizen's aren't the same. Perhaps this is why Jason said he went hungry when he wasn't a tyrant, because25 he didn't know how to live as a private person.

Still, the ability to rule and be ruled is praised. A citizen's virtue seems to be the ability both to rule well and to be ruled well. If we say that the good man's virtue is the ability to rule, and the citizen's is both, the two abilities won't be equally praiseworthy. Since, then,1277a30 both views sometimes seem right, and the ruler and the ruled needn't learn the same things, while the citizen must know both and share in both, we can see the answer from the following. There is rule exercised by a master. We mean rule concerned with necessary tasks. The ruler needn't know how to do these,35 but rather how to use their results. Doing them is actually slavish. By doing them I mean being able to serve by carrying out these menial tasks. We speak of several kinds of slave, since there are several kinds of work. One part of this work belongs to manual laborers. As their name indicates, these are people who live by1277b1 their hands.

The craftsman who works with his hands is one of these. That's why in some places craftsmen didn't share in office in earlier times, before the most extreme democracy arose. The tasks of people ruled in this way aren't for a good man or a statesman or a1277b5 good citizen to learn, except when he needs to do something for himself. When he serves himself, there is no longer one person who is master and another who is slave.

But there is a kind of rule over people who are alike in stock and free. We call this political rule. The ruler, by being ruled, must1277b10 learn it. For example, he learns to command cavalry by serving under a cavalry commander, and to be a general by serving under a general and commanding a regiment and a company. That's why it's rightly said that someone who hasn't been ruled can't rule well. The virtues involved are different, but a good citizen must know how and be able both to be ruled and to15 rule. This is a citizen's virtue: knowing the rule of free people from both sides. A good man too must have both, even if self-control and justice in a ruler are different in kind. Clearly, the virtue of a good man who is ruled but free, such as his justice, won't have just one form. It will have forms20 according to whether he rules or is ruled, just as self-control and courage differ for a man and a woman. A man would seem cowardly if he had only the courage of a courageous woman. A woman would seem talkative if she were as restrained as a good man. Their household management differs too. The man's25 task is to acquire, the woman's to preserve. Practical wisdom is the only virtue specific to a ruler. All the others seem necessarily shared by the ruled and the rulers. The virtue of someone ruled isn't practical judgment, but true opinion. The person ruled is like a flute-maker, and the ruler30 like the flute-player who uses it. This makes clear whether the virtue of a good man and a good citizen is the same or different, and how it is the same and how it differs.

One problem about the citizen still remains. Is a citizen really someone entitled to share in1277b35 office, or should we count craft workers as citizens too? If we must include these people, who have no share in office, then not every citizen can have the virtue described, since this person too is a citizen. But if no such person is a citizen, in what category should each be placed? He isn't a resident foreigner or a foreigner. Or should we say that this argument1278a1 leads to nothing absurd?

Slaves and freed slaves don't belong to any of the categories mentioned either. It's true that we shouldn't count everyone without whom a city couldn't exist as a citizen. Even children aren't citizens in the same way as grown men. Rather,1278a5 the latter are citizens without qualification and the former with a qualification: they are citizens, but not fully qualified. In ancient times, in some places, craft workers were slaves or foreigners. That's why most are still like this today. The best city won't make a craft worker a citizen. But if such a person is a citizen, the citizen's virtue we described10 can't be said to belong to everyone, or even everyone who is free. It belongs to those released from necessary tasks. People who perform such necessary services for one person are slaves; those who perform them for the public are craft workers and hired laborers. A little examination makes their position clear. Once the point itself is understood, it makes what we've said15 clear. Since there are several constitutions, there must be several kinds of citizen, especially of the citizen who is ruled. So in one constitution craft workers and hired laborers must be citizens, while in some others this is impossible. An example is any constitution called aristocratic, where according to virtue20 and worth honors are given. Someone who lives as a craft worker or hired laborer can't practice the activities of virtue. In oligarchies a hired laborer can't be a citizen, since sharing in office requires high property qualifications. But a craft worker can be one. Many25 craftsmen are rich. At Thebes there was a law that anyone who hadn't stayed out of trade for ten years couldn't share in office. In many constitutions the law also draws in some foreigners. In some democracies a person with a citizen mother is a citizen. Many places take the same approach to children born outside marriage. However,30 they make such people citizens because of a shortage of citizens born to citizen parents. They apply their laws this way because their population is small. Once they have plenty of people, they gradually remove these rights, first from those with a slave father or mother, then from those with only citizen mothers. Finally they make only those with two citizen parents citizens.