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_.