ancient cities

an insider. This creates a figure in the sense of
both a person (law) and an image (norm). For
subjects and abjects, becoming a citizen means
either adopting modes and forms of being an
insider (assimilation, integration, incorporation)
or challenging these modes and forms and thereby
transforming them (identification, differentiation,
recognition). Just what constitutes citizenship and
its appropriate modes and forms of conduct are
always objects of struggle among citizens, subjects,
and abjects with claims to citizenship as
justice. It is through these claims to citizenship as
justice that it becomes a site of rights and obligations.
These claims and the combination of rights
and obligations that define it work themselves out
differently in different sites and produce different
figures. Thus, sites (cities, empires, nations, states),
figures (citizens, subjects, abjects), and substances
(rights, obligations, duties) can be said to be the
elements of citizenship that constitute a body
politic.
Sites of Citizenship
The ancient Greeks have been given the distinction
of inventing citizenship roughly around the
eighth century BC by producing a new image of
the city: polis. Until then, the city was governed by
god-kings and after that, the citizens. It appears
that cities in ancient kingdoms, states, and empires
did not develop citizenship precisely because they
were “despotic” regimes of government. But the
ancient Greeks did not see much conflict between
despotic regimes of government and citizenship.
The three forms of governing the city as identified
by Greek thought—oligarchy, aristocracy, and
democracy—already assumed the existence of the
citizen. Nonetheless, what happened in that originary
moment? The answer, ironically, has much
to do with what we are struggling over right now.
At that originary moment, it seems that a new figure
entered onto the stage of history, who was
male and a warrior and owned property (not the
least of which were the means of warfare). That
figure became the dominant image. Those who
were not male and did not own property—such as
women, slaves, peasants, merchants, craftsmen,
and sailors—found themselves thrown into being,
or had become, the others of that figure as subjects
and abjects. The figure of the citizen involved the
Citizenship
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right to govern his city (belonging) and bequeath
that right to his son (blood). By governing himself
by the laws of his city, he also governed the strangers,
outsiders, and aliens of the city. We already
recognize in this figure attributes (property, warriorship,
masculinity) that were reproduced time
and again as conditions of citizenship and yet
worked themselves out differently in different
sites. The site of polis would remain as the originary
site through which citizenship has been reinvented
through the centuries. The issues that polis
articulated, such as the relationship between citizenship
and forms of government, subjects, and
abjects and rights and responsibilities of citizenship
would, time and again, be repeated, albeit
producing different sites, figures, and substances
of citizenship. It is now impossible to conceive
citizenship without orienting ourselves to that
original site of history, polis, and its figure of the
citizen.
The Roman figure of the citizen worked itself
out through different sites. When fully articulated,
being a Roman citizen was above all being a member
of an empire that was beyond the city. The site
of citizenship, it seems, extended beyond the city.
Yet, it is clear that while Romans invented a new
site for citizenship, it was articulated through the
city. “Being Roman” nicely captures that duality:
being of Rome and its empire. What that meant is
that while being male, warrior, and property owner
were still the elements that constituted a Roman
citizen, dominating its other figures—such as strangers
(women, plebeians, clients, slaves), outsiders
(merchants, foreigners), and aliens (barbarians)—he
was still essentially Roman precisely because he
was of Rome. Being Roman was simultaneously an
imperial and civic identity, but it eventually became
an imperial identity by the famous declaration in
AD 212. The empire as the site of citizenship
and its graded characteristics were the contested
claims upon which citizenship developed. We will
perhaps always debate whether the fall of the
empire was because of that aspiration to, or necessity
of, universal citizenship.
The emergence of new sites of citizenship after
the disintegration of the Roman Empire is among
the most fascinating episodes. Much has been written
about the rebirth of the city during the eleventh
and twelfth centuries in Europe. The invention of
the charter as the founding instrument of the city