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Citizenship

Citizenship

Prerequisites

Requires:

• Jurisprudence

Statistics

Gives:

• Legion
• City State

Gameplay

Citizenship represents the concept of individuals serving the state as a civic duty, not through coercion. In military terms this results in the Legion, which relies on the individual initiative of junior leaders combined with their willingness to undergo long-term training. In civil affairs it produces the City State, which relies on the willingness of a large proportion of the city dwellers to support their government by actively taking part in it.

Historical

In the first cities, all people were either members of the governing class or of the governed. Starting in the small cities of post-Bronze Age Greece, a new concept began to emerge: that of the city inhabitant as an active participant in the city government, simultaneously a member of both the governed and the governing class. The basis of the participation was always the ability of the individual to take part in the defense of the state, as either a warrior or a supporter of warriors. In Athens, this concept was eventually extended to almost every adult male because the defense of the Athenian State was based on her navy, and almost anyone could serve as an oarsman on a trireme, regardless of wealth or lack of it. Although the governments of the individual city states varied from the totalitarian militarism of Lacaedemonia (Sparta) to the ’mob’ Democracy of Athens after Cleisthenes’ reforms, they all shared one salient characteristic: in every case, the willing participation of a fairly large percentage of the population in the running of the city and state compared to tyrannies and traditional monarchies of the Middle East.