In ancient Athens, this could mean that a citizen would have to devote the better part of his time and energy to public concerns, such as serving on a jury for a full yeas. Such devotion was necessary if he was to achieve the ideal of citizenship: to be a self-governing member of a self-governing community. Those who preerred a more private or less arduous than the citizen's could find themselves mocked, as they were in Pericles Funeral Oration, as' good for nothing'