Whatever the respective roles that circumstance and belief may
have played, when representative government was established,
concern for equality in the allocation of offices had been relegated to
the background. Here lies the solution to the paradox, noted earlier,
of a method known for distributing offices less equally than lot
(election) prevailing without debates or qualifications, at the
moment political equality among citizens was being declared. By
the time representative government arose, the kind of political
equality that was at center stage was the equal right to consent to
power, and not - or much less so - an equal chance to hold office.
This means that a new conception of citizenship had emerged:
citizens were now viewed primarily as the source of political
legitimacy, rather than as persons who might desire to hold office
themselves.