The Greek city had fallen through its intense individualism. Roman citizenship failed because it became universal. It lost the power to create a common character and to command a common allegiance. Something was needed which should be less narrow than the city-state, and less wide than a world-empire, before the modern conception of citizenship could be realized.
In the city politics of Mediaeval Italy we find revived in a new form the Greek idea of citizenship. There is the same intense activity within a limited area, the same intimate participation in civic duties and privileges, the same pride in the