If it were the case at Athens that the fourth generation from a stranger was considered as having attained to the rights of a citizen, it mattered little what a man's _greatgrand_father was. He might have been an alien, yet if the intermediate ancestors were "in order," the candidate would have acquired the full blood.(168)
(M88) In the _Oedipus Tyrannus_,(169) Sophocles apparently uses the expression "slave from the _third_ mother" as implying that three descents were considered to confirm the position of the fourth generation as slave or citizen, or whatever the case might be. Oedipus assures Jokasta that _her_ pedigree and status will remain unimpugned, even though the enquiry he is prosecuting establish him thrice-born a slave from slave mother, slave grandmother, and slave greatgrandmother.
In elections for sacred offices, which appear to have been about the last things laid open to the new citizen, the possession of three generations of privileged ancestors was in some places insisted on. There is an inscription to this effect belonging to Halikarnassos;(170) and some similar rule seems to have held good among the Jews.
"These sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but it was not found; therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood (_{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}_ { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~} { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~})."(171)
The book of Nehemiah closes with the triumphant verse: "Thus I cleansed them from all strangers."