Let’s embrace the idea that there are two commonwealths. The one is vast and truly common to all, and includes the gods as well as mankind; within it, we look neither to this mere corner nor to that, but we measure the boundaries of our state by the sun’s course. The other is the one in which we are enrolled by the circumstances of our birth—I mean Athens or Carthage or any other city that belongs not to the whole of mankind but to a particular population. Certain people give devoted service to both commonwealths, the greater and the lesser, at the same time; some serve only the lesser, some only the greater.

—Seneca, De otio