''The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws and Institutions of Greece and Rome'' (), published in 1864, is the most famous book of the French

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (; 18 March 1830 – 12 September 1889) was a French historian. Biography Coulanges was born in Paris; he was of Breton descent. After studying at the École Normale Supérieure, he attended the French School at ...

(1830–1889). Taking inspiration from

René Descartes René Descartes ( , ; ; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and Modern science, science. Mathematics was paramou ...

, and based on texts of ancient historians and poets, Fustel investigates the origins of the most archaic institutions in the

Greco-Roman world The Greco-Roman world , also Greco-Roman civilization, Greco-Roman culture or Greco-Latin culture (spelled Græco-Roman or Graeco-Roman in British English), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and co ...

Summary

Fustel de Coulanges sees

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

and the ancestor cult as the foundation of the institutions of the Greeks and Romans.: "The Ancient City is a study of the central role of religion, in particular the ancestor cult, in Greece and Rome ("The religious idea was, among the ancients, the inspiring breath and organizer of society"), stressing the importance of sacredness in the explanation of their institutions and beliefs, and the pervasive predominance of ritual (religion "signified rites, ceremonies, acts of exterior worship. The doctrine was of small account: the practices were the important part; these were obligatory and bound men")." Referred to as the "domestic religion", each family had their own belief, gods, and worship. The rules of gender and family hierarchy, ownership, inheritance, were governed by that cult. Over time, need has led men to regularize and make more consistent their relations with one another, and the rules that govern the family were transferred to increasingly larger units called

gens In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; : gentes ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same ''nomen gentilicium'' and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens, sometimes identified by a distinct cognomen, was cal ...

, arriving eventually at the

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, ...

. Therefore, the origin of the city and of

private property Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental Capacity (law), legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which is owned by a state entity, and from Collective ownership ...

is also religious, as is witnessed by the practice of

lustration Lustration in Central and Eastern Europe is the official public procedure of scrutinizing a public official or a candidate for public office in terms of their history as a witting confidential collaborator (informant) of relevant former commun ...

, a periodic purification ceremony in connection with the census of all citizens, and by the public banquets in honor of local gods. The laws originally encoded the privileges of the

aristocracy Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense Economy, economic, Politics, political, and soc ...

, causing great discomfort to the

plebs In ancient Rome, the plebeians or plebs were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words "commoners". Both classes were hereditary. Etymology The precise origins of the gro ...

and a social revolution in which the common well-being of society became the new basis of religion. The city thus came into being for some time, until its extinction with the arrival of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

Methodology

In the preface of the book, he warns of the error that lies in examining the habits of ancient people with reference to those of today, when it is necessary to avoid our biases and study ancient peoples in the light of the facts.

Influence

The book was so consistent throughout, so full of ingenious ideas, and written in so striking a style, that it ranks as one of the masterpieces of the French language in the 19th century. By this literary merit, Fustel set little store, but he clung tenaciously to his theories. When he revised the book in 1875, his modifications were very slight, and it is conceivable that, had he recast it, as he often expressed the desire to do in the last years of his life, he would not have abandoned any part of his fundamental thesis. Joseph M. McCarthy in particular had argued that it was based on his in-depth knowledge of the primary Greek and Latin texts. Summarizing it in his own words:

Religion was the sole factor in the evolution of ancient Greece and Rome, the bonding of family and state was the work of religion, that because of ancestor worship the family, drawn together by the need to engage in the ancestral cults, became the basic unit of ancient societies, expanding to the ''gens'', the Greek
phratry In ancient Greece, a phratry (, derived from ) was a group containing citizens in some city-states. Their existence is known in most Ionian cities and in Athens and it is thought that they existed elsewhere as well. Almost nothing is known about th ...
, the Roman tribe, to the patrician city state, and that decline in religious belief and authority in the moral crisis provoked by Roman wealth and expansion doomed the republic and resulted in the triumph of Christianity and the death of the ancient city-state.

The book's methodology was highly influential in the development of Émile Durkheim's conception of religion, in particular his desire to eliminate all preconceived notions. Although Durkheim later criticized Fustel, as he didn't consider

ethnographic Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

evidence, and in Durkheim's view, misunderstood the Roman gens.

The text is split into five different books: * Book First: Ancient Beliefs * Book Second: The Family * Book Third: The City * Book Fourth: The Revolutions * Book Fifth: The Municipal Regime Disappears

Editions

* ''The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome'', translated by Willard Small, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980, ;

References

External links