The Ancient City by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, translated by Willard Small, 323 pages
In The Ancient City, the 19th century historian Fustel de Coulanges explores the origins of the great city-states of the classical world, chief among them Sparta, Athens, and Rome. All of these, he observes, were born out of a context of familial, tribal associations bound together by religious observance, in which the concept of property was centered on the ancestral tomb and law was "at the same time a code, a constitution, and a ritual." The history of the ancient world then progresses or degenerates as a movement away from this hierarchical religious community towards a polity which is more egalitarian, secular, and dissolute.
In an age like our own when historiography generally treats religion as an accident, this landmark work indisputably establishes religion as the central reality of every ancient civilization. The family, the tribe, and the city were all religious in their foundations. Then, as now, those foundations are vulnerable to water and fire, to the slow drip of complacency and the burning flame of resentment.
