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The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome Paperback – May 1, 1980

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Product Details

  • Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press (May 1, 1980)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0801823048
  • ISBN-13: 978-0801823046
  • Product Dimensions: 5 x 1 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,076,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsOne of the Best and most Instructive Books Ever Written
By Laura Knight-Jadczyk on March 16, 2013
Format: Paperback
I read references to the work of Fustel de Coulanges in the writings of the great and heroic French historian, Marc Bloch, (The Historian's Craft) and was intrigued enough to get and read it. What an eye-opener! It is undoubtedly among the top 10 seminal historical works ever written, in my opinion. Considering the data that Fustel did not have access to, for which some criticize him, makes this achievement even that much more impressive. His thought revealed in his writing is clear, insightful, brilliant.

What you will find in this book is a masterful story of the descent of the many institutions to which we are still heir though the context and specific manifestations have changed. In many cases, we believe things about why this or that custom has always been with us that are wrong, and Fustel sets out the evidence for what is really behind such things as marriage ceremonies, carrying the bride over the threshold, the foundations of the legal system including why it was the eldest son who got everything for thousands of years, and so forth. There are many questions about why things are the way they are answered in this book.

As other reviewers have noted, there are many descriptions in "The Ancient City" that will bring elements of the Bible to mind. The big question nowadays is: did the Bible borrow from other stories and cultures to create a "history of Israel" that never actually happened? Were some of those stories Greek? And were the Greek stories influenced by elements from Anatolia and Mesopotamia, coming to the Bible by a circuitous route? Did the authors of the Septuagint borrow from Homer and Herodotus?Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsClassic introduction to Mediterranean society
By Christopher P. Atwood on January 24, 2001
Format: Paperback
I was first exposed to this book in an anthropology class, where the professor used it to introduce the anthropological concept of descent, i.e. the inheritance of collective rights to valuable resources (above all land), through birth in a clan. Having read and research much more on this topic, and come back to "Ancient City," I find it still one of the most lucid expositions of descent and lineage institutions. (Note, though, that Mediterranean clans are somewhat unusual in being endogamous, not exogamous, like those of the Eastern Asia or sub-Saharan Africa).
Readers familiar with Herodotus or Livy will find their questions about the importance of bones of heroes and cult images answered in this book.
Also for anyone familiar with the Old Testament, and hoping to learn more about its social background, this book ought to be a fascinating read. Page after page can be annotated with Biblical verses (it is hard to believe that Fustel de Coulanges was not thinking of these verses when he wrote the book). The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is, in part, a recognizable Mediterranean family God--although Fustel de Coulanges argues that this same God, when revealed in the Christian Gospel, decisively transformed the ancient city into a new civilization based not on family gods, but on one universal God.
Fustel de Coulanges works with a typical 19th century social evolutionist view, one that is hardly acceptable today. His lack of knowledge about the other areas leads him to assume, for example, that endogamy is an inherent feature of clan-family religion; as noted above, this is incorrect. Once you control for these understandable errors, however, the progression from family to tribe to city, while unacceptable as a history, does make the exposition easy to follow.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsEssential Classic, explains Pagan Religion of Athens & Rome
By A Customer on October 2, 1996
Format: Paperback
Although originally appearing in 1864 and based only on reading
the classical literature, it can correct much of the nonsense
in most current work about Athenian Democracy, Roman Empire
or the realities of Indo-European Pagan Religion as practiced
in the City-States of the Ancient World.

Also contains the detailed information to show that the
gens (family group) based mounted invaders who brought the Olympian
Gods to Ancient Europe had no only wagons, but iron swords and
advanced astronomical knowledge, since their hearth-based altars and
ceremonies are based on the requirements of the ancient iron-working
and weapon mending techniques, and they could tell anniversary dates which
means they knew how to tell when a solar year from any date had elapsed.

The book was originally written in scholarly protest against the
claims of Emperor Louis Napoleon III that he was re-establishing the Roman Empire
and the Athenian Polis,etc. It remains an excellent antidote to the
foolish claims today to have re-established Ancient Ways by various political and
social gadflies.
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5.0 out of 5 starsThe Ancient City: A Study of Pagan Religion and the Rise of Christianity.
By New Age of Barbarism on June 19, 2006
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
_The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome_ is a translation of _La Cite Antique_ of Fustel de Coulanges, first published in 1864, and made available as a translation by The Johns Hopkins University Press. Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges was a French classicist who devoted his attention to the ancient pagan civic religions of the Greeks and Romans, contrasting this with that of the Indians (Aryans). His ideas concerning this ancient pagan religion were part of a milieu of social evolutionary ideas that included H. S. Maine and J. J. Bachofen. He also wrote on the origins of the Gauls and French society and his ideas concerning their Roman origins were put to use by various extreme rightist organizations such as the Action Francaise of Charles Maurras. The writings of Fustel de Coulanges have proven particularly profitable for many later French sociologists and anthropologists, though they were to come to reject certain of his ideas as not being confirmed by historical evidence. Christianity played a special role in the theories of Fustel de Coulanges as the subsequent religion which overtook the pagan Greek and Roman civic religion and supplanted it with a universalist system. In addition, Fustel de Coulanges wrote against the various socialist theorists of the time, emphasizing the role of private property among the earliest Greeks and Romans. This book includes a Foreword by Arnaldo Momigliano and S. C. Humphreys which points to many of the central issues involved in the reading of Fustel de Coulanges and the text of _The Ancient City_ proper.

To begin, the author notes the essential necessity of studying the earliest beliefs of the ancients in an effort to understand their institutions.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsI would highly recommend it to anyone interested in ancient...

Probably the most valuable history I've ever read. Full of substance, and insight, and answers. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in ancient civilization, but also... Read more

Published 12 months ago by 29x281
5.0 out of 5 starsHighly Recommended

Understanding classical cultures is impossible without this legendary book.

Published 17 months ago by Fred
5.0 out of 5 starsExtremely readable and paints a vivid image

This text provides a detailed account of life in Ancient Greece that goes beyond the mere superficial and exposes the intellectual undercurrents to Greek society. Read more

Published on April 14, 2014 by Erik
5.0 out of 5 starsThe real classical world in all its superstition and glory

An indispensable book that should be a mandatory part of any classical education. The Ancient City is written in accessible, engaging language for a modern age that understands... Read more

Published on June 16, 2013 by Avery
5.0 out of 5 starsFantastic

I love the book even though it arrived when i had forgotten about it. All the same I have no regrets that i have it.

Published on November 29, 2012 by kevin Udenwagu
5.0 out of 5 starsBest book ever

I loved this book. As a non-anthropologist, I simply got to understand our current "modern" world better after reading it. And easy to read too! Read more

Published on November 12, 2012 by Diana A. Maciel Hjørungnes
4.0 out of 5 starsCouldn't put it down !

I thoroughly enjoyed reading "The Ancient City". Despite being fairly well read on the subject the book still ended up teaching me a few things about the family hearth rites /... Read more

Published on March 19, 2008 by Ishraqi
5.0 out of 5 starsNo New Hampshire Primaries in the Ancient City

Brilliant and unchallenged interpretation of community and City State life in Indoeuropean ancient societies. Read more

Published on January 13, 2008 by Francisco A. Tudela
5.0 out of 5 starsFew have been exposed to this great work

This work is a discussion and a conveyance of ideas about ancient cities in Greece, and of Rome, with a focus on government, but mostly of laws and of 'private gods'. Read more

Published on November 5, 2007 by Patrick W. Crabtree
5.0 out of 5 starson history now of history

Fustel de Coulanges describes a society that I found incredible. How could it be the case that a healthy society found itself founded solely under the patriarchal power of each... Read more

Published on May 19, 2003 by Alvaro Lewis

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