The Ancient City, by Fustel de Coulanges

The rise of Christianity completed the destruction of the social order based on the ancient religion of ancestor worship.In this final chapter of the book, Fustel catalogs the changes in politics, in worship, in law, and in self-understanding that the new religion produced.---Based on: https://youtu.be/cEx0tT0jHb4

In this long chapter Fustel tells the stages of Rome's conquest of the ancient cities.In every city they conquered, the Romans destroyed whatever remained of the municipal system connected to the old religion.---Based on: https://youtu.be/4YQKkJTnNPM https://youtu.be/U6IMsJWKbI8 https://youtu.be/mKlhPB8S7BQ https://youtu.be/s-sRs_720QI

Book 5, The Municipal Regime Disappears, begins with this chapter on the role philosophy played in social change.With Anaxagoras and others came new ideas of divinity, and new principles and rules for political life.---Based on: https://youtu.be/78LOM37iv0s

Book 4 ends with Fustel's account of the path Sparta took through oligarchy and democracy.In all of Greece, Sparta was the city most torn by revolutions.---Based on: https://youtu.be/lYR1_CsZpjM

Democracy and equality made the gap between wealth and poverty more noticeable, without redressing it.The conflict between rich and poor ended in the seizure of property by popular tyrants.---Based on: https://youtu.be/X71ZKp9eGuk

In this chapter Fustel examines steps the new Athenian democracy took to protect against innovations in the law.Democracy was a very demanding and time consuming practice as well. ---Based on: https://youtu.be/1Vp1ieC6hJ8

An interim stage between the old order and democracy, Fustel says, was the attempt by the wealthy class to rule the cities.Weakened by war, this new aristocracy fell to the fourth revolution and democracy.---Based on: https://youtu.be/wIqCDqOnZ_Y

Fustel relates the social reconstruction that followed the overthrow of the old religion and its laws.Religious sanction for authority was replaced by the new principle of the public interest, and the end of government changed from performing of religious duties to securing peace and order.---Based on: https://youtu.be/dw2UIbFxkzY

The plebians' victory over the old religion led to changes in the definition of law itself.Law went from being a religious institution, revealed and commanded by the gods, to a human institution, serving human ends.---Based on: https://youtu.be/aTZbHoc6fBE

This chapter about the third wave of revolutions is by far the longest chapter in the book. Fustel first tells the general history of this drive for civic recognition, and then the specific histories of Athens and of Rome.---Based on: https://youtu.be/kW1rECKL7SQhttps://youtu.be/EXPWjg8w11U https://youtu.be/kNwsLiFj0Ks

In this chapter, Fustel describes the process that led to freedom for the client classes at Athens and at Rome.When the masters ceased to see their authority as just, he says, they defended it badly, or ended by renouncing it.---Based on: https://youtu.be/9xE8I2yLYGs

Aristocrats worked a political revolution in order to prevent a social revolution, Fustel tells us.But aristocratic rule was undermined by the gradual decline of the family. ---Based on: https://youtu.be/IpA-dVFO50A

Political royalty was suppressed while religious royalty continued. Family chiefs ruled, drawing their power and legitimacy from the same religious source.---Based on: https://youtu.be/rQYQQyBTg9g

In the first wave of revolutions in ancient cities, aristocrats gradually limited and replaced their kings. Fustel walks us through this process at Sparta, Athens, and Rome.---Based on: https://youtu.be/kE0Zne3vQIU

In this chapter, Fustel begins to describe another inferior class that helped to advance the revolutions that eventually overturned this social and religious order of the ancient cities, the plebians.What characterizes plebeians especially is that they are completely outside of the civic and domestic religion, this religion of ancestor worship at the sacred fire.---Based on: https://youtu.be/acvrH4NM9PA

Having described the ancient religion and how it structured family and political life, Fustel turns in Book 4 to describing the revolutions that over a period of centuries overturned and destroyed this civic order.In this first chapter, he notes the two causes of revolution: the natural progression of ideas, and the emergence of a social group who were hostile to the existing social order, the clients.---Based on: https://youtu.be/gtzx6dc5eEY

Individual liberty was unknown in the ancient cities. The religious roots of the state gave it absolute authority over all areas of life.---Based on: https://youtu.be/9SgQR6dBURs

Fustel walks us through the daily religious life of a Roman and of an Athenian. Both lived lives permeated by religious ceremony and duty at every moment.---Based on: https://youtu.be/y0AMSKcyC_w

The ancient religion meant that war between cities was always religious war, war between the gods.And so peace treaties were religious ceremonies as well.---Based on: https://youtu.be/Q0bGveGsc5w

Religion separated cities absolutely, and made a union of cities not merely difficult but impossible.Conquered cities might face enslavement or extermination, but never annexation.---Based on: https://youtu.be/WNOX11ngxA4

The ancient man's country was his sacred fatherland, Fustel tells us, and so his patriotism reflected his total devotion to his religion. Exile was the interdiction of worship, and involved far greater loss than just physical exclusion.---Based on: https://youtu.be/8buzXg-y9Z4

Citizenship was defined by participation in the religion of the city. All political and civil rights followed from this religious practice, and those outside the religion could not claim its rights.---Based on: https://youtu.be/oMxM5bREmos

For the ancients, Fustel says, the institution of law was part of religion, and of divine origin.Thus, law was sacred and immutable, and governed relations only between co-religionists.---Based on: https://youtu.be/RP-UgVVniPY

The union of political authority and religious priesthood was reflected in the office of magistrate as well.Recounting this institution's history, Fustel warns us not to suspect insincerity or manipulation on the part of the aristocrats.---Based on: https://youtu.be/wlULQbE3FIQ

Ancient political authority flowed from religion, not material force. The king's power and authority came from his sacred role as high priest. ---Based on: https://youtu.be/pFSmWZnlfMw

Fustel contrasts ancient with modern religion: the former was about ritual, not doctrine.It was secretive and fearful.---Based on: https://youtu.be/-AcMLqaSF6I

In this long chapter, Fustel catalogs the roles religion played in the institutions of the ancient city in its prime.These include the sharing of meals prepared on the altar, the festivals and calendar, the census, and the military.---Based on: https://youtu.be/ZgwkGNLlby0https://youtu.be/-D8qdPAKMAE https://youtu.be/NgCMOvR1n50 https://youtu.be/lN-ti_HfSyI

Each city was held together by common worship of its particular gods.Different cities worshipped their unique gods under the same names: thus there were many Athenas, many Jupiters, et cetera.---Based on: https://youtu.be/XgKCJJeP4fc

Each city worshipped its founder as the man who had called down the gods to dwell in the new city.The dominant virtue of a founder, says Fustel, is piety. ---Based on: https://youtu.be/aiWiU0Qi9uw

Ancient cities were very unlike ours.A city was not built up in stages, but founded all at once in a solemn religious ritual.---Based on: https://youtu.be/MQdkIaLTEw8

An ancient city was not an association of individuals, writes Fustel. It was a confederation of several pre-established societies, which continued to exist in the city.---Based on: https://youtu.be/b8E4p7a7dPw

In this chapter Fustel describes the twofold nature of ancient religious sentiment.Some gods were drawn from human intelligence and experience of the soul, and other gods were identified in external objects and physical forces in nature.---Based on: https://youtu.be/jeDpijYOdUI

Book 3, The City, begins by tracing the expansion of religious ideas and rituals from the family level to larger social groups.The phratry, the cury, and the tribe each had their own altar, their own priests, and their own sacred meals.---Based on: https://youtu.be/dUbmzIR1DHk

In this long final chapter of Book 2, Fustel addresses the historical problem of the gens, its character and foundation.The gens, he tells us, was not an association of families; it WAS the family. ---Based on: https://youtu.be/YydNy__d3U4

The ancient religion fortified man's moral sentiments and gave them greater authority. In this chapter, Fustel describes the religious roots of chastity, love of home, and other domestic virtues. ---Based on: https://youtu.be/3-V94JUlDS0

In this chapter Fustel describes the nature of the paternal power: the authority of the father and of religious law in the household.At first, all law was private and familial -- not arbitrary, but rather structured by and in support of the family's religious worship.---Based on: https://youtu.be/3Mat18OAgmA

Because worship of the ancestors must never end, property rights naturally led to religious laws of succession and inheritance. Fustel describes how property was entailed from father to eldest son, along with the priestly office.Based on: https://youtu.be/H9b-zbL-YQk

The institution of private property was founded, not by labor or by common consent, but by religion. In this chapter Fustel details how the sacred nature of the hearth spread to include the house and the land, which resulted in familial property rights that were sacred and inviolable.---Based on: https://youtu.be/_Yp1glXSRjY

Kinship in the ancient religion was governed by common worship, and so extended family relationships were traced through fathers and male cousins only. Recognition of relationship by birth, Fustel says, arose later and coexisted in tension with this system. ---Based on: https://youtu.be/LlVoHu-ELV0

In this short chapter Fustel connects his picture of the ancient religion to the institutions of adoption and emancipation.Due to the family's religious character, certain rituals must be carefully performed to admit or expel a family member.---Based on: https://youtu.be/jeSFknIXgI8

Fustel describes various practices ensuring the continued existence of the family, and so the perpetuation of the sacred worship. Among these are celibacy, divorce, and the importance of sons.---Based on: https://youtu.be/9GJdUaKwHb8

Marriage was one of the first institutions of the ancient religion. In this chapter Fustel reconstructs how women took part in the worship of their father's ancestors, and then in that of their husband's ancestors.---Based on: https://youtu.be/h9BMJqsRJeo

Fustel begins Book 2, The Family, by arguing that the domestic religion of ancestor worship and the sacred fire established the ancient family order. Families were made not by generation, nor by affection, nor by force, but by sharing in a common worship.---Based on: https://youtu.be/T2Lbi_4b-ZM

Because worship of particular ancestors was confined to their family alone, families were religiously independent of each other, and were firmly attached the soil where their dead ancestors lived.Worship was hereditary through the male line, from father to son, which made the priesthood of the father a defining feature of the ancient family. ---Based on: https://youtu.be/HtSZCRdQpFs

Fustel describes the practices surrounding the sacred hearth fire: its purity and its importance as a locus of worship, meals, thanksgiving, and pleas for help. He notes similar practices in India and Central Asia, and connects worship of the sacred fire with worship of the subterranean dead. ---Based on: https://youtu.be/2K0GY5mlV9k Music: Into Oblivion, by Darren CurtisThumbnail Image: Parthenon. Image by nonbirinonko from Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/photos/greece-parthenon-temple-ruins-1594689/

The souls of the dead became the first gods, whose happiness depended on regular offerings from the living. Fustel speculates that this ancestor worship was the European peoples' first inkling of the supernatural.---Based on: https://youtu.be/VJ2TDGG4ibY Music: Into Oblivion, by Darren CurtisThumbnail Image: Parthenon. Image by nonbirinonko from Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/photos/greece-parthenon-temple-ruins-1594689/

Fustel begins by introducing the key doctrine of the ancient religion: that the souls of the dead continue to exist after death, and live under the ground. This belief helps explain the ancients' burial rites, and their intense fear of being denied a proper burial.---Based on: https://youtu.be/em7ruK_mCOc Music: Into Oblivion, by Darren CurtisThumbnail Image: Parthenon. Image by nonbirinonko from Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/photos/greece-parthenon-temple-ruins-1594689/

In his Introduction, Fustel describes the errors modern historians have made in studying ancient European peoples, and the harmful consequences of these mistakes. He will reconstruct the key religious beliefs of the ancients, from which all their familial and legal institutions follow. ---Based on: https://youtu.be/CT3oRQszbcY Music: Into Oblivion, by Darren CurtisThumbnail Image: Parthenon. Image by nonbirinonko from Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/photos/greece-parthenon-temple-ruins-1594689/

The title page reads The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome. By Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges.There is an unsigned two page Introductory Note to the Anchor Doubleday edition.---Based on: https://youtu.be/CAY3yj6xXUU Music: Into Oblivion, by Darren CurtisThumbnail Image: Parthenon. Image by nonbirinonko from Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/photos/greece-parthenon-temple-ruins-1594689/

The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion Laws and Institutions of Greece and Rome by the French historian Fustel de Coulanges is a book a lot of people are talking about.In recent years scholars and public intellectuals have praised its insights and encouraged people to read it.The Ancient City Podcast contains every chapter of Fustel's book, with brief introductions.It's perfect for anyone who wants to read this important book but hasn't found time yet.Each episode will take you deeper into Fustel's reconstruction of the forgotten religion that shaped the civilizations of Greece and Rome, and through them, all of western civilization.Subscribe today to move his book from your TO READ pile to your READ AGAIN pile.Available on Spotify, Apple, Overcast, and other platforms. We'll begin with "The Worship of the Dead."I'm Christopher Anadale, and I'm looking forward to sharing this work with you.Here's an excerpt.---Based on: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPCGA67J8M2JVoH7M4ayFTRDuLteRhL0p Music: Into Oblivion, by Darren CurtisThumbnail Image: Parthenon. Image by nonbirinonko from Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/photos/greece-parthenon-temple-ruins-1594689/