The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome / Edition 1

In , Fustel argues that primitive religion constituted the foundation of all civic life. Developing his comparisons between belifes and laws, Fustel covers such topis as rites and festivals; marriage and the family; divorce, death, and burial; and political and legal structures. "Religion," the suthor states, "constituted the Greek and Roman family, established marriage and paternal authority, fixed the order of relationship, and consecrated the right of propery, and the right of inheritance. This same religion, after having enlarged and extended the family, formed a stull larger association, the city, and reigned in that as it had reigned in the family. From it came all the institutions, as well as the private law, of the ancients." As Arnaldo Momigliano and S. C. Humphreys note in their foreword, rightly takes its place alongside a number of pioneering works of the late nineteenth century that offered radically new inerpretations of ancient society and culture. Indeed, modern anthropology, as well as classics, owes a debt to Fustel de Coulanges, whose early insights in remain valid and provocative today.