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

by: Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges Momigliano, A. Humphreys, S.C.

Price: 30,00 EURO

1 copy in stock

 
The ancient city : a study on the religion, laws, and institutions of Greece and Rome

Authors:Fustel de Coulanges (Author), Arnaldo Momigliano (Writer of preface), S. C. Humphreys (Writer of preface)

Summary:Originally published in 1864 as as 'La Cité Antique, ' this remarkable work describes society as it existed in Greece during the age of Pericles and in Rome at the time of Cicero. Working with only a fraction of the materials available to today's classical scholar, Fustel de Coulanges fashioned a complete picture of life in the ancient city, resulting in a book impressive today as much for the depth of its portrait as for the thesis it presents. In 'The Ancient City, ' Fustel argues that primitive religion constituted the foundation of all civic life. Developing his comparisons between beliefs and laws, Fustel covers such topics as rites and festivals; marriage and the family; divorce, death, and burial; and political and legal structures. "Religion," the author states, "constituted the Greek and Roman family, established marriage and paternal authority, fixed the order of relationship, and consecrated the right of property, and the right of inheritance. This same religion, after having enlarged and extended the family, formed a still 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 the foreword, 'The Ancient City' rightly takes its place alongside a number of pioneering works of the late nineteenth century that offered radically new interpretations of ancient society and culture. Indeed, modern anthology, as well as classics, owes a debt to Fustel de Coulanges, whose early insights in 'The Ancient City' remain valid and provocative today.

Series:
A Johns Hopkins paperback

xxiii, 388 pages ; 21 cm

Contents:
Book first : Ancient beliefs : Notions about the soul and death
The worship of the dead
The sacred fire
The domestic religion
Book second : The family : Religion was the constituent principle of the ancient family
Marriage among the Greeks and Romans
The continuity of the family
Celibacy forbidden
Divorce in case of sterility
Inequality between the son and the daughter
Adoption and emancipation
Kinship
What the Romans called agnation
The right of property
The right of succession : Nature and principle of the right of succession among the ancients
The son, not the daughter, inherits
Collateral succession
Effects of adoption and emancipation
Wills were not known originally
The right of primogeniture
Authority in the family : Principle and nature of paternal power among the ancients
Enumeration of the rights composing the paternal power among the ancients
Enumeration of the rights composing the paternal power
Morals of the ancient family
The Gens at Rome and in Greece : What we learn of the Gens from ancient documents -An examination of the opinions that have been offered to explain the Roman Gens
The Gens was nothing but the family still holding to its primitive organization and its unity
The family (Gens) was at first the only form of society
Book third : The city : The Phratry and the Cury
the tribe
New Religious beliefs : The gods of physical nature
Relation of this religion to the development of human society
The city is formed
The city
Urbs
Worship of the founder
Legend of Eneas
The gods of the city
The religion of the city : The public meals
The festivals and the calendar
The census
Religion in the assembly, in the senate, in the tribunal, in the army
The triumph
The rituals and the annals
Government of the city
The king : Religious authority of the king
Political authority of the king
The magistracy
The law
The citizen and the stranger
Patriotism
Exile
The municipal spirit
Relations between the cities
War
Peace
The alliance of the gods
The Roman
The Athenian
Omnipotence of the state
The ancients knew nothing of individual liberty
Book fourth : The revolutions : Patricians and clients
The plebeians
First revolution : The political power is taken from the kings, who still retain their religious authority
History of this Revolution at Sparta
History of this revolution at Athens
History of this revolution at Rome
The aristocracy governs the cities
Second revolution
Changes in the constitution of the family
The right of primogeniture disappears
The Gens is dismembered
The clients become free : What clientship was at first and how it was transformed
Clientship disappears at Athens
The work of Solon
Transformation of clientship at Rome
Third revolution
Plebs enter the city : General history of this revolution
History of this revolution at Athens
History of this revolution at Rome
Changes in private law
Code of the twelve tables
Code of Solon
The new principle of government
The public interest and the suffrage
An aristocracy of wealth attempts to establish itself
Establishment of the democracy
Fourth revolution
Rules of the democratic government
Examples of the Athenian democracy
Rich and poor
The democracy falls
Popular tyrants
Revolutions of Sparta
Book fifth : The municipal regime disappears : New beliefs
Philosophy changes the principles and rules of politics
The Roman conquest : A few words on the origin and population of Rome
First aggrandizement of Rome (753
350 B.C.)
How Rome acquired empire (350
14 B.C.)
Rome everywhere destroys the municipal system
The conquered nations successively enter the Roman city
Christianity changes the conditions of government

Translation of: La cité antique

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

by: Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges Momigliano, A. Humphreys, S.C.

• ISBN-13: 9780801823046 / 978-0-8018-2304-6
• ISBN-03: 0801823048 / 0-8018-2304-8
• The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1980

Price: 30,00 EURO

1 copy in stock