The Ancient City

In The Ancient City, Fustel de Coulanges hands us the skeleton key unlocking classical civilization: the Indo-European domestic cult. With a formidable command of primary sources, he shows this archaic religion to be the engine behind the social developments of the ancient world from remote pre-history down to late antiquity. This is the story of the descent of the traditional social order par excellence into something approximating liberalism, and it has never been better told, nor more fully explained.

In his foreword, Dennis Bouvard views The Ancient City through the lens of generative anthropology, leveraging the originary hypothesis of Eric Gans to explain the work in terms of shared origins, sacrality, and the belief in a center. In so doing, he points the way to a post-liberal understanding of our own social order, informed by the imperative order described by Fustel.

As with all Imperium Press titles, this edition is suitable for lay or academic use, including an extensive bibliography and index. This is now the definitve edition of a long overlooked work with the potential to change the course of the dissident right.

Foreword

INTRODUCTION.

The Necessity of Studying the Earliest Beliefs of the Ancients in Order to Understand Their Institutions

BOOK FIRST.

Ancient Beliefs.

I. Notions About the Soul and Death

II. The Worship of the Dead

III. The Sacred Fire

IV. The Domestic Religion

BOOK SECOND.

The Family.

I. Religion was the Constituent Principle of the

Ancient Family

II. Marriage

III. Continuity of the Family. Celibacy Forbidden. Divorce in Case of Sterility. Inequality Between the Son and Daughter

IV. Adoption and Emancipation

V. Of Kinship. What the Romans Called Agnation

VI. The Right of Property

VII. The Right of Succession

VIII. Authority in the Family

IX. Morals of the Ancient Family

X. The Gens at Rome and in Greece

BOOK THIRD.

The City.

I. The Phratry and The Cury. The Tribe

II. New Religious Beliefs

III. The City Formed

IV. The City

V. Worship of the Founder. The Legend of Æneas.

VI. The Gods of the City

VII. The Religion of the City

VIII. The Rituals and the Annals

IX. Government of the City. The King

X. The Magistracy

XI. The Law

XII. The Citizen and the Stranger

XIII. Patriotism. Exile

XIV. The Municipal Spirit

XV. Relations Between the Cities. War. Peace. The Alliance of the Gods

XVI. The Roman. The Athenian

XVII. The Omnipotence of the State. The Ancients Knew Nothing of Individual Liberty

BOOK FOURTH.

Revolutions.

I. Patricians and Clients

II. The Plebeians

III. First Revolution

IV. The Aristocracy Governs the Cities

V. Second Revolution. Change in the Constitution of the Family. The Right of Primogeniture Disappears. The Gens Is Dismembered

VI. The Clients Become Free

VII. Third Revolution. The Plebs Enter the City

VIII. Changes in Private Law. The Code of the Twelve Tables. The Code of Solon

IX. New Principles of Government. The Public Interest and The Suffrage

X. An Aristocracy of Wealth Attempts to Establish Itself. Establishment of Democracy. Fourth Revolution

XI. Rules of Democratic Government. Examples of Athenian Democracy

XII. Rich and Poor. Democracy Perishes. The Popular Tyrants.

XIII. Revolutions of Sparta

BOOK FIFTH.

The Municipal Regime Disappears.

I. New Beliefs. Philosophy Changes the Rules of Politics

II. The Roman Conquest

III. Christianity Changes the Conditions of Government

Bibliography

Index