The Ancient City

Fustel de Coulanges's 1864 analysis of Greek and Roman city-state civilization — arguing that the ancient city was founded on and organized around ancestral religion, not rational politics — a foundational work of historical sociology.

Demonstrates that ancient Greek and Roman political institutions were inseparable from religious practices — the household cult, the city cult, and the connection between citizenship and sacrifice underlay all Greek and Roman civic life; the ancient city was a religious community before it was a political one.