The Ancient City Explained - Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges
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Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (1830-1889) provides us with the most in-depth account of the ancient religion upon which the city-states of Greece and Rome were founded. While the Hellenes later believed in concepts such as reincarnation, the division of body and soul, and gods that ruled over whole empires, Coulanges asserts that in their earliest days - hundreds or thousands of years before the periods for which we have written documentation - the Indo-Europeans believed that the dead continued to live on in the same body, underground. These dead ancestors became gods in the imaginations of the early Hellenes, bound to the land and the object of a secret worship carried out only by their descendants. Alongside these peculiar beliefs was the practice of keeping a sacred hearthfire in the center of the home - the home being the temple of the domestic religion. This fire was regarded as a literal god, real and living, who blessed the household so long as they kept the fire burning and pure, and would curse them if they did otherwise. Coulanges builds his case by following the clues remaining from the days of this worship - such as strange contradictions in the holy books, and rituals and hymns which did not reflect the beliefs but pointed to something more ancient. It is from these beliefs - alien and incomprehensible to us today - that the social order of the city was formed, and the laws that governed the cities written. Thus, we paradoxically find that the ancients were both completely foreign to us - and yet even we today preserve odd relics of this old belief.
While Coulanges' seminal work, The Ancient City, is nowhere found in Nietzsche's library, and thus it is likely that Nietzsche never read it, it is indispensable for understanding the perspective of the ancient Hellenes. Since we're going to be covering a great deal of Hellenic thought in the coming episodes, we're going to preface all of it with a crash course in the development of their religious beliefs - for, as Coulanges argues, it is according to these beliefs that the political reality was shaped.
#ancientgreece #philosophy #nietzsche #ancienthistory #history #greece
If you haven't been told yet, you do a good job of explaining not just the text but the context associated with the text. I've noticed in your other videos this trend where you don't simply just explain the subject but take the time to add in the necessary context. It's when it all comes together is my favorite part.
Ohhhh. The algorithm worked. What a great piece you’ve created!
Thank you for this great report but also for the extra step of putting both parts together ❤😊
This is an outstanding tour through one of most unjustly neglected masterpieces of historical inquiry. Beautifully written, filled with massive learning judiciously applied, imaginative, bold, almost a work of art itself - how The Ancient City came to be a work cited but not read is beyond me.
Anyone can enjoy it and learn from it. There just aren’t any really good editions, at least in English (I read the Imperium Press edition). It desperately needs a new scholarly edition with BIG MARGINS to take notes in.
Anyway - cheers for making this video.
I’m rather surprised you have so few subscribers. You might be too good. At any rate keep it up. Thank you.
Marcos Aurelius's " Meditations"
"Attend to the matter which is before you, which is an opinion or an act or a word."
The revolt against the king by the aristocracy is outline in some of Nietzsches early essays.
“If one wants to see that sentiment unashamed in its naive expressions, the sentiment as to the necessity of competition lest the state's welfare be threatened, one should think of the original meaning of ostracism, as for example the Ephesians pronounced it at the banishment of Hermodor. "Among us nobody shall be the best; if however someone is the best, then let him be so elsewhere and among others" [Heraklitus]. Why should not someone be the best? Because with that the competition would fail, and the eternal life-basis of the Hellenic state would be endangered. Later on ostracism receives quite another position with regard to competition; it is applied, when the danger becomes obvious that one of the great competing politicians and party-leaders feels himself urged on in the heat of the conflict towards harmful and destructive measures and dubious coups d'état. The original sense of this peculiar institution however is not that of a safety-valve but that of a stimulant. The all-excelling individual was to be removed in order that the competition of forces might re-awaken, a thought which is hostile to the "exclusiveness" of genius in the modern sense but which assumes that in the natural order of things there are always several geniuses which incite one another to action, as much also as they hold one another within the bounds of moderation. That is the kernel of the Hellenic competition-conception: it abominates autocracy, and fears its dangers; it desires as a preventive against the genius--a second genius.”
Yes! This is from Homer’s Contest. I did an episode discussing this essay and The Greek State/summing up N’s Greek political influence. It’s not uploaded to TH-cam yet but you can listen here: open.spotify.com/episode/2UUaj0ICjK6dJsiG4saXiF?si=OEOJ0_fQS8qxgYzfy-EtpA
Thanks for the vid... as someone who loves history this was amazing to listen
This ancient religion of the ancient Italian and Greeks, will be incredibly familiar to modern day Indians. We also, have a place akin to the hearth. We also have the sacred flame, and deities that descend from ancestor worship. We also seek favorable omens, and carry sacred amulets and offer prayers during specific holy days. Modern westerns are only unfamiliar with all this due to the slow erasure of all these most ancient practices over the centuries, and especially so during modernity.
in the book, Coulange is constantly pointing out the shared customs between the Greeks/Romans and Indian culture.
Tamil Nadu is the only remaining classical civilization!
Yeah that is true. Our societies come from Christianity, and not from Greek and Roman societies. If they knew that ancient Rome and ancient Greece was more similar to India, maybe the white guys would stop peddling such utter nonesense.
Been going back and started listening to the podcasts in succession after finding the Beyond Good and Evil bit you did. This is amazing. The fact that you took the time and worked this in, giving it meaning and context in your explanation of Nietzsche is a stroke of genius. Though I first thought that I would not be too thrilled about the political philosophy, the Ancient City and the Sipo Matador episode were eye-opening. Bought the book, after having bought Faust as well, you're costing me money! :)
I was born in Alabama and lived here until I went to NYC at a young age and California back and forth to Alabama. I learned a lot from observing people and I crashed and broke down at times from trauma, plus gradually getting healthier as I sought after a few great therapists and continued reading books.
Alabama has had its history vital to American history. I lived in the 60s and racism and George Wallace and Bull Conor. Saw many terrifying things as a child. My parents were not racist in any form. We lived with blacks and whites, poor. We did have character as we helped one another from storms of ignorance.
Marco's Aurelius, "Meditations"
" Attend to the matter which is before you, whether it is an opinion or an act or a word."
Where in Alabama?
Who else is here after seeing this book mentioned on Lex?
Your musings do great honour to the source.
This is the best summary of the book I’ve heard thanks 🙏
This is really fantastic. What a great resource.
This video shed new light on the story of Romulus & Remus for me.
Excellent summary of the most Based time to be alive.
It’s a brilliant book for Polytheists like myself.
I've read this book twice now, and found it fascinating and dense.
Just started your video, but thanks for this! It's already a good... "translation"?
02:05:06 🔴 The Curiae were assemblies of gentes in ancient Rome, united under the authority of the King.
02:05:35 🔴 Conflicts and power struggles similar to those in Greece occurred in early Rome, with Kings seeking to increase their power.
02:06:30 🔴 The election of King Numa was governed by religious rules, and his rule focused on religious functions.
02:07:10 🔴 Pneuma separated religious authority from political authority, leading to the rise of the Senate's power.
02:08:19 🔴 Kings like Tarquin challenged the aristocracy, altered the city's religious constitution, and were often assassinated.
02:09:01 🔴 The social struggle in Rome pitted Kings and the lower classes against the powerful Patrician aristocracy.
02:09:28 🔴 The aristocracy saw the lower classes organizing and creating a class without religion, leading to a new dynamic.
02:10:12 🔴 The struggle between the lower classes and the aristocracy began, even though the lower classes didn't gain enfranchisement.
02:10:54 🔴 The power of religion gradually waned, leading to the separation of religious and political laws in the city-states.
02:14:07 🔴 The power of Kings declined, and power shifted to senatorial bodies within the city-states.
02:16:58 🔴 Primogeniture disappeared, leading to the division of family lands among brothers and greater independence for individuals.
02:20:37 🔴 Clients, once in a subordinate position within families, gained more freedom and the right to possess land.
02:22:00 🔴 The precarious social position of clients led to potential relapse into slavery, creating a vulnerable situation for them.
02:23:08 🔴 Conflict between the lower and upper classes in Greece led to concessions and legislative changes, including the role of Solon in Athens.
02:24:32 🔴 Solon's reforms in Athens likely focused on freeing clients from their burdens and improving their conditions, rather than forgiving traditional debts.
02:25:01 🏛 Solon's reforms in ancient Athens involved freeing people from servitude and granting them lands, violating religious laws and expanding the electorate, laying the foundations for Athenian democracy.
02:27:36 🏛 The plebs in various Greek city-states began desiring entry into the city, adopting their own forms of religion, and seeking equality with the nobility, leading to social changes.
02:28:17 🏛 Reforms similar to the ancient tribes and gentes were implemented in Athens, allowing all free men to be included in associations regardless of their bloodline.
02:30:25 🏛 In Rome, the patricians and plebeians came to depend on each other, with the plebeians providing a larger army in exchange for political concessions and protection.
02:31:09 🏛 The plebeians in Rome seceded from the city, desiring to establish a new lawful society based on their own religion, which they had been denied by the patricians.
02:32:17 🏛 The plebs wanted to create a new society based on their religion, but they needed the instruction and assistance of the Roman patricians.
02:35:43 🏛 The creation of the office of Tribune of the Plebs in Rome marked the emergence of the first significant and powerful office of the lower classes in history, with a sacrosanct character.
02:38:24 🏛 The tribunes in Rome represented the first purely secular democratic office, signifying a shift away from religious authority in politics.
02:42:10 🏛 The plebeians' integration into the Roman legions and their growing wealth and influence helped solidify their position within Roman society.
02:44:41 🏛 As the plebs gained the ability to participate in the legislative process, political parties in Rome cultivated alliances with them, leading to integration and cooperation between plebs and patricians in governance and the military.
02:45:09 🏛 Democracy in ancient Greece varied from city to city, with no universal suffrage, often involving male-only voting, committees, and weighted voting, but it marked a significant shift in governance.
02:45:36 🏛 The ancient city's development saw the weakening of religious beliefs and the rise of absolute political power of oligarchies.
02:49:33 🏛 In democratic societies, citizens devoted themselves entirely to the state, leaving little time for personal affairs.
02:54:10 🏛 Tyrants emerged during democratic struggles, seizing power through popular support but often faced paranoia and violence.
02:57:05 🏛 Rome's conquest and the emergence of new philosophical ideas began challenging old religious beliefs.
03:00:00 🏛 Philosophers like Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Anaximander rejected traditional religious practices and beliefs.
03:03:40 🏛 Philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle introduced universal principles and elevated reason above religious and civic duty.
03:07:29 🏛 The spread of Christianity marked a significant shift, emphasizing the universal equality of all people and allowing political law to develop separately from religious doctrine.
around 1:47:00 to 1:48:00 it seems you're describing concurrent states of anarchy, monarchy, and Roman City government coexisting or at least cohabiting. I find that interesting to consider if true.
clan names are vital to this process for identifying kinsmen.
this is great
00:01 🏛 The study of ancient Greek and Roman society reveals their radically different mindset compared to modern times.
01:56 🏠 Religion was deeply intertwined with daily life for Romans, with their homes serving as places of worship and various rituals.
03:33 🌟 Romans had a complex polytheistic belief system, with numerous gods influencing their actions and decisions.
05:07 🗡 Patriotic Romans were not just warriors or rulers but also priests, heavily influenced by their fear and reverence for the gods.
07:17 🏛 Ancient Greek democracy had its roots in Theocratic decisions influenced by religious factors and offerings.
09:11 🌍 Early Greek and Roman societies were founded on religious beliefs and the selection of sacred sites, not gradual urban development.
11:13 📜 The ancient laws were closely tied to religion and were specific to individual families, tribes, and regions, with secrecy being essential.
14:43 💭 Concepts like individual liberty, private property, human rights, and equality were foreign to the ancient Greeks and Romans.
16:06 🌎 The ancient Greeks and Romans lived in a world so different from modern times that it's challenging for us to fully grasp their perspectives.
17:00 👀 To understand the Greeks and Romans, we must abandon our modern ideas and recognize their beliefs as utterly inimitable.
19:58 🧠 The Ancients personified the world around them, attributing human-like will and conscious intention to everything in their worship and beliefs.
21:19 🌌 The belief in the afterlife among the Ancients included the idea of the dead living new lives underground, emphasizing continuity rather than the cessation of consciousness.
21:47 🕊 Ancient beliefs held that the dead, when properly buried and offered food and libations, continued to live on in a physical form in the place of their burial, and these rituals ensured a peaceful afterlife.
23:27 🍽 Similar beliefs in nourishing the spirits of the dead with offerings still exist today in various cultures, such as the Festival of Hungry Ghosts in China and the Day of the Dead ceremony in Mexico.
24:36 👻 Neglecting to provide funerary sacrifices for ancestors in ancient Greece and Rome could lead to restless and angry spirits, believed to curse the living, emphasizing the importance of these rituals.
26:11 🕊 Ancestral figures in India, Greece, and Rome eventually came to be regarded as gods due to their continued worship and the belief that they played a crucial role in the family's prosperity and well-being.
28:30 🏠 In ancient family-based religious systems, the patriarch (father) held absolute authority and ownership over the family's property, lands, and members, with the eldest son inheriting everything.
31:58 🌾 Property rights were deeply entwined with religion in these ancient societies, with land considered inalienable and owned by the family's ancestral gods, rather than the individual living members.
35:25 🔥 The hearth within the family's home was a central object of worship, symbolizing the continuity of the family and serving as a focal point for spirituality and rituals.
40:25 🪶 The term "focus," as we use it today to indicate where we direct our attention, has its origins in the Latin word for hearth (focus), highlighting the central role of the hearth in ancient family life and spirituality.
42:52 🏡 Ancient family beliefs were insular, with each family having its own lands and cult, intended to be preserved forever.
43:07 🌍 Early gods were local, and there was no concept of universal deities or common rulers for different groups of people.
44:31 👰 Marriage involved a woman transitioning from one family to another, changing her religion, and becoming part of her husband's lineage.
48:15 🏠 Primogeniture was a religious norm for maintaining the family, and younger branches often spun off to form their own families.
53:33 🏛 As families aggregated, they formed fratries, curies, and tribes, each with its own religion and hierarchy, creating a Federated system.
01:01:51 ⛪ The patriarch represented his entire family at higher-level assemblies and maintained bonds of religion between them. Religion linked people together in this period.
Dank.
I also urge you to not think of the linear nature of time as the conventional nature of 'civilization' - it is mere modification of ancient practices due to irresistible cultural, economic, and other factors that reduced the impact of the 'gens', 'ancestor worship' and other such markers of ancient religion, due to the organizing nature and centralization of power in the form of the city state.
As interesting as Coulanges' picture of ancient life is (like....VERY interesting), the method of extrapolating the prior beliefs of a population's ancestors via said population's extant practices of traditions and rytes doesn't seem entirely solid. Is there something I'm missing that would render his methods more reliable than just "population behaved in x way, thus ancestors of population must have had y beliefs'?
EDIT: I've written this comment 10 minutes into the video, after reading like 2 pages of the actual book, so apologies if there is a discussion of this later in the video and/or book.
He looks at poems (which likely would not have changed much) and ancient customs, as well as draws comparisons to pre-Brahman Vedic religious practices, noting that they match very closely with what the classical writers say about their ancient practices, in the same way that a proto-Indo-European language can be reconstructed from cognates in more modern languages.
Ultimately it's like trying to describe the shape of an object based on the shadow it casts, but he does a very effective job of walking through his logical inferences.
0.32
You’re doing God’s work Keegan!
Christianity, wars, and politics go hand in hand. The Roman Catholic Church and Martin Luther.
Humanity, wars and politics (hierarchy) go hand in hand, unfortunately.
No offense to coulanges, but much of what you've talked about here was much more in-depth than coulanges, I ad-verbatim recall him calling these ancient beliefs "ridiculous" or something like that on multiple occasions, while you make them out to be much more mysterious and visceral
I can definitely understand it to a degree. I have "manic episodes" and that's exactly what it feels like: everything is in some sense a God and humbling and submitting yourself before them unites yourself with them, this giving you great power. It is, as the Chinese would say, to go with the Tao
I did it, the first comment.
ZENO, ZENO, ZENO
Hey buster, nobody tells me what I can't understand.
I can’t understand why you would say that!
but, telling and understanding are two different things. Which is the question?
Notice how this🤥adolescent producer of old philosophy🎓 captain📹videos is concerned, NOTICE=mc2 how he likes to include the word, "WE=mc2" in 'all of his beliefs🌿' plucked from🍎the Tree🎄of monetizing🤑Worldly🌎His♂️$tory🧐!
Wow. What utter nonesense. It takes an academic to utter such nonesense. No no and no. We inherited our societies from Medieval Christian Europe. And Medieval Christian Europe was a break from the past. Why should anyone have to explain what should be common sense.