Fustel de Coulanges' La Cité Antique, how factual is it?

by koopcl

I'm very sorry if this question shouldn't be here, though it doesn't seem to contradict the rules.

I recently found among my books an old copy of "The Ancient City", which I read years ago as part of a course on History of the Law. Though very unlike the more contemporary history books I've read, he does present a theory (or version of history?) about the origin of ancient religions, as well as ancient cities, civilizations and institutions (centering around Rome and Greece). Considering how long ago it was written (mid 19th century), and knowing really nothing about the author, I wanted to ask if any historian might know: What are the academic views on this book? Are there any academic views? Is he considered to be right about any (or all) of his work? How much of what he states as facts (origin of certain cities/civilizations, existance/meaning of institutions, etc) is considered to be proven (or generally held) as correct?

Thanks in advance.

averymorrow

Since nobody else replied to this... I just reread the book last week with a very critical eye, and I would judge it as follows:

  • Origin of city religion in family religion: Pure speculation that ignores how things like battlefield divination might have developed. (Although there's a hypothesis that divination in Rome was a cultural import from the Etruscans -- intriguing in its own right.)
  • Aryan unity of Rome, Greece, and India: Almost pure speculation. Fun to think about, but not academic.
  • Details of Roman and Greek religion: Very well-researched and quite revealing.
  • History of Rome: Intensely revealing. New discoveries since the book was written have validated his theory in part.

I am not a classicist, just a religious scholar. But I think this book is extremely important even today. The concept of proto-Aryan patriarchy should be properly seen as a guess with no apparent correspondence to actual archaeological or linguistic knowledge, but where citations are given, they are good stuff, and the final chapters on Rome have high reread value. It's been ignored since the 20th century not because it's a bad book, but because office politics in classics departments make it dangerous to endorse grand theories like this today. But Coulanges was more deeply read and intuitive than most modern scholars.