Excerpt from Aryan Civilization: Its Religious Origin and Its Progress, With an Account of the Religion, Laws, and Institutions, of Greece and Rome The first edition of La Cite Antique, by Monsieur Fustel de Coulanges, Historical Professor at Strasbourg, appeared in 1864, and has since been crowned by the French Academy. Perhaps no other treatise could be found more useful for educational purposes or affording a clearer insight into the spirit of antiquity. The distinctive features of it are the use of Sanscrit for further purposes than those of philology, and a comparison of the laws and institutions of the Greeks and Romans with those of the ancient Hindoos. Greek and Roman civilization is shewn to have been based upon the worship of men's dead ancestors; from which worship, and not so much from the right of labour, were derived the idea of property and the old laws of succession. Among the points proved is the identity of the ancient gens with the primitive family, and the revival of the patriarchal theory for at least a portion of the Aryan race. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."