Counter-Currents
Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 410 The Writers’ Bloc with Kathryn S. on The Ancient City
Counter-Currents Radio
128 words / 2:00:23
The indubitable longtime Counter-Currents writer Kathryn S. was host Nick Jeelvy‘s guest on the last episode of The Writers’ Bloc, where they discussed Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges’ The Ancient City, a history of the religion of the ancient world and the society it founded, and it is now available for download and online listening.
Topics discussed include:
The Ancient City
Domestic religion
Patriarchal society
Ancestral property
Immense knowledge of primary sources
Celibacy
Sacrifice
Conversion
Slavery as comfort
The Roman Empire
Early cities
The Bronze Age collapse
The city is not a place
Every city has a patron saint
Domestic religion
The citizen soldier
The end of the ancient system
To listen in a player, click here. To download, right-click the link and click “save as.”
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3 comments
Kathryn, you raise an important point in describing how, in these ancient Indo-European societies, “It was up to the master to provide for everyone in this family,” and how each person, including the slave, was supposed to be given dignity and “a place,” as I believe you described it. This fits with what Christian Meier says in his biography of Caesar about the ancient Roman family, at least during the time of the Republic. Today’s fraudulent, so-called academics will get the vapors considering how patriarchal these families were, but this patriarchal power was balanced by community concerns and sanctions. Meier writes:
“The Roman father was more powerful than most. He had the right to chastise and even kill members of his family, and for as long as he lived his sons, their wives, and their children were subject to his authority, the patria potestas. True, this right had survived from early times only because it was rarely abused, and any abuse would have led to communal intervention. The father could legally be allowed to retain his power because there were enough extra-legal means of checking it. A practical compromise had been reached between the community’s insistence on law and order and the families’ insistence that there should be no interference in their affairs. The extent of the father’s power was commensurate with his obligations. This was a patriarchal society. Even if arbitrary action was severely restricted, the families still enjoyed considerable autonomy and independence, such as comes from the exercise of self-restraint. The Roman father and the assembly of the ‘fathers’–the Senate–were entitled to obsequium (‘obedience’) and pietas (‘respect’, which was due also to the gods). Behind them was the almost palpable presence of their ancestors. Polybios gives a striking account of how the masks of the great ancestors hung in noble houses as a constant reminder to the living, and were worn by servants in funeral processions….”
I’m convinced that there is a lot to be said in favor of a hierarchical system of this type, which emphasizes self-restraint and community interest. As in so many things, balance is a salutary quality.
As one of you mentioned, people living in our society today almost never think of obligations to their ancestors. I don’t pretend to have any great wisdom or insight, but I will say that I often think, almost daily, what would my ancestors think of this or that? What should I do to fulfill my duty to them? I’m an eccentric in some ways, and I can’t say that I succeed enough in fulfilling such duties, but I’m glad that this inner voice was instilled in me. It came, at least in part, from parents and grandparents who fostered a love of history and a respect for people of the past.
A very interesting discussion. Thank you for this. I am a little bit more than half-way through, and am looking forward to finishing it.
Thank you Traddles for another thoughtful reply. The Indo-European domestic religious system as described in Coulanges’ book would indeed send most “liberated” moderns into hysterical conniptions without them making any attempts to understand the dynamics of these societies; why do that, when they can simply yell at them? A cooler head will realize that, like all social/religious practices, the ancient ancestor-hearth culture had flaws and strengths. People were not “free” to do as they wished, they belonged not to themselves, but to the pater of the family; in the beginning (and Coulanges avoids giving dates), they were in utter thrall to their ancestor-gods. But at the same time, they were much more autonomous and yes, dignified, than we are. Coulanges suggested that private property, land ownership, and permanent housing can be traced back to these family groups. You’re right: the nonstop trashing of our own ancestors could not be farther from the ancients’ complete adoration of them. That said, I think your inner voice is a remnant of the ancient hearth fire that still glows.
My favorite anecdote from the book was a story about a Spartan army having assembled on the battlefield and then waiting for a sign from the priest that the gods were favorable to them that day. And it was taking a long time to get the divine go-ahead. Meanwhile, the enemy cavalry charged, feinted, and shot them full of arrows again and again — because the Spartans would not even raise their shields until they had the gods’ benediction. When it finally came, the Spartans went on to a decisive victory.
It was fascinating to trace how the ancients gradually moved away from small, extremely particular domestic religions that abhorred the stranger’s gaze, to the expansionist universalism of the Roman Empire in which the world was not enough. It was one of the most interesting books I’ve read in a while.
Exodus 20:12: Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
Of the ten commandments, this is the one that has a promise of something good if you follow it. Clearly it is very important.
It seems to me that this commandment also implies a potential curse. If we do not honor our own ancestors, but instead we honor the ancestors of another people, their days will be long in the land that should have been ours, and we will be cut off.
It seems to me that this is happening to us Whites. Everybody else’s ancestors are being honored, but not our own, and we are losing possession of lands that should have been ours forever, and we are being reduced to ashes in the ash-heap of history, to blow away and be no more.
If you think like this, it is very important to have a true, deep, historically grounded understanding of what “honoring” one’s ancestors is, where it comes from, how it has developed, and what it would take to reconnect with “honoring” our ancestors in a vital way, that is a way that would save us from collective disinheritance and extinction.
I never saw or heard anything really valuable for understanding the roots and development of ancestor-worship in the West, among Whites. (This is what matters to us, if we want to stand in a vital, life-saving relationship to our own ancestors, not somebody else’s ancestors.)
Until now.
This is great stuff, clearly outlined and explained in only two hours. Thank you very much.
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