Editing Polis (section)

===Problems with Coulanges' ancient city===
[[File:Massy Plaque Fustel de Coulanges.JPG|thumb|200px|left|Plaque over the door of Coulanges' last residence]]
One of the most influential of these translative models was the French [[La Cite antique]], translated again into English "the ancient city", by Coulanges. Only to read the title gives credibility to the idea that there is a model type inclusive of all ancient cities, and that the author need only present it without proving it. This type is based on the ancient practice of translating polis in Greek literature to civitas (early form of city) in Latin literature and vice versa.<ref name=alpha>{{harvnb|Sakellariou|1989|p=19|loc=Preface}}</ref>

Coulanges' confidence that the Greek and Italic cities were the same model was based on the then newly discovered [[Indo-European language]]: "Go back as far as we may in the history of the Indo-European race, of which the Greeks and Italians are branches,...."<ref>{{harvnb|Coulanges|1901|p=16}}</ref> The Greeks had a [[genos]], "family"; the Italics, a [[gens]]. Corresponding to Greek [[phratry]], a group of families, was the Italic [[curia]]. Corresponding to Greek [[phyle]], a tribe of multiple phratries, was the [[Roman tribe|tribus]]. The comparison of IE cultures is a solid technique, but it is not enough to develop a solid model of "the ancient city", which must take historical disparities into consideration.

From the analogy Coulanges weaves a tale of imaginary history. Families, he asserts, originally lived dispersed and alone (a presumption of Aristotle as well). When the population grew to a certain point, families joined into phratries. Further growth caused phratries to join into tribes, and then tribes into a city. In the city the ancient tribes remained sacrosanct. The city was actually a [[Confederation|confederacy]] of ancient tribes.<ref>{{harvnb|Coulanges|1901|p=168}}</ref>

[[File:Romulus and Remus 羅慕盧斯與瑞摩斯 - panoramio.jpg|250px|thumb|Romulus and Remus, descendants of Trojan Aeneas, having been cast away to die, being suckled by the wolf on the banks of the Tiber prior to their rescue by Evander, king of a polis, a colony from Arcadia, already on what became the Palatine Hill (site of the imperial "palace"). There are no Italic tribes in this story.]]
Coulange's tale, based on the fragmentary history of priesthoods, does not much resemble the history of cities such as it survives.{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Hanson's view on Coulanges' view of the formation of a polis is "In my opinion the holistic view of the polis is skewed ....".<ref>{{harvnb|Hansen|2004|p=130}}</ref>}} For example, there was no familial and tribal development of Rome. [[Livy]] (Book I), the grandest of the historians of early Rome, portrays a city formed under competitive duress by a collaboration of warriors, some of whom were from among the neighboring [[Etruscans]], led by [[Romulus]] and [[Remus]], the true descendants of the Trojans who with the aborigines had earlier formed the Latin people. They were not welcome among the Latins of Alba Longa, and so they had turned to raiding from their base in their seven hills. The myth supposes they had been nourished by a she-wolf and lived a wild life camping in the country. They were, however, supported by an ally. [[Evander of Pallantium|Evander]] had led a colony from Arcadia before the Trojan War and had placed a polis (Livy's urbs) on one of the hills named [[Pallantium]], later becoming [[Palatine]]. He had actually raised the Trojan boys and supported them now. When the band of marauders became populous enough Romulus got them to agree to a synoecism of settlements in the hills to form a new city, Rome, to be walled in immediately. Remus had to be sacrificed because he had set a precedent of jumping over the wall in mockery of it.

There were no families, no phratries, no tribes, except among the already settled Latins, Greeks, and Etruscans. The warriors acquired a social structure by kidnapping the nearby Italic Sabines ("[[the Rape of the Sabine Women]]") and settling the matter by agreeing on a synoecism with the Sabines also, who were Latins. Alba Longa was ignored, later subdued. The first four tribes were not the result of any previous social evolution. They were the first municipal division of the city manufactured for the purpose. They were no sort of confederacy. Rome initially was ruled by Etruscan kings.