The ancient city, like all human society, had ranks, distinctions, and inequalities. We know the distinction originally made at Athens between the Eu… - Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges

When the kings had been everywhere over-thrown, and the aristocracy had become supreme, the people did not content themselves with regretting the monarchy; they aspired to restore it under a new form. In Greece, during the sixth century, they succeeded generally in procuring leaders; not wishing to call them kings, because this title implied the idea of religious functions, and could only be borne by the sacerdotal families, they called them tyrants. Whatever might have been the original sense of this word, it certainly was not borrowed from the language of religion. Men could not apply it to the gods as they applied the word king; they did not pronounce it in their prayers. It designated, in fact, something quite new among men—an authority that was not derived from the worship, a power that religion had not established. The appearance of this word in the Greek language marks a principle which the preceding generations had not known—the obedience of man to man. Up to that time there had been no other chiefs of the state than those who had been chiefs of religion; those only governed the city who offered the sacrifices and invoked the gods for it. In obeying them, men obeyed only the religious law, and made no act of submission except to the divinity. Obedience to a man, authority given to this man by other men, a power human in its origin and nature—this had been unknown to the ancient Eupatrids, and was never thought of till the day when the inferior orders threw off the yoke of the aristocracy and attempted a new government.

The primitive religion, whose symbols were the immovable stone of the hearth, and the ancestral tomb, — a religion which had established the ancient family, and had afterwards organized the city, —changed with time, and grew old. ...Men began to have an idea of immaterial nature; the notion of the human soul became more definite, and almost at the same time that of a divine intelligence sprang up in their minds. Could they still believe in the divinities of the primitive ages, of those dead men who lived in the tomb, of those Lares who had been men, of those holy ancestors whom it was necessary to continue to nourish with food? Such a faith became impossible. ...Some believed in annihilation, others in a second and entirely spiritual existence in a world of spirits. In these cases they no longer admitted that the dead lived in the tomb, supporting themselves upon offerings. They also began to have too high an idea of the divine to persist in believing that the dead were gods. On the contrary, they imagined the soul going to seek its recompense in the Elysian Fields, or going to pay the penalty of its crimes; and by a notable progress, they no longer deified any among men... [T]he Lares and Heroes [had] lost the adoration of all who thought. As to the sacred fire, which appears to have had no significance, except so far as it was connected with the worship of the dead, that also lost its prestige. Men continued to have a domestic fire in the house, to salute it, to adore it, and to offer it libations; but this was now only a customary worship, which faith no longer vivified. [Analogously], [t]he public hearth of the city, or prytaneum, ...they had forgotten...[,] represented the invisible life of the national ancestors, founders, and heroes. ...At the same time a few great sanctuaries, like those of Delphi and Delos, attracted men, and made them forget their local worship. The mysteries and the doctrines which these taught accustomed them to disdain the empty and meaningless religion of the city. ... Then philosophy appeared, and [finally] overthrew all the rules of the ancient polity.

We should not lose sight of the excessive difficulty which, in primitive times, opposed the foundation of regular societies. The social tie was not easy to establish between those human beings who were so diverse, so free, so inconstant. To bring them under the rules of a community, to institute commandments and insure obedience, to cause passion to give way to reason, and individual right: to public right, there certainly was something necessary, stronger than material force, more respectable than interest, surer than a philosophical theory, more unchangeable than a convention; something that should dwell equally in all hearts, and should be all-powerful there. This power was a belief. Nothing has more power over the soul. A belief is the work of our mind, but we are not on that account free to modify it at will. It is our own creation, but we do not know it. It is human, and we believe it a god. It is the effect of our power, and is stronger than we are. It is in us; it does not quit us: it speaks to us at every moment. If it tells us to obey, we obey; if it traces duties for us, we submit. Man may, indeed, subdue nature, but he is subdued by his own thoughts.