The French historian Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (1830-1889) made a leading contribution to the study of ancient France and to the debate concerning Roman versus German influence on French institutions and society.

Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges was born in Paris on March 18, 1830. He was admitted into the École Normale Supérieure in 1850, in the oppressive days preceding the collapse of the Second Republic. In 1853 Fustel was appointed a member of the French School in Athens and then spent 2 years in Chio, an opportunity which provided him with material for a contribution to the history of the island. He then returned to France to become a teacher in Amiens and Paris while taking his final degrees in 1857 and 1858. He was appointed professor of history in the University of Strasbourg in 1860. There he wrote and published at his own expense his first masterpiece, La Cité...