La penna e la spada. Fustel de Coulanges vs Mommsen, una pagina dimenticata

A political falling out arose at the time of the Franco-Prussian War between two of the most prominent ancient historians of the nineteenth century, Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges and Theodor Mommsen. Retracing the details of the episode allows a better appreciation of what was, in historical and political terms, a very tense affair. But the engagement of these two scholars in this matter allows us to grasp, beyond their patriotic motives, how profound a difference lay between them, on the historiographical and methodological level, in their approach to the history of Rome and to the very idea of the «State».