"With eminent expertise and not least with a judgment that is not biased by any tradition, Friedell lays out a comprehensive history of the development of the life of the pre-Christian soul, taking into account tragedy and the idea of the gods no less than the everyday life of an Athenian citizen at the time of Pericles.

This work, published posthumously in 1950, forms a self-contained part of the work developed by Egon Friedell as a counterpart to the cultural history of the New Era.