Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Greek Cities
Greece is not an urban hearth because agriculture and
urbanization diffused to Greece from Mesopotamia, rather
than being independently innovated in Greece. Greece
is more accurately described as a
secondary hearth
of
urbanization because the Greek city form and function dif-
fused around the world centuries later through European
colonialism. Greek cities began more than 3500 years ago,
when the city of Knossos on the island of Crete became the
cornerstone of a system of towns in the Minoan civilization.
By 500
, Greece had become one of the most
highly urbanized areas on Earth. The urbanization of
Ancient Greece ushered in a new stage in the evolution of
cities. At its height, Ancient Greece encompassed a net-
work of more than 500 cities and towns, not only on the
mainland but also on the many Greek islands. Seafarers
connected these urban places with trade routes and carried
the notion of urban life throughout the Mediterranean
region. Athens and Sparta, often vying with each other for
power, soon became Greece's leading cities. Athens may
have been the largest city in the world at the time, with an
estimated 250,000 inhabitants.
With the hilly topography of Greece, the people
had no need to build earthen mounds on which to perch
temples; these were provided by nature. Every city had
its
acropolis
(acro
bce
Figure 9.10
Athens, Greece.
The rocky hilltop of Athens is home to the
Acropolis (acro means high point). The Athens Acropolis is still
crowned by the great Parthenon, standing after nearly 25 centu-
ries.
© H. J. de Blij.
city), on which
the people built the most impressive structures—usually
religious buildings. The Parthenon of At
high point, polis
diffused through western Europe. The city declined in
Europe for a time after the fall of the Roman Empire, but
Europeans eventually carried Western concepts of city
life (drawn from Greece and Rome) around the world
through colonialism and capitalism. From Washington,
D.C., to Canberra, Australia, the urban landscape shows
the imprints of Greco-Roman urban culture.
hens remains the
most famous of all, surviving to this day despite nearly 2500
years of war, earth tremors, vanda
lism, and environmental
impact (Fig. 9.10). Building this magnifi cent columned
structure, designed by the Athenian architect-engineer
Phidias, began in 447
, and its rows of tapering columns
have inspired architects ever since.
Like the older Southwest Asian cities, Greece's cities
also had public places. In the Southwest Asian towns these
seem to have been rather cramped, crowded, and bustling
with activity, but in Ancient Greece they were open, spa-
cious squares, often in a low part of town with steps lead-
ing down to them (Fig. 9.11). On these steps the Greeks
debated, lectured, judged each other, planned military
campaigns, and socialized. As time went on, this public
space called the
agora
(meaning market) also became the
focus of commercial activity.
Greece's cities also had excellent theaters. The
aristocracy attended plays and listened to philosophical
discourses, but for many people life in a Greek city was
miserable. Housing was no better than it had been in the
Mesopotamian cities thousands of years earlier. Sanitation
and health conditions were poor. And much of the gran-
deur designed by Greece's urban planners was the work of
hundreds of thousands of slaves.
As a secondary urban hearth, the Greek city had
global impact. Urbanization diffused from Greece to the
Roman Empire. Roman urbanization and urban culture
bce
Roman Cities
The great majority of Greece's cities and towns were
located near the Mediterranean Sea on peninsulas and
islands and linked by sea routes. When the Romans suc-
ceeded the Greeks (and Etruscans) as rulers of the region,
their empire incorporated not only the Mediterranean
shores but also a large part of interior Europe and North
Africa (Fig. 9.12). The Roman urban system was the
largest yet—much larger than Greece's domain. The
capital, Rome, served as the apex of a hierarchy of settle-
ments ranging from small villages to large cities. The
Romans linked these places with an extensive transpor-
tation network that included hundreds of miles of roads,
well-established sea routes, and trading ports along the
roads, sea, and rivers. Roman regional planners dis-
played a remarkable capacity for choosing the
site
of cit-
ies, for identifying suitable locales for settlements. The
site of a city is its absolute location, often chosen for its
advantages in trade or defense, or as a center for reli-
gious practice.
