The City in the Ancient World / / Mason Hammond.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP e-dition: Complete eBook Package
• VerfasserIn: Hammond, Mason,
• TeilnehmendeR: Bartson, Lester J.
• MitwirkendeR: Hammond, Mason,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2013]; ©1972
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Reprint 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Harvard Studies in Urban History ; 4
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (617 p.) :; 13 maps

The emergence of cities in the different regions of the ancient world presents two problems. First, in areas of common culture or at least of cultural contact, did the cities evolve independently, as phenomena of social, political, and economic growth, or did they emanate from a common center of origin? Second, how did the Greco–Roman city–state originate? In considering these questions, Mason Hammond has limited the ancient world to the Middle and Near East, the Indus Valley, and the Mediterranean region. He takes geographical and economic factors into account as he treats the cities historically by areas, from their first development in Sumeraround 3200 B.C, to the end of the ancient world in the middle of the sixth century A.D. Mr. Hammond concludes that the city’s evolution was a phenomenon of local social development but was also influenced by older cultures. The city–state, he shows, was a creation of the Greek genius. It was diffused throughout the Greco–Ronan world, and withered with the decline of ancient culture in the early Middle Ages. The author provides brief geographical descriptions of the areas he covers. Thirteen maps give the locations of places referred to in the text. Where ancient and modern names differ markedly, both are given, in the text and in an index of the places shown on the maps. An extensive chronological survey and a general index document the text.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- I Introduction -- II Definitions, Evidence, and Prehistoric Chronology -- III Background to the Emergence of the City -- IV Mesopotamia Early Technological and Social Progress -- V Mesopotamia The City Emerges in Sumer -- VI Mesopotamia From City to Empire Akkad, Babylonia, Assyria, and Persia -- VII The Indus Valley A Dead End -- VIII Egypt Civilization of Palaces, Temples, and Tombs -- IX Canaan Cities of Commerce -- X Anatolia Abortive Cities -- XI The Aegean Civilization Palaces or Cities ? -- XII The Indo-Europeans Tribesmen Urbanized -- XIII Summary of the City before the Greeks -- XIV Archaic Greece The Emergence of the City-State -- XV Classical Greece Age of the City-State -- XVI Hellenistic Territorial States Restriction and Spread of the City-State -- XVII Greek and Roman City Design and Urban Planning -- XVIII The City in Early Italy and the Rise of Rome -- XIX Republican Rome Success and Failure as a City-State -- XX The Early Roman Empire An Oecumenē of Free Cities under One Rule -- XXI The Late Roman Empire Withering of the City-State -- XXII The City in the Early Mediaeval West and in the Byzantine East -- XXIII Recapitulation -- CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY -- Chapter Bibliographies -- Index to Bibliographies -- Series List -- Table of Coordination for Revised Cambridge Ancient History I. -- Index of Places on the Maps -- General Index