Since the subject of the book is the city, we would do well to define the term. The city is an inhabited place, as the dictionary says, but of what sort? The word “inhabited” suggests that demographic considerations will be of prime importance in the concept of the city. The words “city” and indeed “civilization” come from the Latin civis (citizen) and civitas (community, state, city; citizenship) via Old French cite (capital city). The Latin word for city, urbs, has given us “urban” and “urbanism.” The Romans distinguished between population centers of different scales, between city, town (oppidum), and village (vicus), and so do we. The absolute population of a city need not be big, but the city is larger than a town, a village, and a hamlet (to rank the English words for settlements in descending order, according to size). In demographic terms, a city exists as such only by virtue of its contrast to towns and other smaller settlements. These definitions are relative, however, and can vary according to the position of the observer. For the resident of a village, any larger settlement might seem worthy of the title of city.
In addition, a city (or town, etc.) as a place of habitation is defined in opposition to the countryside. Yet, although opposed in definition, city and countryside are in fact mutually dependent. The resources of the countryside (land, raw materials, agricultural products) support the city, while the city administers and protects the countryside.
That a city is a place attracting a concentration of people indicates the city has something to offer. The lures are often economic, with sources of livelihood based on a natural resource (such as copper, on Cyprus) or a geographical situation advantageous for commerce (a harbor, for example, or a natural crossroads) or an ecological base fostering agricultural prosperity. Attractions might be military (thanks to a defensible location) or ideological (choices made by the ruler: he has picked the place as a capital, or his family may come from there; or the place witnessed a sacred event or shelters a sacred object, either of which gives the place sanctity and draws pilgrims). These economic and ideological factors can change or disappear with time. A harbor might fill with silt, the area becoming malarial (as at Roman Paestum), thereby killing off both trade and agriculture. Military and defense requirements might change, and new ruling families might base themselves elsewhere.
The city thus becomes characterized by the functions that it serves. Such functions may include a ceremonial or ritual role, in which the city may be understood as the center of the universe, or reflecting cosmic or divine truths. The city might also serve as an administrative center or as a commercial center, or some combination of the above three. Whatever they may be, such functions reflect the city’s dominant role in a society. Indeed, for Mumford (1938: 3), the city is “a point of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a community.”
The social organization of the urban population indeed has much to say about the nature of a city. Cities, at the top of the hierarchy of settlements, are a product of socially stratified societies. The city happens when the group living in a community is larger than an extended family unit, a band, or a tribe, and is organized into something more diversified than a military, political, or religious unit (such as a fort, a national capital, or a monastery). Further, city dwellers cannot possibly know each other; they are too numerous for that. The concept of “city” thus implies social distinctions among its populace. Just as the urban-rural contrast denotes difference, so too within the city we find contrasts between rulers (elite groups) and the ruled, between richer and poorer. Differences in work, with specializations of occupation, some more prestigious than others, also contribute to the social hierarchy. In addition, inhabitants might be marked by ethnic and religious differences. Hence Wirth’s 1938 definition of a city: “a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals.” These social distinctions can affect the appearance and layout of a city, with monumental temples and palaces erected in certain areas, but with commercial and industrial establishments and lower-class residential neighborhoods grouped elsewhere.
A related definition of the city would be socio-economic:, the city is a unit that supports itself economically, and extends its economic and political influence over an area broader than its immediate territory. A detailed definition of this sort was offered in 1950 by the Australian prehistorian V. Gordon Childe in an investigation of the origins of cities in the Ancient Near East, distilled in an article tellingly entitled “The Urban Revolution.” For Childe, the earliest true cities were marked by ten criteria or conditions:
1 Concentrations of a relatively large number of people in a restricted area.
2 Developed social stratification.
3 Although most citizens were farmers, some pursued non-agricultural occupations: craft specialists, priests, traders, administrators, etc.
4 The production of an economic surplus and its appropriation by a central authority, such as a king or a deity.
5 Writing, to record economic activity and the myths, events, and other ideological issues that served to justify the discrepancies between the privileged and lower classes.
6 Exact and predictive sciences, to forecast the weather for agricultural production.
7 Monumental public architecture, which could include such structures as temples, palaces, fortifications, and tombs.
8 Figural art.
9 Foreign trade.
10 Residence-based group membership, in which people of all professions and classes could share in a sense of community.
Childe’s list has been criticized as inadequate to explain the variety of urban formations around the world (see Hansen 2008). But his criteria are a useful starting point to explain the rise of urbanism in the Old World. When his criteria are applied to south-west Asia, they place the origin of cities in the fourth millennium BC, when writing was developed. But several of these characteristics appeared earlier, in the Neolithic period, as attested at various villages and towns largely explored after Childe’s article of 1950. We shall explore these issues in the next chapters, Chapters 1 and 2, when we examine the early cities of the Levant, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia.
The concept of the city thus contains demographic, geographic, social, economic, and ideological aspects. Cities are rich, full, many-faceted; reducing the city to a single, all-purpose definition seems neither possible nor even desirable. Let us use the considerations presented above as a point of departure. As we analyze the variations on the theme of the city created by different cultures in different periods, we shall be able to deepen our understanding of the urban experience in our featured region, the Mediterranean basin and the Near East.
World History
