Cities of Rome

[straggle]

I am not very knowledgeable about Rome, which is why I registered with this site. One of the questions I have that I would like to learn more about is, other than Rome, what great cities were in the Roman Empire and why were they so great? If you know anything about cities in the Roman Empire, I would appreciate it if you post them and have an in depth discussion concerning the question.

[spittle]

Constantinople (Istanbul).

This actually became the capital of the Roman Empire during the reign of Constantine the Great (early 4th Century AD) and continued as such until its fall, over a thousand years after the fall of Rome.

 

You must remember that the Romans were around for 2000years so different cities prospered and failed at different times.

 

During the 1st Century Rome had more people than all the other cities of Italy combined. I believe Capua was the second city at this time.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

Cities in the Empire were numerous and of various origins. Some were older than Rome herself, others had a rich history before the roman conquest, some even had a rich history after their conquest. Other still were founded by romans, be it in order to control an area, to settle veterans soldiers.

 

Their monuments could make cities look pretty good, their infrastructure was well developed ( sewers, roads with passages for walking peoples, water distribution network, ect... ), their population often rather important ( 10 000 peoples cities were common, with some cities going to over 100 000, even as far as 500 000, not speaking of Rome herself who went up to one million peoples, exceptional in an age where large concentration of peoples caused massive feeding problems ).

 

Famous cities of the Roman Empire you may consider as the greatest are cities like Alexandria, Athens and Antiochus in the east, Lugdunum (Lyon ), Carthago and Tarraco in the west. But other cities like Aphrodisias, Ephesus, Corinth, Lutecia ( Paris ), Treves, Koln, and dozens of other cities were also great urban centers.

 

So maybe giving your criters for greatness would be better in order to allow us to tell you which cities were the greatest.

[Northern Neil]

Some cities now are considered great on account of their visible remains, although they were not particularly outstanding in their day. Examples are Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy, Ephesus in Turkey, Nimes and Arles in France, Leptis Magna in Libya and Trier in Germany.

[Maladict]

Some cities now are considered great on account of their visible remains, although they were not particularly outstanding in their day. Examples are Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy, Ephesus in Turkey, Nimes and Arles in France, Leptis Magna in Libya and Trier in Germany.

 

I agree on Pompeii and Herculaneum, and Nimes. Ephesus however was the main metropolis of Asia, and Arles was quite important in the fourth century, as was Trier (likely the largest city north of the Alps at that time).

Leptis Magna is harder, because so much money was lavished upon it by a single emperor for nostalgic reasons. It's hard to say whether the city merited these investments, or if it grew in importance because of them.

[Nerva]

Roman Carthage must have been a pretty impressive city. Its population peaked at 500,000. It was also very famous for its harbor which was circular and contained docks for both military and civilian ships.

Edited March 14, 2007 by Nerva

[Publius Cornelius Scipio]

The important cities shifted a great deal over time. Early on the 2nd city in Italy was Capua, although it wasn't nearly as large as Rome and didn't recieve citizenship for some time (it even defected to Hannibal in the 2nd punic war). After the Romans demolished Carthage it wasn't much use to them until they rebuilt it, but then it became a major city in the West. Other than Rome and Carthage though, there weren't too many large urban centers in the West, and what ones there were often were founded by Greeks (Tarentum in Southern Italy, Syracuse in Sicily, Massilia in Southern France). In the late empire the Western capital was moved to Ravenna in Northern Italy.

 

Unlike the West however the population of the East was largely urbanized. Early, the ancient cities of Greece like Athens were often important, as well as cities in Asia and Africa such as Alexandria. Constantinple later became the capital in the fourth century. The degree of urbanization in the East is really shown when considering that the original 5 patriarchs of Christianity were at Rome (only one in the West), Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch (later Damascus), and Jeruselum (all in the East). These were all very large urban centers numbering in the hundreds of thousands and perhaps even a million in Rome's case.

 

To sum it up... until very late the most important city was always Rome itself, then Constantinople, early important cities were Capua, Tarentum, Syracuse, Massillia... important cities at the height and later at the fall were Carthage, Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch, Jeruselum, and cities of Greece... and while they were not as large or wealthy, cities that the Romans started themselves more into the interior or "barbarian" area of Europe should be remembered as they were often civilizing forces and held the line on the frontiers before becoming modern important cities that we know - Londinium, Paris, Vindobona (Vienna)

[oats]

As Pubilus stated, it changed and varied much over time.

 

The most interesting, perhaps are those that were established in Gaulic portions of northern Europe, and their development into major central cities.

[Kosmo]

Tyr, the ancient phoenician city, was also an important city of the East. The only other city of the empire besides Rome where people were living in high apartment buildings (insulae).

Palmyra, at the outside border of the empire, it's a great example of how greco-roman urbanism and arhitecture radiated in the neighboring areas.

 

In the northern and western european parts of the empire cities were established or greatly enlarged by romans and were badly hit by the III C crisis and the collapse of roman power on which they depended on. Lugdunum (Lyon) was probably the greatest european city outside Italy and greek areas.

 

Other urbanized areas in Europe during roman rule were areas were cities had a longer tradition. East and southern Spain, south Gaul, Tracia, Dalmatia.

[Pantagathus]

Gades (modern Cadiz) in Spain deserves mention; not for size per se but the for the amount of commercial wealth that flowed out of the city to Rome.