Ancient Cities

In "Ancient Cities," the cities and civilizations of the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Rome are presented from an archaeological perspective. Focusing on urban centers, the book discusses architecture and other material remains, historical and socioeconomic contexts, and the experiences of the people who lived there. Charles Gates traces the urban centers from their emergence in the Near East in the ninth and sixth millennia BCE to the end of paganism in the early fourth century CE. He examines an area that combines the region under the control of the Persian Empire and conquered by Alexander the Great, extending from the Indus Valley in modern Pakistan to England in the west, with the territories of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent.