URBANISM: A HISTORIC, GEOGRAPHIC, AND ECONOMIC 



STUDY.i 



By Pierre Clerget, 

 Professor at the High School of Commerce, Lyon, France. 



I. ANCIENT CITIES. 



"We should not have the idea of ancient cities," %\Tites Fiistel of 

 Coulanges, ''that we have of those we see built in our day. A few 

 houses are erected and that is a village; the number of houses is 

 gradually increased and it becomes a city; and we finish it, if there 

 be room, by surrounding it with a moat and a wall. Among the 

 ancients a city was not formed in course of time by a slow increase 

 in the number of inhabitants and buildings, but they constructed it 

 at once, complete almost in a day." ^ The first need of the founder was 

 to choose a site for the new city, but the choice was always left to the 

 decision of the gods. Around the altar, which became the shrine 

 of the city, were built the houses, ''just as a dwelling is erected around 

 the domestic fireside." The boundary, traced according to a religious 

 rite, was inviolable. This ceremony of founding the city was not 

 forgotten, and each year they celebrated its anniversary. Every 

 ancient city was first of all a sanctuary. 



Rome, in particular, was created in that way. One of the remark- 

 able traits of her politics was that she attracted to herself all the 

 cults of conquered peoples, and this was the chief way through which 

 she succeeded in increasing her population. She brought to herself 

 the inhabitants of conquered cities and little by little she made 

 Romans of them, each of them being permitted to exercise his cult; 

 this liberty was enough to retain them there. 



At a time when statistics were unknown we are left, by lack of 

 accurate figm-es, to rely for information upon some very uncertain 

 and probably exaggerated estimates by ancient historians. Beloch, 

 cited by M. de Foville, gives 800,000 inhabitants to Rome in the 

 reign of Augustus; Young estimates Carthago under the Empire at 

 700,000; SchmoUer gives 600,000 to 700,000 inhabitants to ancient 



> Translated, by permission, from Bulletin de la Soci6t6 Neuchateloise de G4ographie, vol. 20, 1909-10, 

 pp. 213-231. Neuchatel, Switzerland, 1910. 

 » Fustel de Coulanges: La eit6 antique, IT^ 6dit, Paris, Hachette, 1900, p. 151. 



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