cities: Greece of life’s necessities, only craftsmen had the needed skill and equipment to forge good weapons and tools, to cast jewelry or armor, or to paint pottery with scenes of the gods and heroes Workshops and forges raised near the agora provided access to the marketplace and to traders who bought and sold goods across the seas Nearby forests and public quarries provided raw materials for construction, for pottery, and for iron and bronze forging Permanent settlements grew near the agoras and fortifications The first large Greek towns were built on the island of Crete and in Ionia (the islands of the eastern Aegean and the nearby coast of Asia Minor), the most prosperous region of the early Greek world The Ionian cities, including Miletus and Smyrna, had the essential ingredients for successful towns: an extensive hinterland that provided food, wine, and oil as well as a market for crafts such as pottery and tools The cities of Ionia also lay astride busy trade routes between the Aegean, the Black Sea, Egypt, and the Levant In the early Greek cities regular blocks shared unpaved streets that led from the town gates to central public squares The houses had several rooms, with some rising two stories in a wing set back from the street Alleys separated the blocks and provided drainage for rainwater and wastewater In the outer districts and in smaller settlements, haphazard, unpaved lanes meandered among the private homes and workshops From the beginning of the Archaic Period (ca 600 b.c.e.) and the earliest Greek writing, many Greek settlements became entirely self-sufficient, their inhabitants having the skills or the wealth to live independently off the land In contrast to farming settlements, these towns gave rise to distinct social divisions At the top was an urban aristocracy, men who were responsible for civic affairs, for lawmaking, for settling disputes, and for leadership in war The members of this class held full membership and rights in the city Women, children, and foreigners did not hold the privileges of the citizenry; slaves—most gathered by war and piracy—had no legal rights whatsoever and could be disposed of in any manner their owners saw fit By the process of synoikismos, several villages unified themselves into a polis, or city-state The most significant such event in Greek history was the confederation of several villages in Attica, a peninsula of southern Greece, to form the polis of Athens, an act that by the city’s tradition was carried out by its founder-king, Theseus Other leading city-states were Thebes, Sparta, and Corinth; Delos and Rhodes were prominent island-states in the Aegean region In some places this unification took place without a physical center, and so the polis could simply mean a political alliance among extended families or villages But in most cases cities had such a center, as well as a gymnasium or school, public halls, a theater, a temple, and water delivered through public fountains The city reserved to itself the authority to mint coins, to regulate the calendar, to keep standard weights and measures, and to set down the proper timing and duration of religious festivals 223 Grain inspectors, superintendents of the markets, and port overseers watched over commerce A city might depend for its existence on the export of its marble, silver, wine, timber, or flax; to keep careful control over trade in this item was the difference between success or failure, wealth or starvation THE INNOVATIONS OF HIPPODAMUS The architect Hippodamus of Miletus is the first-known city planner in Greek history According to historical tradition, Hippodamus created the orthogonal (rectangular) pattern of streets that came into vogue during the Classical Period (starting in the fift h century b.c.e.) In fact, Hippodamus was not the first to create a regular street grid, but he did apply his philosophy of the ideal city to his Ionian hometown, thereby setting a standard for new Greek towns raised in the centuries to come In the ideal city of Hippodamus, the citizens of the polis were divided into artisans, farmers, and soldiers, while the land consisted of religious, public, and private zones He carried this tripartite division to Miletus, which was rebuilt in 479 b.c.e after its destruction by a Persian army Hippodamus laid out three main sections, divided by the city’s two harbors The central agora and public buildings were raised in a low-lying precinct, while the city’s theater was built into the side of a hill overlooking the main harbor; on the other side of the harbor was a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena (at the smaller harbor, known as the Lion Harbor, stood a temple of Apollo) A highway linking the city to sacred precincts in the countryside led away from the wall at the southern edge of the city After it was rebuilt by Hippodamus, Miletus grew to a population of 100,000, one of the largest cities of ancient Greece, and boasted three large covered markets, one of them made of fi ne marble and surrounded by galleries two stories tall The renown of Hippodamus spread to Athens, which had become the wealthiest city of the Greek world Athenian leaders invited Hippodamus to lay out the streets of the new harbor town of Piraeus, near Athens, as well as the colony of Thurii in southern Italy The Hippodamian plan was imitated, or applied by him personally, at Olynthus in Macedonia, at the city of Rhodes, and at the town of Priene The rectangular grid, and the idea of specialized precincts carefully laid out within that grid, became a convention throughout the Greek world, even on hilly ground and mountain slopes where the terrain made surveying and construction on such a plan difficult PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BUILDINGS The cities of ancient Greece grew by absorbing nearby settlements and by commerce, which earned money and attracted foreign traders and fortune seekers By proving their merit, these outsiders could win citizenship, granted by a vote in the public assembly Wealthy rural landowners also built homes in the city to enjoy its services and entertainments, to conduct business in the agora, and take