226 cities: Rome the most famous and largest library of the ancient world, which held more than 200,000 books Alexandria attracted a Mediterranean melting pot of Greeks, Jews, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Arabs, and many other nationalities Textile, furniture, pottery, glassware, and papyrus industries flourished; Alexandria also served as Rome’s principal Mediterranean grain port To handle the trading fleets that called at Alexandria, the city had two large sheltered harbors divided by the Heptastadion, a dike that ran nearly a mile from the mainland to the island of Pharos At night the ships were guided by the tall lighthouse known as the Pharos of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world The east harbor was known as the War Harbor and the west harbor as the Merchant Harbor A canal linked these harbors with Lake Mareotis, from which another canal ran to the Nile River As a city, Alexandria was surpassed only by Rome in its reputation as a center of trade, learning, and culture The city endured long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, though most Alexandrian monuments vanished after Egypt was conquered by the Arabs, and the capital moved to Cairo, the basic layout of the city survived and is still in evidence More important, the political institutions of the Greek city had a lasting influence in Europe, where citizenship is still prized and democratic government remains the ideal ROME BY KIRK H BEETZ Ancient Romans regarded their cities as essential statements of what it meant to be a Roman They built their cities to be centers of politics, commerce, and culture and, in newly conquered territories, to draw native peoples into the Roman way of life to the point that their ways were indistinguishable from those of Roman citizens Indeed, where Roman cities took hold, even outside Italy, after a few generations the local people were often declared Roman citizens, with the same rights and responsibilities as citizens born in Rome The first Roman city was Rome itself Ancient Roman historians placed the founding of Rome in 753 b.c.e., but modern archaeology has found graves in Rome dating at least a century earlier Rome began as a small village on Palatine Hill, one of the famed “seven hills” of later Rome, overlooking the Tiber River The settlers were probably Latins, an ethnic group that populated central Italy Archaeological evidence indicates that another village on a nearby hill merged with the one on the Palatine, beginning an expansion that would produce the greatest metropolis of its time According to Roman accounts the brothers Romulus and Remus (probably Etruscans, the dominant military and commercial power in the area) settled in what was to become Rome, and Romulus founded the city To the Romans, a city was not a true city unless it rested on sacred ground Romulus laid out the town’s dimensions by plow- ing a square around Palatine Hill, leaving gaps for gates (Because of this legend, Romans considered the Palatine the true Rome, the center of the city’s spirit.) Wherever the ground was plowed, diabolical spirits from within the earth supposedly could rise to the surface Thus people were forbidden to cross the ground Romulus had plowed; they could enter Rome only through gates For ancient Romans anyone who entered a city over the plowed ground rather than through a proper gate had to be killed in order to save the city from ill fortune brought by the diabolical spirits Romulus killed his brother Remus because Remus jestingly jumped over the plowed ground In building new cities, Romans traditionally engaged in a ceremony based on Romulus and his plow After first checking for signs from the gods that the site was acceptable to them, the chief builder, while wearing a toga, used a bronze plow pulled by two white cattle, one male and one female, to cut a square or rectangular perimeter for the city, lift ing the plow over the areas where the gates were to be Walls were built around the outside of the plowed ground (The walls could be serious structures for defense, but in secure areas they were often more for show, forming a statement that within them was a sacred Roman city.) Every city that Romans built from scratch was oriented north-south and east-west as marked by two main roads The north-south road was called the cardo and the east-west road the decumanus, and they crossed in the center of the city It is not known why the cardo and decumanus were so important—possibly they had religious significance—but they were among the fi rst things a city designer laid out, even before plowing the sacred barrier In Rome building and rebuilding gradually covered over its original cardo and decumanus roads, and as the city’s relations with the rest of the world grew, several other major roads radiated out from it into the countryside The Romans borrowed some of their rituals for founding a city from the Etruscans, including the creation of a mundus, a circular pit dug near the center of the city Here again communication with the earth’s diabolical spirits was possible The mundus was covered with a stone slab, on which offerings such as food were left Three times a year the slab was removed, giving the spirits access to the city, and on those days no business of any kind was conducted, because it would be doomed to failure In Rome the mundus was occasionally paved over and seems to have been moved a few times to accommodate the city’s growth THE CAPITOL AND THE FORUM Essential to any Roman city’s spirituality was its capitol, usually located in the center of the city The capitol—the name comes from the Latin word for “head”—was not a governmental complex in the modern sense but contained temples dedicated to deities important to the city Rome had three temples in its capitol, one dedicated to the chief god, Jupiter; one to his wife, Juno; and one to Minerva,