Roman cities
Topic: The Roman Empire · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 2 "An Empire Across Three Continents"
Meaning
A Roman city was an urban centre with its own magistrates (officials), a city council, and a "territory" of villages under its control. Rome had no modern bureaucracy. It governed and taxed the countryside through the cities, because local upper classes helped run the area and collect taxes. A village could be raised to the rank of city, or a city lowered, as a sign of the emperor's favour or anger. City people had real advantages: better food supply in famines, public baths, and many shows and entertainments.
Example
Carthage, Alexandria and Antioch were the biggest cities of the Mediterranean. One Roman calendar lists shows (spectacula) on 176 days of the year. But the doctor Galen wrote that city people carried off the grain, leaving peasants to eat twigs and roots in spring.