People in ancient cities didn’t have the security of being part of a single geographically distinct community cross-cut with ties of kinship. They also didn’t have the luxury of knowing everybody they encountered. Like urban dwellers today, they spent much of their time rubbing shoulders with complete strangers, many of whom led very different lives despite perhaps sharing loyalty to a common leader, having a common language, living under the same laws and in the same geography. And many of the regular day-to-day interactions between people in different professions in cities only ever took
...more
