Cities and Empires

Abstract

This article reflects on the ways in which cities—from the ancient world to the present and in four continents—have expressed and transmitted imperial ideas. Different types of empires are considered: territorial, commercial, nomadic, dispositional, and reactive. The cities themselves might be central sites of rule, often incorporating symbols of power imported from earlier empires; outposts of commerce or rule; military encampments; or some mixture of these. Strategies of imperial rule and the forms of the cities themselves are often shaped by the traditions of the ruling group or by reference to the political and cosmological systems of other empires deemed worthy of emulation. At the same time, the city forms and governmental structures of lands taken into an empire often are absorbed and used by the empire itself, sometimes even after the empire has been dissolved.