ABSTRACT
In The Corrupting Sea, the authors offered a preliminary account of our view of towns and cities in the Mediterranean region. This account came in the course of setting out their overall model of how Mediterranean history might be studied. The authors clarify and enlarge a vision of Mediterranean towns or cities as ecological entities that straddle the urban/rural distinction usually drawn. They shall first describe again their ecological conception of Mediterranean history. Then, as a detailed illustration of how that might in principle apply anywhere in the Mediterranean, the primary focus will be the city of Rome under the early Roman Empire, that is, Rome of the first century CE. In the Mediterranean as elsewhere, cities have their political and cultural élites, their special built forms, their concentration of wealth and power. A characteristic that Horden and Purcell attributed to many Mediterranean settlements is to be expected in a megalopolis too.
