Sabines
The Sabines were an Italic people that lived in the central Apennine Mountains of ancient Italy inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divided into two populations just after the founding of Rome, described by Roman legend; the division, however it came about, is not legendary. The population closer to Rome transplanted itself to the new city and united with the preexisting citizenry, beginning a new heritage that descended from the Sabines but was Latinized; the second population remained a mountain tribal state, coming to war against Rome for its independence along with all the other Italic tribes. After losing, it became assimilated into the Roman Republic. There is little record of the Sabine language. There are personal names in use on Latin inscriptions from the Sabine country, but these are given in Latin form. Robert Seymour Conway, in his Italic Dialects, gives 100 words which vary from being well attested as Sabine to being of Sabine origin. In addition to these he cites place names derived from the Sabine, sometimes giving attempts at reconstructions of the Sabine form.
Based on all the evidence, the Linguist List tentatively classifies Sabine as a member of the Umbrian Group of Italic languages of the Indo-European family. Latin-speakers called the Sabines' original territory, straddling the modern regions of Lazio and Abruzzo, Sabinium. To this day, it bears the ancient tribe's name in the Italian form of Sabina. Within the modern region of Lazio, Sabina constitutes a sub-region, situated north-east of Rome, around Rieti. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, many Roman historians regarded the origins of indigenous Romans to be Greek though their knowledge was derived from Greek legendary accounts. Dionysius regarded Lista as the mother-city of the Aborigines. Ancient historians debated the specific origins of the Sabines. Zenodotus of Troezen claimed that the Sabines were Umbrians that changed their name after being driven from the Reatine territory by the Pelasgians. However, Porcius Cato argued that the Sabines were a populace named after the son of Sancus.
In another account mentioned in Dionysius's work, a group of Lacedaemonians fled Sparta since they regarded the laws of Lycurgus as too severe. In Italy, they founded the Spartan colony of Foronia and some from that colony settled among the Sabines. According to the account, the Sabine habits of belligerence and frugality were known to have derived from the Spartans. Plutarch mentions, in the Life of Numa Pompilius, "Sabines, who declare themselves to be a colony of the Lacedaemonians". Legend says; the resultant war ended only by the women throwing themselves and their children between the armies of their fathers and their husbands. The Rape of the Sabine Women became a common motif in art. According to Livy, after the conflict, the Sabine and Roman states merged, the Sabine king Titus Tatius jointly ruled Rome with Romulus until Tatius' death five years later. Three new centuries of Equites were introduced at Rome, including one named Tatienses, after the Sabine king. A variation of the story is recounted in the pseudepigraphal Sefer haYashar.
Tradition suggests that the population of the early Roman kingdom was the result of a union of Sabines and others. Some of the gentes of the Roman republic were proud of their Sabine heritage, such as the Claudia gens, assuming Sabinus as a cognomen or agnomen; some Sabine deities and cults were known at Rome: Semo Sancus and Quirinus, at least one area of the town, the Quirinale, where the temples to those latter deities were located, had once been a Sabine centre. The extravagant claims of Varro and Cicero that augury, divination by dreams and the worship of Minerva and Mars originated with the Sabines are disputable, as they were general Italic and Latin customs, as well as Etruscan though they were espoused by Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome and a Sabine. Titus Tatius, legendary King of the Sabines Numa Pompilius, legendary King of Rome Ancus Marcius, legendary King of Rome Quintus Sertorius, republican general Attius Clausus, founder of the Roman Claudia gens Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Roman writer Marcus Terentius Varro, Roman scholar Dius Fidius Feronia Ops Quirinus Sabus Sancus Soranus Vacuna Varro's list of Sabine gods During the expansion of ancient Rome, there were a series of conflicts with the Sabines.
Manius Curius Dentatus conquered the Sabines in 290 BC. The citizenship without the right of suffrage was given to the Sabines in the same year; the right of suffrage was granted to the Sabines in 268 BC. Ancient peoples of Italy Hostus Hostilius Ovid, Fasti Ovid, Ars Amatoria Livy, Ab urbe condita Cicero, De Republica Plutarch, Parallel Lives Juvenal, Satires Donaldson, John William. "Chapter IV: The Sabello-Oscan Language". Varronianus: a critical and historical introduction to the ethnography of ancient Italy and the philological study of the Latin language. London: John W. Parker and Son. Brown, Robert. "Livy's Sabine Women and the Ideal of Concordia." Transactions of the American Philological Association 125: 291-319
Alba Longa
Alba Longa was an ancient Latin city in Central Italy, 19 kilometres southeast of Rome, in the Alban Hills. Founder and head of the Latin League, it was destroyed by the Roman Kingdom around the middle of the 7th century BC, its inhabitants were forced to settle in Rome. In legend and Remus, founders of Rome, had come from the royal dynasty of Alba Longa, which in Virgil's Aeneid had been the bloodline of Aeneas, a son of Venus. Rome's patrician families such as Julii, Quinctii, Geganii and Cloelii originated in Alba Longa. Livy said of Alba Longa, he placed it at the foot of the Alban Mount and said that it took its name from being extended along a ridge. Dionysius of Halicarnassus repeated the story, but added that Ascanius, following an oracle given to his father, collected other Latin populations as well. Noting that Latin: alba means "white" and Latin: longa means "long", he translated the name into the Greek language as "long white town". Dionysius placed the town between the Alban Mount and the Alban Lake, thus beginning a long controversy about its location.
Since the 16th century, the site has been at various times identified as that of the Convent of St. Paul at Palazzola near Albano, Coste Caselle near Marino, Castel Gandolfo; the last named of these places in fact occupies the site of the Villa of Domitian which, according to Juvenal, was situated on the arx of Alba. Archaeological data show the existence of a string of villages in the Iron Age, each with its own necropolis, along the south-western shore of Lake Albano. At the time of being destroyed by Rome, these villages must have still been in a pre-urban phase, beginning to group around a centre which may well have been Castel Gandolfo, whose larger necropolis suggests a larger town. In the republican period the territory of Alba was settled once again with many residential villas, which are mentioned in ancient literature and of which remains are extant. According to Roman mythology, after the fall of Troy in 1184 BC, Aeneas led a group of surviving Trojans through the Mediterranean Sea to Sicily and the Italian Peninsula.
On landing in Italy he was welcomed by king of the early Latins. Soon, Aeneas married king Latinus' daughter and founded the city of Lavinium in her name. Latinus fell in war, making Aeneas king of the Latins and his son Ascanius his successor. A few years Aeneas was killed in battle, like Latinus, Ascanius became king of the Latins. Ascanius built Alba Longa as his capital on the slope of Mount Alba, resettling six hundred families there as a colony of Lavinium in 1151 BC, only thirty years after Lavinium itself was founded, his descendants ruled the Latins for another five hundred years. Alba Longa was the leading city of the thirty cities that made up the Latin League; the league's conferences were held by the Ferentine spring, in the scenic part of the valley between Albano and Marino, Italy. The sacrifices of the league were offered on the Alban mountain from which all the country of Latium might be seen; the colonies of Alba Longa were distinct from the Alban townships which must have consisted of Albani plebs, as the genuine Albans were the populus.
Among the Alban colonies some become part of the plebs: others become Latin cities. The others were ceded to the Latins to maintain a consistent thirty townships, thirty being of great importance among the Latin kingdoms as twelve was to the Ionians. Accordingly, the Latin kingdom of Latinus, the Rutulian kingdom of Turnus must have had thirty cities each with Laurentum as the Latin capital prior to the arrival of Aeneas. In the seventh century BC, the Roman king Tullus Hostilius succeeded Numa Pompilius. During his reign, Rome's attitude toward its neighbors reflected Tullus's own predilection for war; when a dispute erupted between a group of Romans and Albans, he seized upon the mutual accusations of robbery as a pretext for conflict. Both sides sent emissaries to demand redress; when the Alban delegation arrived in Rome, Tullus purposefully gave them a such a warm greeting that they delayed making their demand. The Roman delegates, however addressed the Albans and were refused. By virtue of the Alban first refusal, Tullus was justified in declaring war.
Livy describes the war as being akin to a civil war, because the Romans were said to be descended from the Albans. The king of the Albans, marched with his army into Roman territory, established camp, dug a huge trench around Rome, which became known as the Cluilian trench. However, Cluilius died in the camp of unspecified causes, whereupon the Albans appointed Mettius Fufetius as dictator to lead the army in his place. Tullus emerged from Rome with his army, passed the Alban camp at night and marched into Alban territory. Mettius followed, camped near the Roman army, sent a representative to invite Tullus to confer before any engagement. Tullus accepted the invitation. However, both sides were drawn up for battle. At the conference, Mettius proposed that the dispute be resolved by some means other than mass bloodshed, citing the concern that the nearby Etruscans would fall upon the two Latin states if these were weakened by war and unable to defend themselves, it was agreed that a set of triplets from each side, three brothers Horatii and three Curiatii, would battle for the victory of the two states.
Livy refers to conflict amongst his own sources as to which set of brothers represented which state, but prefers the view that the Horatii were the Romans, the Curiatii Albans. Vows wer
Hostilia (gens)
The gens Hostilia was an ancient family at Rome, which traced its origin to the time of Romulus. The most famous member of the gens was the third King of Rome. Several of the Hostilii were distinguished during Punic Wars; the first of the family to obtain the consulship was Aulus Hostilius Mancinus in 170 BC. The Hostilii came from Medullia, an ancient city in Latium, are thought to have settled at Rome in the time of Romulus. Although the Hostilii of the Republic had no specific tradition about Medullia, coins minted by one of the Hostilii bear the heads of Pallor and Pavor, the gods of fear and panic, in an allusion to Tullus Hostilius, who vowed temples to Pallor and Pavor during his war with Veii and Fidenae. If the Hostilii were descended from the Hostilii of the regal period they were of Medullian origin; the nomen Hostilius is a patronymic surname, based on the praenomen Hostus, borne by the ancestors of the gens. The same praenomen gave rise with the nomen Hostius; the earliest known member of the Hostilii was Hostus Hostilius, a Roman champion in the earliest days of the city.
However, if he bore the nomen Hostilius that name must have originated at an earlier time. The meaning of the praenomen remains obscure; the principal first names used by the Hostilii were Aulus and Gaius. There are instances of Marcus and Publius; the ancient Hostilii appear to have made regular use of the praenomen Hostus. Tullus used by the gens in the earliest times, appears to have been revived by the family during the Republic. A woman of the gens is known to have used the praenomen Quarta; the Hostilii of the Republic bore the surnames Cato, Mancinus and Tubulus. Firminus and Rutilus are found in imperial times; some of the Hostilii do not appear to have had cognomina. This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Hostus Hostilius, of Medullia, a Roman champion in the time of Romulus, fell in battle against the Sabines. Hostus Hostilius Hosti f. son of Hostus Hostilius, father of Tullus Hostilius, the third King of Rome. Tullus Hostilius Hosti f.
Hosti n. the third King of Rome. Quarta Hostilia, married first Gnaeus Fulvius Flaccus, praetor in 212 BC, second Gaius Calpurnius Piso, consul in 180 BC, whom she was convicted of poisoning. Marcus Hostilius, moved the site of the town of Salapia in Apulia. Gaius Hostilius, legate sent to Alexandria by the senate, to negotiate between Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, Ptolemy Euergetes and Cleopatra of Egypt in 168 BC. Hostilius, a poet as late as the age of Cicero, known from a line quoted by Priscian. Hostilius, proposer of the lex Hostilia, permitting legal actions to be brought on behalf of persons absent due to public service, whether civil or military; the date of the law is uncertain, but a series of cases mentioned by Cicero may have been related to it. Tullus Hostilius, a supporter of Marcus Antonius, elected tribune of the plebs for 43 BC. Hostilius Rutilus, praefect of the camp in the army of Drusus in Germania, in 11 BC. Hostilius, a Cynic philosopher, banished by the emperor Vespasian, circa AD 72.
Hostilius Firminus, legate of Marius Priscus, proconsul of Africa in AD 101, during the reign of Trajan. Lucius Hostilius Mancinus, an officer in the army of the dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus in 217 BC. Lucius Hostilius L. f. Mancinus, father of the consul of 145 BC. Aulus Hostilius L. f. A. n. Mancinus, consul in 170 BC, during the war against Perseus. Lucius Hostilius L. f. L. n. Mancinus, commander of the fleet during the Third Punic War, consul in 145 BC. Gaius Hostilius A. f. L. n. Mancinus, praetor before 140 BC, consul in 137, in which year he was defeated by the Numantines. Aulus Hostilius Mancinus, curule aedile of an uncertain year, mentioned in an anecdote of Aulus Gellius. Gaius Hostilius Tubulus, praetor in 209 BC, during the Second Punic War. Lucius Hostilius Tubulus, praetor in 142 BC, exiled for accepting bribes. Lucius Hostilius Tubulus, triumvir monetalis in 105 BC. Aulus Hostilius Cato, praetor in 207 BC, obtained Sicilia as his province. Gaius Hostilius Cato, praetor with his brother in 207 BC. Lucius Hostilius Cato, legate of Scipio Asiaticus in 190 BC, acquitted of bribery.
Hostilius Saserna, the name of two agricultural writers and son, who lived in the time between Cato and Varro. Lucius Hostilius Saserna, triumvir monetalis in 48 BC. Gaius Hostilius Saserna, served with his brother, under Caesar in the African War, in 46 BC. Publius Hostilius Saserna, served under Caesar in the African War. List of Roman gentes This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed.. "article name needed". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
Numa Pompilius
Numa Pompilius was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus. He was of Sabine origin, many of Rome's most important religious and political institutions are attributed to him. According to Plutarch, Numa was the youngest of Pomponius's four sons, born on the day of Rome's founding, he banished all luxury from his home. Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines and a colleague of Romulus, gave in marriage his only daughter, Tatia, to Numa. After 13 years of marriage, Tatia died. According to Livy, Numa resided at Cures before being elected king. Titus Livius and Plutarch refer to the story that Numa was instructed in philosophy by Pythagoras but discredit it as chronologically and geographically implausible. Plutarch reports that some authors credited him with Pompilia. Pompilia's mother is variously identified as his second wife Lucretia, she is said to have married the future first pontifex maximus Numa Marcius, by him gave birth to the future king Ancus Marcius. Other authors, according to Plutarch, gave Numa, in addition, five sons, Pinus, Calpus and Numa, from whom the noble families of the Pomponii, Calpurnii and Pompilii traced their descent.
Still other writers, writes Plutarch, believed these were fictional genealogies to enhance the status of these families. After the death of Romulus, there was an interregnum of one year in which the royal power was exercised by members of the Senate in rotation for five days in a row. In 715 BC, after much bickering between the factions of Romulus and Tatius, a compromise was reached, the Sabine Numa was elected by the senate as the next king. At first he refused the offer, his father and Sabine kinsmen, including his teacher and the father of Numa's son-in law, along with an embassy of two senators from Rome, banded together to persuade him to accept. In the account of Plutarch and Livy, after being summoned by the Senate from Cures, was offered the tokens of power amid an enthusiastic reception by the people of Rome, he requested, that an augur should divine the opinion of the gods on the prospect of his kingship before he accepted. Jupiter was consulted and the omens were favourable, thus approved by the Roman and Sabine people as well as the heavens, he took up his position as King of Rome.
According to Plutarch, Numa's first act was to disband the personal guard of 300 so-called "Celeres" with which Romulus permanently surrounded himself. The gesture is variously interpreted as self-protection in the face of their questionable loyalty, a sign of humility, or a signal of peace and moderation. Based on Roman chronology, Numa died of old age in 673 BC, he was succeeded by Tullus Hostilius. Numa was traditionally celebrated by the Romans for his piety. In addition to the endorsement by Jupiter, he is supposed to have had a direct and personal relationship with a number of deities, most famously the nymph Egeria, who according to legend taught him to be a wise legislator. According to Livy, Numa claimed that he held nightly consultations with Egeria on the proper manner of instituting sacred rites for the city. Plutarch suggests that he played on superstition to give himself an aura of awe and divine allure, in order to cultivate more gentle behaviours among the warlike early Romans, such as honoring the gods, abiding by law, behaving humanely to enemies, living proper, respectable lives.
Numa was said to have authored several "sacred books" in which he had written down divine teachings from Egeria and the Muses. Plutarch and Livy record that at his request he was buried along with these "sacred books", preferring that the rules and rituals they prescribed be preserved in the living memory of the state priests, rather than preserved as relics subject to forgetfulness and disuse. About half of these books—Plutarch and Livy differ on their number—were thought to cover the priesthoods he had established or developed, including the flamines, pontifices and fetiales and their rituals; the other books dealt with philosophy. According to Plutarch, these books were recovered some four hundred years at the occasion of a natural accident that exposed the tomb, they were examined by the Senate, deemed to be inappropriate for disclosure to the people, burned. Dionysius of Halicarnassus hints that they were kept as a close secret by the pontifices. Numa is reputed to have constrained the two minor gods Picus and Faunus into delivering some prophecies of things to come.
Numa and prepared by Egeria held a battle of wits with Jupiter himself, in an apparition whereby Numa sought to gain a protective ritual against lightning strikes and thunder. Once, when a plague was ravaging the population, a brass shield fell from the sky and was brought to Numa, he declared that Egeria had told him it was a gift from Jupiter to be used for Rome's protection. He ordered ceremonies to give thanks for the gift and brought about an end to the plague; the Ancile was placed in the care of the Salii. One of Numa's first acts was the construction of a temple of Janus as an indicator of war; the temple was constructed at the foot of a road in the city. After securing peace with Rome's neighbours, the doors of the temples were shut and remained so for all the duration of Numa's reign, a unique case in Roman history. Another crea
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was the legendary seventh and final King of Rome, reigning from 535 BC until the popular uprising in 509 that led to the establishment of the Roman Republic. He is known as Tarquin the Proud, from his cognomen Superbus. Ancient accounts of the regal period mingle legend. Tarquin was said to have been the son or grandson of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, to have gained the throne through the murders of both his wife and his elder brother, followed by the assassination of his predecessor, Servius Tullius, his reign is described as a tyranny. Tarquin was said to be the son or grandson of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, Tanaquil. Tanaquil had engineered her husband's succession to the Roman kingdom on the death of Ancus Marcius; when the sons of Marcius subsequently arranged the elder Tarquin's assassination in 579 BC, Tanaquil placed Servius Tullius on the throne, in preference to her own sons. According to an Etruscan tradition, the hero Macstarna equated with Servius Tullius and killed a Roman named Gnaeus Tarquinius, rescued the brothers Caelius and Aulus Vibenna from captivity.
This may recollect an otherwise forgotten attempt by the sons of Tarquin the elder to reclaim the throne. To forestall further dynastic strife, Servius married his daughters, known to history as Tullia Major and Tullia Minor, to Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the future king, his brother Arruns. Tarquin's sister, married Marcus Junius Brutus, was the mother of Lucius Junius Brutus, one of the men who would lead the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom; the elder sister, Tullia Major, was of mild disposition, yet married the ambitious Tarquin. Her younger sister, Tullia Minor, was of fiercer temperament, she came to despise him, conspired with Tarquin to bring about the deaths of Tullia Major and Arruns. After the murder of their spouses and Tullia were married. Together, they had three sons: Titus and Sextus, a daughter, who married Octavius Mamilius, the prince of Tusculum. Tullia encouraged her husband to advance his own position persuading him to usurp Servius. Tarquin solicited the support of the patrician senators those from families who had received their senatorial rank under Tarquin the Elder.
He bestowed presents upon them, spread criticism of Servius the king. In time, Tarquin felt ready to seize the throne, he went to the senate-house with a group of armed men, sat himself on the throne, summoned the senators to attend upon King Tarquin. He spoke to the senators, denigrating Servius as a slave born of a slave; when word of this brazen deed reached Servius, he hurried to the curia to confront Tarquin, who leveled the same accusations against his father-in-law, in his youth and vigor carried the king outside and flung him down the steps of the senate-house and into the street. The king's retainers fled, as he made his way and unattended, toward the palace, the aged Servius was set upon and murdered by Tarquin's assassins on the advice of his own daughter. Tullia, drove in her chariot to the senate-house, where she was the first to hail her husband as king, but Tarquin bade her return home, concerned. As she drove toward the Urbian Hill, her driver stopped horrified at the sight of the king's body, lying in the street.
But in a frenzy, Tullia herself seized the reins, drove the wheels of her chariot over her father's corpse. The king's blood spattered against the chariot and stained Tullia's clothes, so that she brought a gruesome relic of the murder back to her house; the street where Tullia disgraced the dead king afterward became known as the Vicus Sceleratus, the Street of Crime. Tarquin commenced his reign by refusing to bury the dead Servius, putting to death a number of leading senators, whom he suspected of remaining loyal to Servius. By not replacing the slain senators, not consulting the senate on matters of government, he diminished both the size and the authority of the senate. In another break with tradition, Tarquin judged capital crimes without the advice of counselors, causing fear amongst those who might think to oppose him, he made a powerful ally when he betrothed his daughter to Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum, among the most eminent of the Latin chiefs. Early in his reign, Tarquin called a meeting of the Latin leaders to discuss the bonds between Rome and the Latin towns.
The meeting was held at a grove sacred to the goddess Ferentina. At the meeting, Turnus Herdonius inveighed against Tarquin's arrogance, warned his countrymen against trusting the Roman king. Tarquin bribed Turnus' servant to store a large number of swords in his master's lodging. Tarquin called together the Latin leaders, accused Turnus of plotting his assassination; the Latin leaders accompanied Tarquin to Turnus' lodging and, the swords being discovered, the Latin's guilt was speedily inferred. Turnus was condemned to be thrown into a pool of water in the grove, with a wooden frame, or cratis, placed over his head, into which stones were thrown, drowning him; the meeting of the Latin chiefs continued, T
Urbanization
Urbanization refers to the population shift from rural areas to urban areas, the gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas, the ways in which each society adapts to this change. It is predominantly the process by which towns and cities are formed and become larger as more people begin living and working in central areas. Although the two concepts are sometimes used interchangeably, urbanization should be distinguished from urban growth: urbanization is "the proportion of the total national population living in areas classed as urban", while urban growth refers to "the absolute number of people living in areas classed as urban"; the United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008. It is predicted that by 2050 about 64% of the developing world and 86% of the developed world will be urbanized; that is equivalent to 3 billion urbanites by 2050, much of which will occur in Africa and Asia. Notably, the United Nations has recently projected that nearly all global population growth from 2017 to 2030 will be by cities, about 1.1 billion new urbanites over the next 13 years.
Urbanization is relevant to a range of disciplines, including urban planning, sociology, architecture and public health. The phenomenon has been linked to modernization, industrialization, the sociological process of rationalization. Urbanization can be seen as a specific condition at a set time, or as an increase in that condition over time. So urbanization can be quantified either in terms of, the level of urban development relative to the overall population, or as the rate at which the urban proportion of the population is increasing. Urbanization creates enormous social and environmental changes, which provide an opportunity for sustainability with the “potential to use resources more efficiently, to create more sustainable land use and to protect the biodiversity of natural ecosystems.”Urbanization is not a modern phenomenon, but a rapid and historic transformation of human social roots on a global scale, whereby predominantly rural culture is being replaced by predominantly urban culture.
The first major change in settlement patterns was the accumulation of hunter-gatherers into villages many thousand years ago. Village culture is characterized by common bloodlines, intimate relationships, communal behavior, whereas urban culture is characterized by distant bloodlines, unfamiliar relations, competitive behavior; this unprecedented movement of people is forecast to continue and intensify during the next few decades, mushrooming cities to sizes unthinkable only a century ago. As a result, the world urban population growth curve has up till followed a quadratic-hyperbolic pattern. Today, in Asia the urban agglomerations of Osaka, Jakarta, Shanghai, Manila and Beijing are each home to over 20 million people, while Delhi and Tokyo are forecast to approach or exceed 40 million people. Cities such as Tehran, Mexico City, São Paulo, New York City and Cairo are, or soon will be, home to over 10 million people each. From the development of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia and Egypt until the 18th century, an equilibrium existed between the vast majority of the population who engaged in subsistence agriculture in a rural context, small centres of populations in the towns where economic activity consisted of trade at markets and manufactures on a small scale.
Due to the primitive and stagnant state of agriculture throughout this period, the ratio of rural to urban population remained at a fixed equilibrium. However, a significant increase in the percentage of the global urban population can be traced in the 1st millennium BCE. Another significant increase can be traced to Mughal India, where 15% of its population lived in urban centers during the 16th–17th centuries, higher than in Europe at the time. In comparison, the percentage of the European population living in cities was 8–13% in 1800. With the onset of the British agricultural and industrial revolution in the late 18th century, this relationship was broken and an unprecedented growth in urban population took place over the course of the 19th century, both through continued migration from the countryside and due to the tremendous demographic expansion that occurred at that time. In England and Wales, the proportion of the population living in cities with more than 20,000 people jumped from 17% in 1801 to 54% in 1891.
Moreover, adopting a broader definition of urbanization, we can say that while the urbanized population in England and Wales represented 72% of the total in 1891, for other countries the figure was 37% in France, 41% in Prussia and 28% in the United States. As labourers were freed up from working the land due to higher agricultural productivity they converged on the new industrial cities like Manchester and Birmingham which were experiencing a boom in commerce and industry. Growing trade around the world allowed cereals to be imported from North America and refrigerated meat from Australasia and South America. Spatially, cities expanded due to the development of public transport systems, which facilitated commutes of longer distances to the city centre for the working class. Urbanization spread across the Western world and, since the 1950s, it has begun to take hold in the developing world as well. At the turn of the 20th century, just 15% of the world population lived in cities. According to the UN, the year 2007 witnessed the turning point when more than 50% of the world population were living in cities, for the first time in human history.
Yale University in June 2016 published urbanization
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, the 14th largest city in the European Union and the historical capital of Bohemia. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 2.6 million. The city has a temperate climate, with chilly winters. Prague has been a political and economic centre of central Europe complete with a rich history. Founded during the Romanesque and flourishing by the Gothic and Baroque eras, Prague was the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the main residence of several Holy Roman Emperors, most notably of Charles IV, it was an important city to its Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city played major roles in the Bohemian and Protestant Reformation, the Thirty Years' War and in 20th-century history as the capital of Czechoslovakia, during both World Wars and the post-war Communist era. Prague is home to a number of well-known cultural attractions, many of which survived the violence and destruction of 20th-century Europe.
Main attractions include Prague Castle, Charles Bridge, Old Town Square with the Prague astronomical clock, the Jewish Quarter, Petřín hill and Vyšehrad. Since 1992, the extensive historic centre of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites; the city has more than ten major museums, along with numerous theatres, galleries and other historical exhibits. An extensive modern public transportation system connects the city, it is home to a wide range of public and private schools, including Charles University in Prague, the oldest university in Central Europe. Prague is classified as an "Alpha −" global city according to GaWC studies and ranked sixth in the Tripadvisor world list of best destinations in 2016, its rich history makes it a popular tourist destination and as of 2017, the city receives more than 8.5 million international visitors annually. Prague is the fourth most visited European city after London and Rome. During the thousand years of its existence, the city grew from a settlement stretching from Prague Castle in the north to the fort of Vyšehrad in the south, becoming the capital of a modern European country, the Czech Republic, a member state of the European Union.
The region was settled as early as the Paleolithic age. A Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the city was founded as Boihaem in c. 1306 BC by an ancient king, Boyya. Around the fifth and fourth century BC, a Celts tribe appeared in the area establishing settlements including an oppidum in Závist, a present-day suburb of Prague, naming the region of Bohemia, which means "home of the Boii people". In the last century BC, the Celts were driven away by Germanic tribes, leading some to place the seat of the Marcomanni king, Maroboduus, in southern Prague in the suburb now called Závist. Around the area where present-day Prague stands, the 2nd century map drawn by Ptolemaios mentioned a Germanic city called Casurgis. In the late 5th century AD, during the great Migration Period following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Germanic tribes living in Bohemia moved westwards and in the 6th century, the Slavic tribes settled the Central Bohemian Region.
In the following three centuries, the Czech tribes built several fortified settlements in the area, most notably in the Šárka valley and Levý Hradec. The construction of what came to be known as Prague Castle began near the end of the 9th century, growing a fortified settlement that existed on the site since the year 800; the first masonry under Prague Castle dates from the year 885 at the latest. The other prominent Prague fort, the Přemyslid fort Vyšehrad, was founded in the 10th century, some 70 years than Prague Castle. Prague Castle is dominated by the cathedral, which began construction in 1344, but wasn't completed until the 20th century; the legendary origins of Prague attribute its foundation to the 8th century Czech duchess and prophetess Libuše and her husband, Přemysl, founder of the Přemyslid dynasty. Legend says that Libuše came out on a rocky cliff high above the Vltava and prophesied: "I see a great city whose glory will touch the stars." She ordered a town called Praha to be built on the site.
The region became the seat of the dukes, kings of Bohemia. Under Holy Roman Emperor Otto II the area became a bishopric in 973; until Prague was elevated to archbishopric in 1344, it was under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Mainz. Prague was an important seat for trading where merchants from all of Europe settled, including many Jews, as recalled in 965 by the Hispano-Jewish merchant and traveller Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub; the Old New Synagogue of 1270 still stands in the city. Prague was once home to an important slave market. At the site of the ford in the Vltava river, King Vladislaus I had the first bridge built in 1170, the Judith Bridge, named in honour of his wife Judith of Thuringia; this bridge was destroyed by a flood in 1342, but some of the original foundation stones of that bridge remain in the river. It was named the Charles Bridge. In 1257, under King Ottokar II, Malá Strana was founded in Prague on the site of an older village in what would become the Hradčany area; this was the district of the German people, who had the right to administer the law autonomously, pursuant to Magdeburg rights.
The new district was on the bank opposite of the Staré Město, which had borough status and was bordered by a line of walls and fortifications. Prague flourished dur
