This era was perhaps the first time that one city’s power and influence became the fundamental driver of intercontinental trade.īut while the rise and fall of Rome as a global city is well documented, others have resumed global roles whenever the geopolitical opportunity has presented itself. The Roman urban network also helped spread religion, and cities in the Roman system later became centres of Christian authority.
This trade fuelled a new commercial zone in the Indian Ocean and direct trade with India. Polybius in his Histories remarked that “from this point onwards history becomes an organic whole: the affairs of Italy and Africa are connected with those of Asia and of Greece, and all events bear a relationship and contribute to a single end.”Īmong the lasting features of this wave of globalisation of trading cities was a much larger and more diverse trading of goods across continents. Rome provided the administration, the stability, the monetary regime, and the tax structure for cities to thrive amid a huge spike in population mobility and mercantile activity.īy the mid-Roman era, most contemporaneous historians perceived the world to have been globalised. Its empire came to consist of a federation of cities – stretching from Spain and Scotland in the west, to the Euphrates river in the east – each of which had a territory attached. The first European city to develop networks akin to those of a modern global city was Rome. As historian Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads, notes: “We think of globalisation as a uniquely modern phenomenon, yet 2,000 years ago it was a fact of life – one that presented opportunities, created problems, and prompted technological advance.”
Within a few hundred years, the world had been effectively shrunk by the growing sophistication of the trade network. Silk even became an international currency. As China began to expand its horizons, the trade in horses, silk, bamboo, rice and wine was vigorous and often used in diplomacy to guarantee peace between empires and cities. One important lesson to be drawn from the early waves of urbanisation and the long distance activities of cities is that prized assets and luxury possessions have often been drivers of interconnection and collaboration. With their deep-rooted cultures and external orientation, they exhibited many of the hallmarks of what are now considered to be global cities. These cities formed the epicentre of a vast trade network based on a common cultural and linguistic community, and built infrastructure to provide good standards of living for residents.
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