The history of the ancient world has always been told as a history of cities, from Homer's epic poems about events just before and just after the sack of Troy, through the prose histories of wars between Athens and Sparta, Rome and Carthage. From the 5th century BCE, most historians, dramatists, philosophers, orators, and scholars spent much of their lives in cities, and crucially so did their readers. When Renaissance political theorists and painters discovered what has come to be known as the classical past, the city had centre place. In one way or another, that remains true today when we imagine antiquity through films and games, and when we visit historical monuments.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original content at https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1588/the-rise-of-cities-in-the-ancient-mediterranean/.