ANCIENT GREEK CITIES There were eventually over 1,000 poleis in the Greek World but among the most important were Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Syracuse, Aegina, Rhodes, Argos, Eretria, and Elis. The biggest was Sparta, although with some 8,500 km² of territory, this was exceptionally large and most poleis were small in size.
Ancient Rome was originally an Italic settlement dating from the 8th century BC that grew into the city of Rome and which subsequently gave its name to the empire over which it ruled and to the widespread civilisation it developed. The Roman empire expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world, though still ruled from the city, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants (roughly 20% of the world's population[1]) and covering 5.0 million square kilometres at its height in AD 117.[2]
