In this age of rapid urbanization, with all that that term connotes, it is revealing to view the familiar and ofttimes troublesome attributes of city life from the perspectives of the sophisticated urbanites of an earlier era. Our aim, then, has been to glean from the writings of the ancient Romans their personal images of, impressions of, and attitudes toward life in a metropolitan environment. The period covered extends from the time of Cato through the end of the First Century A.D. If the satirists seem overly represented in this distribution of authors, the explanation is simply that the satirists chose to comment upon the conditions of city life more frequently and more intensely than did other writers. Horace even suggests that satire is the literary form most appropriate for commentary upon the urban scene (Satire II. 6).
Filozofia i krytyka artystyczna Urban Images
