But, save in respect of size, the process of founding or enlarging towns is no new thing.

In the old world, alike in the Greek lands round the eastern Mediterranean and in the wide empire of Rome, urban life increased rapidly at certain periods through the establishment of towns almost full-grown.

The earliest towns of Greece and Italy were, through sheer necessity, small.

They could not grow beyond the steep hill-tops which kept them safe, or house more inhabitants than their scanty fields could feed.[3] But the world was then large; new lands lay open to those who had no room at home, and bodies of willing exiles, keeping still their custom of civil life, planted new towns throughout the Mediterranean lands.

The process was extended by state aid.