WHEN CITIES BECOME GODS: How vanished civilizations forged the world’s enduring myths

Long before our modern skylines pierced the clouds, great cities rose from the dust, shimmering with power, wealth, and ambition. We see their bones today in the sun-bleached ruins of Mesopotamia or the scattered stones of the Aegean. But these were more than just collections of buildings; they were the hearts of entire civilizations, centers of belief that held the cosmos in place. When these mighty metropolises inevitably fell, succumbing to war, nature, or the simple passage of time, they did not entirely disappear. Their grandeur, their hubris, and their tragic ends were too vast to be forgotten. Instead, they were reborn, transformed from places of stone and clay into the foundational myths and legends that still echo in our collective imagination.

The city as a cosmos: Babylon and the birth of urban mythology

No city better exemplifies the transformation from an earthly power to a mythological symbol than Babylon. For centuries, it was the largest city in the world, a marvel of engineering and a crucible of culture. But Babylon was more than its famed hanging gardens or impenetrable walls; it was conceived as a sacred model of the universe. Its great ziggurat, Etemenanki, was an axis mundi, a literal stairway to heaven designed to connect the mortal realm with the divine. The city itself was a statement of cosmic order, a place where humanity could live in proximity to the gods.

This immense pride and power, however, left an indelible mark on its neighbors and rivals, particularly the ancient Hebrews who were exiled there. In their eyes, Babylon’s ambition was blasphemous. This perception gave birth to one of the most powerful urban myths in history: the Tower of Babel. The story is not merely a fable about the origin of different languages; it is a direct mythological response to the physical and cultural dominance of Babylon. It takes the city’s real-world achievement—the towering ziggurat—and recasts it as an act of arrogant hubris, punished by a jealous god. The myth immortalized Babylon not as its builders intended, but as a timeless symbol of humanity’s vanity.

Echoes in the sand: The real cities behind legendary tales

The story of Babylon is not unique. Many of our most enduring legends of lost worlds and epic wars are, in fact, distorted memories of real places. For millennia, the city of Troy was believed to be a pure invention of the poet Homer, the fictional setting for the heroic clashes of The Iliad. It was a place in the landscape of the mind, not on a map. That changed in the 19th century with the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann, which unearthed the ruins of a mighty Bronze Age citadel at Hisarlik, in modern-day Turkey. The archaeological layers revealed a wealthy, fortified city that had been destroyed by fire and conflict multiple times, aligning perfectly with the mythical narrative. The legend of the Trojan War, it turned out, was a story that had kept the ghost of a real, vanquished city alive for three thousand years.

Similarly, the tale of Atlantis, the utopian island civilization swallowed by the sea, has captivated thinkers since Plato first wrote of it. While Atlantis itself has never been found, its inspiration is widely believed to be the advanced Minoan civilization on the island of Crete. The Minoans, with their grand palaces, mysterious art, and enigmatic script, were a dominant maritime power until their sudden and catastrophic decline. The colossal volcanic eruption of Thera (modern Santorini) around 1600 BCE would have sent devastating tsunamis across the Aegean, crippling the Minoan fleet and coastal cities. This real-world cataclysm likely provided the seed for Plato’s allegorical tale of a proud society punished for its hubris by the gods, its memory preserved as a myth of a lost paradise.

From mortal kings to divine founders: The deification of urban origins

If the destruction of a city could forge a myth, so too could its creation. The foundation of a great city was often seen as an event so significant that it required a divine explanation. Mere mortals could not simply decide to build a city that would one day rule the world; its destiny had to be preordained. This led to the creation of foundation myths that elevated historical founders to the status of demigods and heroes, imbuing the city itself with a sacred character from its very first stone.

The most famous example is Rome, the Eternal City. The Romans did not tell a story of humble farmers settling on the Tiber River. Instead, they wove the epic of Romulus and Remus, twin brothers descended from the war god Mars and the hero Aeneas, a survivor of fallen Troy. Suckled by a she-wolf and guided by divine portents, Romulus founded the city by plowing a sacred boundary, an act that sanctified the ground and set Rome on a fated path to greatness. This myth served a crucial political purpose: it justified Roman dominance by framing it not as conquest, but as the fulfillment of a divine destiny. The city wasn’t just a capital; it was a living entity with a divine birthright.

The ghost in the machine: How urban myths shape modern identity

The tales of these deified cities and vanished civilizations are not just historical curiosities. They have become powerful archetypes that continue to structure our thinking and our storytelling. The core narratives they established are recycled endlessly in our culture, shaping how we view our own cities and our place in the world. We see echoes of them everywhere:

• The Wicked City: The myth of Babylon, along with the biblical tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, created the archetype of the city as a place of sin and corruption, destined for a righteous downfall. This trope persists in countless films and books that portray the metropolis as a dangerous, morally compromised environment.
• The Lost Paradise: The dream of Atlantis fueled centuries of real-world exploration, evolving into the legend of El Dorado and the quest for other lost golden cities. This enduring fantasy of a perfect, hidden civilization continues to inspire adventure stories, from Indiana Jones to the video game series Uncharted.
• The Fated Metropolis: The idea of a city with a grand destiny, like Rome, is a cornerstone of epic fantasy. Cities like Minas Tirith in The Lord of the Rings or King’s Landing in Game of Thrones are not just backdrops; they are characters with their own histories, prophecies, and destinies.

Our modern anxieties about urban decay, overpopulation, and societal collapse are contemporary expressions of the same fears that animated the myths of old. We are still telling stories about the rise and fall of great civilizations; only now, the city in question is often our own.

In the end, the line between history and myth is often blurred by time and memory. Great cities like Babylon, Troy, and Rome were far more than just geographic locations; they were grand human experiments in power, belief, and community. When they fell, their physical substance returned to the earth, but their essence—their spirit, their pride, and their cautionary tales—endured. They were transformed by storytellers into gods, demons, and dreams, becoming mythological landscapes that we still inhabit today. The ruins they left behind are not just archaeological curiosities; they are the foundations of our collective imagination, proving that while stone may crumble, a powerful story is truly eternal.

Image by: Marius Mann
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