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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ydars" data-source="post: 4324407" data-attributes="member: 62992">There are some great descriptions of cities in historical novels; try anything by P.C Doherty, Kate Sedley, or Ellis Peters; they are medieval murder mysteries, many of which are set in big towns/cities like London. For a really ancient and big-coty feel, try books about Rome by Colleen McCullogh (the author of Thorn Birds).To describe a city, think of it's function. How does it feed itself; without preservation, meat and other foodstuffs have to be produced daily, which means a huge amount of livestock entering the city every day. Runaway bulls and cows would not be uncommon sites.A big city will have lots of nasty smells; fires burning to cure meat or drive away insects, the smell of slaughter as animals are butchered behind the meat markets (the actual term for this area was "the shambles"), the smell of horses close the gates (this is where all the stables are), the riot of refuse (depending upon whether your city has open or closed sewers; or both), the smell of fish, the smell of urine from washer shops (yes Urine was used to wash clothes because urea breaks down to Ammonia, which is a good source of bleaching agent), the smell of excrement from tanners (used to rot the meat off to get the leather for leatherworking and vellum).Then there will be the nice smells of bread baking and of incense from temples.The description of a city also depends upon whether carts are allowed in during the day; many ancient cities did not allow wheeled vehicles on the streets until dusk. Rome was a classic example and this is the reason that the Senators and rich people had slaves carrying them around in sedan chairs; to get around this law.If carts are allowed by day, traffic flow will be chaos and streets will get blocked as goods are unloaded and everyone has to wait in the narrow streets.If they are only allowd at night, then dusk will be chaos as lines of carts try to enter the city. Firewatchers will be everywhere at night; this is where the town watch originally came from; not to catch criminals but to make sure no untended fires were left as huge fires could rapidly burn the whole city down.I hope this helps; give us a shout if there is anything more specific you need.</blockquote>

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