In the 5th century BC Hippodamus of Miletus, a famous Greek urban planner and architect, was the first to theorise the rational arrangement of road axes with orthogonal crossings in the urban planning of Greek cities.
His canons were inspired by mathematical and physical criteria, but also by social considerations: the ideal city, according to Hippodamus, should have ten thousand inhabitants divided into three social classes-farmers, craftspeople and soldiers.
We can still find traces of this layout in Piraeus, Miletus and Turi, which were designed by Hippodamus.
