Great Cities of the Ancient World is history book by American writer and essayist L. Sprague de Camp, published by Doubleday in 1972.

[1] The work is a study of the ethnology, history, geography, and everyday life of fourteen famous ancient capital cities; Thebes, Jerusalem, Nineveh, Tyre, Babylon, Memphis, Athens, Syracuse, Carthage, Alexandria, Anurâdhapura, Rome, Pâṭaliputra, and Constantinople.

As Athens' political power wanes in the fourth century he emphasizes the nature of the Polis and developments in art and literature.

Throughout, de Camp exhibits skepticism about the sincerity of much Judaeo-Christian morality, interest in the technological and linguistic aspects of the civilizations discussed, determination to combat the notion that 'during the golden age of Greece... the Greeks were the only people in the world who were really alive,' and eagerness to draw modern parallels."

Summing up, Stambaugh tells the reader "A beginner, then, should not count on finding here the current state of scholarly opinion, but he will not be seriously misled by de Camp's treatment.