Dabbler and a friend going to ancient city (7)
I believe the answer is:
amateur
'dabbler' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a friend going to ancient city' is the wordplay.
'friend' becomes 'mate' (mate is a kind of friend**).
'going to' says to put letters next to each other.
'ancient city' becomes 'ur'.
'a'+'mate'+'ur'='AMATEUR'
'and' is the link.
(Other definitions for amateur that I've seen before include "11 [UNTRAINED]" , "Layman" , "he won't get paid" , "Inexpert" , "Fancier" .)