Swallow or dove circling over ancient city (6)
I believe the answer is:
devour
'swallow' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'dove circling over ancient city' is the wordplay.
'circling' indicates anagramming the letters.
'over' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'ancient city' becomes 'ur'.
'dove' with letters rearranged gives 'devo'.
'devo'+'ur'='DEVOUR'
'or' is the link.
(Other definitions for devour that I've seen before include "Guzzle" , "Eat greedily" , "Swallow greedily" , "Quickly consume" , "Gobble up greedily" .)