Rome was a hilly city. Th e ancient town was built on top
of a hill on the east bank of the Tiber near a point where the
river could be easily crossed because of an island in the middle
of the stream. Before the founding of Rome itself, people lived
in the area in smaller hilltop settlements; archaeologists have
found evidence of towns dating to 1000 b.c.e. People built
their homes on the hills for defense against attackers. Th ese
settlements gradually grew and spread into one another to
cover the famous Seven Hills of Rome, an area that makes
up about 4 percent of the modern city. Th e Seven Hills were
the Palatine (traditionally believed to be the hill on which the
legendary Romulus founded Rome), the Aventine, the Capi-
toline, the Quirinal, the Viminal, the Esquiline, and the Cae-
lian. Th e lowlands between the Seven Hills were marshy in
ancient times, but the residents had drained the marshes by
the time Rome was known as a city.
Rome has a Mediterranean climate, with long, hot, dry
summers and cool, wet winters. Th e climate appears to have
been warmer in ancient times than it is today. Th e hot sum-
mers contributed to diseases in the densely populated city.
Food-borne gastrointestinal diseases spread easily. Th e Tiber
is a relatively shor t river, t hough it is t he t hird-longest in Ita ly.
It fl ows about 250 miles from its origin at Mount Fumaiolo
in the Apennine Mountains to its mouth in the Tyrrhenian
Sea. On its way it curls through the modern provinces of Tus-
cany and Umbria. Aft er Rome the Tiber continues another 15
miles to the Tyrrhenian Sea. Th e Aniene meets it in the city.
Th e Tiber and the Aniene provided Rome with two necessi-
ties: transportation and fresh water.
In its early days Rome had water adequate for its popula-
tion from the Tiber and from local springs and wells. By the
fourth century b.c.e., however, the growing city had to im-
port some of its water from elsewhere. Romans began build-
ing aqueducts to bring water from distant streams. Many
aqueducts took water from the Aniene River or its tributar-
ies and brought it to locations in central Rome. One of the
most famous was Acqua Marcia aqueduct, which transported
water from the Aniene to the Capitoline Hill; it was known
for water of high quality. (Th e city’s sewers emptied directly
into the Tiber, which somewhat disqualifi ed it as a source of
drinking water.)
Rome itself was too far from the sea to be a port. For
shipping it used Ostia, the port city at the northern mouth of
the Tiber. Romans believed that Ostia was founded by their
fourth king in the seventh century b.c.e. Ostia was originally
built to defend Rome from attackers sailing up the Tiber, but
the port quickly took on much more commercial than mili-
tary importance. River access from Ostia to Rome was easy,
and most of Rome’s grain and other goods imported from
Mediterranean locales passed through Ostia on their way to
the city. Starting with Tiberius, several emperors improved
Ostia to better equip it for both shipping and military pur-
poses. So much business passed through Ostia that the city
became quite prosperous; some 50,000 people lived there in
the second century c.e. When the empire ended, Ostia faded
away, partly from lack of shipping and partly because the
Tiber had gradually fi lled with silt over the centuries and had
become unnavigable.
By the second century b.c.e. Rome either controlled or
wanted to control all of Italy, which was already home to nu-
merous peoples, such as the Etruscans. Italy occupies a long
peninsula running northwest to southeast into the middle
of the Mediterranean Sea. Th e peninsula resembles a high-
heeled boot with the heel pointing to western Greece and the
toe not quite touching Sicily. Th e Italian peninsula is mainly
mountainous; only about a third of the land is fl at. Th e largest
fl at area in Italy is the plain around the Po River in north-
ern Italy. Th ere were also marshlands in various areas, such
as the Pontine Marshes that lay between Rome and Capua
(a city north of Naples). When people settled in Italy, they
clustered in locations where travel and agriculture were easy.
Water transport on rivers and along the coastline was easier
than land transport, so many settlements arose on rivers and
near the sea.
Italy has an extremely long coastline relative to its land
area. Th e total coastline is about 4,600 miles long. To the
north of Corsica is the Ligurian Sea, which has its coast
along the northwestern corner of Italy. Th e Tyrrhenian Sea
lies along its southwestern coast, bounded by the islands
Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily. Southeast of the sole of the boot
is the Ionian Sea. Along the northeast coast lies the Adriatic
Sea. Italy’s long coastline provided locations for numerous
ports. Puteoli, on the north side of the Bay of Naples, was a
major port for grain shipped from Egypt. Tarentum was a
port city situated in the sole of the Italian boot. Like many
southern Italian cities it was founded by Greeks. Brundi-
sium, modern Brindisi, on the Adriatic coast in southern It-
aly, was the main port for embarkation to Greece and points
east. Th e famed road known as the Appian Way went from
Rome to Brundisium. Th e coastline also furnished spots for
vacation homes for wealthy Romans who spent their sum-
mers at the seashore away from the heat and humidity of the
crowded city.
Th e Apennine Mountains run from northwest to south-
east down the center of the peninsula. Rocky but not as steep
or rugged as the Alps, they never impeded traffi c through the
countryside nearly as much as high mountains like the Alps
did. Well-traveled roads such as the Appian Way were built
right over numerous hills. Nevertheless, people whose homes
were separated from Rome by mountains found themselves
culturally isolated from the city; Roman authors talk of the
diff erent diets and habits of people in the countryside. Th e
physical barrier imposed by the mountains did have an ad-
vantage, however: it kept attackers from being able to march
quickly across the entire peninsula. If Italy was attacked on
one coast, the mountains would keep the attackers on that
coast long enough for Rome to assemble its defenses.
Th e Apennines split Italy into two main geographic
zones. Th e western side of the peninsula had fertile soils with
ample phosphates and potash (minerals that enhance soils forclimate and geography: Rome 261